Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program (BBOP)
The Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program (BBOP) is a partnership between public and private sector groups, designed to explore the potential for biodiversity offsets. It aims to show that ‘biodiversity offsets can help achieve significantly more, better and more cost-effective conservation outcomes than normally occurs in infrastructure development’.
Biodiversity offsets can be either voluntary or regulatory and are designed to achieve no net loss (or a net gain) in biodiversity with project development.
Phase 1 of the program (2004-2008) has developed 10 principles of biodiversity offsets, a toolkit of materials for those involved in biodiversity offset programs, and a pilot project portfolio.
The 10 Principles cover a number of topics:
- No net loss
- Additional conservation outcomes
- Adherence to the mitigation hierarchy
- Limits to what can be offset
- Landscape Context
- Stakeholder participation
- Equity
- Long-term outcomes
- Transparency
- Science and traditional knowledge
Phase 2 of the program (2009 onwards ) will look to build on this and investigate the possibility of certification and verification of offset projects
There are currently 5 projects in Madagascar; Ghana; USA; South Africa; New Zealand.
The Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program (BBOP) Secretariat is made up of Forest Trends and the Wildlife Conservation Society
The BBOP Advisory Council is made up of many members drawing on diverse groups: companies, service providers, financial institutions, government and intergovernmental organisations, conservation and civil society groups.
At present the BBOP is in pilot stages and is financially supported by a number of donors: IFC; MacArthur Foundation; Global Environment Facility; Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spacial Planning and the Environment; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)