Biodiversity offsetting will only delay urgent action on addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss.
A large coalition of over 200 civil society organisations, including CIDSE, is expressing their grave concerns about biodiversity crediting, offsetting, and related trading schemes. Biodiversity markets are being modeled on the carbon markets, which have serious failings. Biodiversity crediting and offsetting schemes are fundamentally flawed and ineffective, often causing more harm than good. They enable harmful practices, displace communities, and commodify nature. Effective solutions include recognising Indigenous land rights, implementing strong environmental regulations, and redirecting harmful subsidies. Immediate action is needed to protect biodiversity genuinely and sustainably.
Biodiversity offsets and credits, designed to address the funding gap for biodiversity protection, mirror the ineffective carbon markets and depend on a top-down conservation model that is both costly and vulnerable to human rights violations. Proven alternatives include the legal recognition of Indigenous territories and robust environmental regulations. Redirecting harmful subsidies and providing public financing through grants can more effectively address funding needs. Similar to carbon offsetting, biodiversity offsetting delays critical action on biodiversity loss, encourages greenwashing, and creates equity and rights issues, particularly impacting the Global South. Moreover, these markets commodify nature, reduce government roles, and depend on flawed measurement methodologies, leading to potential manipulation and instability in revenue and governance.
Biodiversity credits and offset schemes are false solutions to a contrived problem. There are far superior ways to increase biodiversity financing without resorting to these risky schemes. Biodiversity offsetting, like carbon offsetting, allows wealthy nations, corporate actors, financial institutions, and other stakeholders to profit from the biodiversity crisis they have contributed to, maintaining the status quo and avoiding the politically challenging decisions needed to regulate destructive activities domestically while creating a new asset class for their financial sectors.
We call on governments, multilateral bodies, conservation organisations, and other stakeholders to cease the promotion, development, and use of biodiversity offsetting and crediting schemes. Instead, we urge them to prioritize transformational change in addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss, including:
- Promoting effective regulation of harmful corporate activities
- Recognizing, respecting, protecting, and promoting the land rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, small-scale food producers, and women
- Halting financial flows and investments that harm biodiversity and communities
- Eliminating harmful government subsidies
- Changing production and consumption patterns, especially among the wealthy
- Supporting a just transition, including transforming food systems toward agroecology
- Ensuring funds flow directly and equitably to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, small-scale food producers, women, and youth for community-led approaches
- Pursuing effective and equitable means of conservation and taking immediate steps to phase down the supply and use of fossil fuels
Read more about the initiative here.
CIDSE Contact: Emmanuel Yap, Food and Land Policy Officer, yap(at)cidse.org
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