A Green Development Mechanism

This study is performed as requested by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM). This ‘Green Development Mechanism’ (compensate what you use) concept is an analogy of the Clean Development Mechanism under the Climate Convention. The concept implies that man should compensate biodiversity loss by the conservation of a similar amount of biodiversity elsewhere. Implemented at the global level, this would eventually result in the protection of 50% of the global biodiversity. Land ‘use’ for nature would be in direct competition with land use for agriculture and other forms of economic development. Nature would get a market price.

Compensation is possible and will have a positive effect on biodiversity

Compensating biodiversity loss on the global scale is possible, but has limited effect on the average global biodiversity, in terms of mean species abundance (MSA). Compensation on smaller scales, regions or ecosystems, will have significant effect on overall global biodiversity. Compensation on smaller scales will not improve this result, but would provide a better representativeness. Fifty percent compensation is not always feasible, given the current land use and future needs, and would result in deficits for meeting human demands by 2050 in several regions. However, these deficits could initiate increasing production efficiency, being the very reason of this policy instrument.

The Green Development Mechanism

The Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) developed the ‘Green Development Mechanism’ concept in 2008 as an analogy of the Clean Development Mechanism under the Climate Convention. The concept implies that man should compensate biodiversity loss in one location, by conserving a similar amount of biodiversity elsewhere. Implemented at the global level, this would eventually result in the protection of 50% of the global biodiversity. Land ‘use’ for nature would be in direct competition with land use for agriculture and other forms of economic development. Nature would get a market price.

Key questions of this study are: i) Is sufficient biodiversity available to compensate losses, now and in the future?, and ii) Where is this biodiversity located? The practicability and cost of this policy instrument, and socioeconomic and cultural aspects are not part of this study.

Method and results

Results are presented for two indicators of biodiversity, derived from the Convention on Biological Diversity: i) natural area; and ii) mean species abundance (MSA).

We calculated the possibility of biodiversity compensation on a: i) global scale, ii) regional scale, iii) biome scale, and iv) per regional biome, over the time period from 2000 to 2050, in a developing world, according to the OECD Baseline scenario. As an alternative scenario, we superimposed a 50% compensation scenario (biodiversity in protected areas) on the world, disregarding biodiversity deficits from other land uses. A 50% variant with a priority of protecting the most remote and highest quality natural areas, and a 50% variant with the priority of protecting the most threatened areas close to the agricultural areas in 2000. Subsequently, we analysed whether sufficient agricultural land and forestry would remain to cope with food and timber demand.

In the Baseline scenario, by 2050, about 40% of all global land areas will be used by mankind. This is 47% of all productive areas – thus, excluding ice, tundra and desert. Compensation within smaller spatial units, regions, biomes or region-biome combinations, will lead to deficits. To date, central Europe, the Ukraine region, the Kazakhstan region, and the Indian region, already lack sufficient biodiversity to compensate. This will become worse in the future. In general, the smaller the spatial scale of compensation and the later over time the higher the deficits. If only largely intact ecosystems (>80% quality) are judged suitable for compensation, the deficits can increase by up to 80% or more. Consequently, for several regions in the 50% compensation scenario, not all human demand for food, wood and other commodities, will be met, by 2050. However, this deficit may be solved by inter-regional trade and – as is the purpose of the Green Development Mechanism - by increasing production efficiency. Both could not be analysed within the means of this project.