Offsetting harmful ecological impacts by restoring conservation areas

Abstract

Harmful ecological impacts caused by development projects can be compensated (offset) by ecological gains, produced by habitat restoration or the establishment of new protected areas.  Restoration actions allows ecosystem recovery to start and eventually leads to improved habitat condition. The aim of this study was to determine whether restoration actions applied inside an already protected area could be used as gains to offset the ecological damage. The key question is whether restoration gains inside protected areas really are additional from the perspective of the nature. At first, it may seem such gains are not additional, because the target area is protected already. However, restoration needs in the conservation area network of Finland far exceed the economic resource available for implementing said restoration. In addition, most development projects can be completed without any requirement to offset ecologically harmful impacts. Therefore, voluntary offsetting of harmful ecological impacts can indeed provide benefits additional to nature. Here, we present a method for estimating offset gains quantitatively, taking into account improvements gained both by conservation and restoration in the estimation of offset gains.