R SOC375 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Natural Science, Fungibility, Engo

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Rural Sociology
• Course: R SOC375
• Professor: John Parkins

Document Summary

Activities undertaken to counterbalance unavoidable adverse env impacts with the objective of achieving a net neutral or beneficial outcome. Ex) tree clearing is required for development, environmental offset secures habitat to enable development to proceed. If you impact a habitat, you have to offset the impact on that habitat: replace it on site, or somewhere nearby. Measure the impact (critical species present?: offset that critical habitat plus other possible losses, how long will that impact last? (spatial and duration) Need to have a conversation about if the predicted impact can be all together avoided (change of plans if needed) Or minimize the duration of the impact. Encourage developers to fully assess potential impacts of a project. Prevent development when compensatory measures are too difficult or expensive to implement. Business and biodiversity offsets programme (bbop) active organization promotes and educates the idea of offsetting, a more sustainable approach for doing development for countries and policy makers.