At SID, we are committed to addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and we want to express our grave concerns about biodiversity crediting, offsetting, and related trading schemes. That is why we have co-signed a Civil Society Statement on Biodiversity Offsets and Credits, together with over 200 signatories.
Biodiversity offsets and credits, intended to bridge the funding gap for biodiversity protection, are modeled after ineffective carbon markets and rely on a top-down conservation approach that is costly and prone to human rights abuses. Proven alternatives include the legal designation of Indigenous territories and strong environmental regulation. Redirecting harmful subsidies and providing public financing through grants can better address funding needs. Like carbon offsetting, biodiversity offsetting delays essential action on biodiversity loss, promotes greenwashing, and creates equity and rights issues, especially affecting the Global South. Additionally, these markets commodify nature, diminish government roles, and rely on flawed measurement methodologies, leading to potential manipulation and instability in revenue and governance.
Biodiversity credits and offset schemes are false solutions to a false problem - there are much better ways to increase biodiversity financing, without recourse to these risky schemes. Biodiversity offsetting, like carbon offsetting, enables rich countries, corporate actors, financial institutions, and other actors to profit from the biodiversity crisis they have created and maintain the status quo, avoiding implementing politically difficult decisions to regulate destructive activities domestically while creating a new asset class for their financial sectors.
We call on governments, multilateral bodies, conservation organizations and other actors to stop the promotion, development and use of biodiversity offsetting and crediting schemes. Instead, we call on them to prioritize transformational change in tackling the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, including:
- promoting effective regulation of harmful corporate activity
- recognizing and respecting, protecting and promoting the right to land of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, small-scale food producers and women
- stopping financial flows and investments that are harmful to biodiversity and peoples
- removing harmful government subsidies
- changing production and consumption patterns, especially of the rich
- supporting a just transition, including the transformation of food systems toward agroecology
- ensuring funds flow directly and fairly 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.