Restoring degraded landscapes : assessing the utility of biodiversity offsets for the business sector in Africa

dc.contributor.authorChikozho, Claudious
dc.contributor.authorDe Jongh, Derick
dc.contributor.emailderick.dejongh@up.ac.zaen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2015-06-24T07:15:41Z
dc.date.available2015-06-24T07:15:41Z
dc.date.issued2014-12
dc.description.abstractIncreasing pressure for the conversion of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands and forests to alternative land usage raises the possibility that biodiversity offsets will increasingly take centre stage in biodiversity conservation planning and ecosystem restoration discourses. This article explores the major discourses on and utility of biodiversity offsets in the African context with a view to identifying and articulating some of the challenges and opportunities evident in attempts to operationalise the concept in practice. The discussion establishes that as intuitively pleasing as they have become in recent years, with potentially large benefits expected to be derived from offset initiatives, several significant hurdles need to be overcome for them to become well established practice in Africa. For instance, some observers have argued strongly that, in practice, land use and wetland mitigation in most countries have come nowhere near achieving the goal of ‘no-net-loss’. There are also enduring questions about the credibility of the formulae used to calculate net-losses and net-gains in biodiversity offset schemes. In the light of these and other outstanding questions, the article concludes that biodiversity offsets may seem simple but are much more complex to design and implement to the extent that they become really convincing as a conservation tool for businesses in Africa.en_ZA
dc.description.embargo2016-06-18en_ZA
dc.description.librarianhb2015en_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rars20en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationClaudious Chikozho & Derick De Jongh (2014) Restoring degraded landscapes: Assessing the utility of biodiversity offsets for the business sector in Africa, International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, 9:2, 61-76, DOI: 10.1080/18186874.2014.987955en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn1818-6874 (print)
dc.identifier.issn1753-7274 (online)
dc.identifier.other10.1080/18186874.2014.987955
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/45702
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherRoutledgeen_ZA
dc.rights© University of South Africa Press. This is an electronic version of an article published in International Journal of African Renaissance Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 61-76, 2014. doi :10.1080/18186874.2014.987955. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies is available online at : http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rars20en_ZA
dc.subjectBiodiversity offsetsen_ZA
dc.subjectConservation planning and land usageen_ZA
dc.subjectEcosystems in Africaen_ZA
dc.subjectEcosystem restorationen_ZA
dc.subjectNo-net-lossen_ZA
dc.titleRestoring degraded landscapes : assessing the utility of biodiversity offsets for the business sector in Africaen_ZA
dc.typePostprint Articleen_ZA

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