CEP to deliver a new project on the evaluation of Biodiversity Net Gain

CEP has been awarded a new project by Natural England and Defra on the design of an evaluation framework for Biodiversity Net Gain in England

CEP, in partnership with BSG Ecology, Geodata Institute, CECAN and Vivid Economics, has been commissioned by Natural England on behalf of Defra to undertake a new project to design an evaluation framework for Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) in England. The aim of mandatory BNG policy, as set out in the Environment Bill, is to secure a measurable improvement in habitat for biodiversity whilst streamlining the planning process and creating better places for local communities.

The purpose of the evaluation framework is to enable Natural England and Defra to evaluate how BNG is being delivered and understand the impact (environmental, social, and economic) of the BNG policy.

In this project we will conduct a streamlined evidence review to bring together the most up to date relevant evidence on key issues related to BNG. This evidence will feed into the development of the evaluation framework, including setting out the underpinning intervention theory by examining the logic of mandatory BNG and the intervention pathways associated with delivering BNG in practice. Development of the framework will be further supported by work to scope the data requirements and potential sources. The process will be iterative, incorporating a range of stakeholder perspectives from developers, local planning authorities, conservation, amenity and local community NGOs and partnerships as well as central government.

The project started in September 2020 and is expected to run until March 2021.

For more information, please contact Paula Orr (Technical Director, CEP) or Dr Sian Morse-Jones (Principal Consultant, CEP).

CEP contribute to international Biodiversity Offsetting Book

CEP authors of United Kingdom chapter on biodiversity offsetting

A new international book on Biodiversity Offsetting “Biodiversity Offsets: European Perspectives on No Net Loss of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services” edited by Wolfgang Wende,  Graham  M. Tucker, Fabien Quétier, Matt Rayment and Marianne Darbi has recently been published (March 2018) by Springer, which brings together the work of more than 30 international authors. 

The Chapter “United Kingdom” by Jonathan Baker, Liza Papadopoulou and William Sheate pulls together the current state of the art of biodiversity offsetting in the UK, including across the devolved administrations.  It builds on research undertaken by CEP evaluating the biodiversity offsetting pilot scheme in England in 2012-2014.

For further information please contact Dr Bill Sheate, Technical Director.

CEP'S CLARE TWIGGER-ROSS PRESENTING AT IAPS CONFERENCE ON PEOPLE-ENVIRONMENT STUDIES

Photo credit: 'Wheat' by Dag Terje Filip Endresen on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP'S CLARE TWIGGER-ROSS PRESENTING AT IAPS CONFERENCE on People-Environment STUDIEs

CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross will be presenting at the 24th IAPS conference (International Association for People-Environment Studies). It is hosted by the Environmental Psychology Research Groups at Lund University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in southern Sweden and takes place from 27th June - 1st July in Lund and Alnarp.   

The conference will address the study of the interrelations between the social, the built and the natural environment, and the impacts on them. The conference theme turns the spotlight on to what is at the core of the bigger issues related to global sustainability – the actions and everyday lives of humans. 

Clare will be presenting at the following sessions, on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29, drawing from the findings of two of CEP's recent projects to discuss:

• Unpacking the relationships between green spaces and social cohesion: a brief overview of evidence and practice across the EU (Project insights: The health and social benefits of nature and biodiversity protection)
• Developing frameworks for understanding and evaluating community resilience to flood risk: evidence from the UK (Project insights: Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder evaluation)

CEP's Dr Bill Sheate at Environment Analyst Infrastructure Conference

CEP at Environment Analyst Infrastructure conference

Dr Bill Sheate will be running a round-table discussion on Exploring Biodiversity Offsetting & How It Can Work In Practice at the Managing the Environmental Impacts of UK Infrastructure Development conference, produced jointly by Environment Analyst and Environment OnSite, to be held in London on 21 June 2016.  The conference is intended to provide an opportunity for environmental consultants to come together with their contractors and clients and share best practice examples of what can be achieved when environmental impacts are considered early in the design and development process.

Dr Sheate led the evaluation project undertaken by CEP for Defra on the Biodiversity Offsetting Pilot Scheme 2012-2014.

European Commission publishes 3rd MAES report co-authored by CEP

The European Commission publishes the 3rd Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) report co-authored by CEP

CEP's Ric Eales and Liza Papadopoulou are contributing authors to the third technical report (2016), just published, taking stock on Mapping and assessing the condition of Europe's ecosystems: Progress and challenges.

The Biodiversity Strategy outlines a number of targets and precise actions to stop biodiversity loss. By mapping out and assessing the state of ecosystems and their services, we can help inform the policy decisions affecting the environment.

A coherent analytical framework has been developed (see first technical report, 2013) to be applied by the EU and its Member States in order to ensure consistent approaches. A second technical report (2014) proposed indicators that can be used at European and Member State's level to map and assess biodiversity, ecosystem condition and ecosystem services.

All Member States are actively involved in mapping and assessing the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory. At EU level also, a lot of MAES-related activities are supported by the European Environment Agency and its Topic Centres, the Joint Research Centre, Eurostat, DG Research & Innovation.

More information can be found on the European Commission's website on MAES or contact Ric Eales.

CEP's evaluation of biodiversity offsetting pilots published

Defra publishes CEP's evaluation of the biodiversity offsetting pilot scheme in England

Defra has published the final evaluation report by CEP [1] of the Biodiversity Offsetting Pilot Scheme in England that ran from April 2012 to March 2014.

Dr Bill Sheate, CEP's Project Director for the evaluation said:

We are delighted that Defra has finally published the biodiversity offsetting evaluation report.  We concluded in our evaluation that whilst biodiversity offsetting has the potential to deliver improvements in biodiversity outcomes it will require additional resources and ecological expertise in local authorities to deliver it.  

Where residual biodiversity loss is identified offsetting will increase costs overall for developers compared to current practice. It is likely that it would, at best, deliver only marginal benefits in terms of streamlining the planning process for agreeing compensation for biodiversity loss.

The final report includes supplementary reports on Indicative Costs of Current Compensation Arrangements for Biodiversity Loss: Illustrative Case Studies (Task 4 Report) and A review of recent biodiversity offsetting practice in Germany

[1] CEP, in association with IEEP, was commissioned to evaluate the biodiversity offsetting pilot scheme between July 2012 and June 2014.  

CEP leading session at Health & Social Benefits of Nature Workshop

HEALTH & SOCIAL BENEFITS OF NATURE AND BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION WORKSHOP

As part of the consortium undertaking a study for the European Commission, led by IEEP,  CEP will participate in a workshop dedicated to understanding the health and social benefits of nature and biodiversity protection.

The two-day workshop will explore the latest scientific evidence and practical real world examples of how nature and biodiversity can help improving public health and social cohesion. The event will bring together the health, social and environmental communities from research, policy and practice. This workshop will  include high-level representatives from the WHO, European Commission, Parliament and Council, country, regional and city level actors as well as think tanks, NGOs and academia. The participants will develop collectively a roadmap to exploit the synergies and interdependence between public health, society and nature.

The workshop is hosted by the Committee of the Regions and will take place in Brussels on 27 and 28 of January 2016. Attendance is by invitation only.

Clare Twigger-Ross representing the CEP project team will be leading the session on the 27th January "Social Benefits: social inclusion, sense of place, engagement and employment". She will be giving a short overview and then chairing a number of case studies.  She is also facilitating a session on the role of civil society in facilitating links between nature, health, wellbeing and social cohesion.

CEP Report on the Nature Improvement Areas initiative published

Defra publishes CEP’s final report on the monitoring and evaluation of the Nature Improvement Areas initiative

CEP’s final report on the monitoring and evaluation of the Nature Improvement Areas (NIA)[1]   initiative has now been published by Defra. The report can be found here.

The three year NIA Monitoring and Evaluation Phase 2 project was commissioned by Defra, in collaboration with Natural England, in February 2013. The project gathered evidence and assessed the progress and achievements of the NIAs over the government grant funded period, as well as learning from the NIA initiative to inform future integrated natural environment initiatives. 

In addition to undertaking the annual evaluations and an overall final evaluation of the outcomes of the individual NIAs and the programme as a whole, other innovative aspects of the project included:

• Experimental research to test and increase understanding of approaches to assess the difference the NIAs made over and above what would have happened anyway (the counterfactual).  The report on this work is included as Annex 1 to the final report.
• Developing the monitoring and evaluation framework and indicators, including relating to habitat connectivity, ecosystem services and social and economic and well-being benefits.
• Completed additional research into the monitoring and evaluation of social, economic and well-being benefits in the NIAs, working with the NIA partnerships to develop related case studies.  This work is reported in Annex 3 (case studies) and Annex 4 (lessons learned from the assessment of social and economic outcomes and impacts).
• Developing and managing an online reporting tool for the NIAs to record their monitoring data.
• Facilitating knowledge exchange with and between the NIAs.
• A scoping study, using lessons learned from the NIAs and the counterfactual work, to design the monitoring and evaluation of the Countryside Stewardship facilitation fund (CSFF).

For further information please contact Owen White (Principal Consultant), Project Manager for the NIA evaluation project.

Footnote

[1] The establishment of the NIAs was announced in the Natural Environment White Paper and contributed to England’s strategy for wildlife and ecosystem services – Biodiversity 2020.  The NIAs were designed to enable local partnerships to develop and implement a shared vision for their natural environment and to demonstrate how a ‘step change’ in nature conservation might be delivered at a landscape-scale, enhancing ecosystem services including social and economic objectives. Following a national competition 12 selected NIAs were awarded a share of £7.5 million government funding for a three year period from April 2012 to March 2015.