A global mitigation hierarchy for nature conservation

Journal article

Efforts to conserve biodiversity comprise a patchwork of international goals, national-level plans, and local interventions which – overall – are failing. We discuss the potential utility of applying the mitigation hierarchy, widely used during economic development activities, to all negative human impacts upon biodiversity. Evaluating all biodiversity losses and gains through the mitigation hierarchy could help prioritize consideration of conservation goals and drive the empirical evaluation of conservation investments, through the explicit consideration of counterfactual trends and ecosystem dynamics across scales. We explore challenges in using this framework to achieve global conservation goals, including operationalization, monitoring and compliance, and discuss solutions and research priorities. The mitigation hierarchy’s conceptual power and ability to clarify thinking could provide the step change needed to integrate the multiple elements of conservation goals and interventions, in order to achieve successful biodiversity outcomes.

Authors: Arlidge, W; Bull, J; Addison, P; Burgass, M; Gianuca, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: Bioscience
• Volume: 68
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 336–347
• Publication date: 2018-04-18
• Acceptance date: 2018-02-02
• DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biy029
• EISSN: 1525-3244
• ISSN: 0006-3568
• Keywords: no net loss; sustainability; development; biodiversity; adequacy