Social preferences for the design of biodiversity offsets for shorebirds in Australia

Understanding the social acceptability of biodiversity offsets is important to the design of offset policy. We used a discrete choice experiment to quantify preferences of Australians for a migratory shorebird offset in the context of an oil and gas development project. We surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1371 respondents on their preferences for current and prospective offset‐policy characteristics via an online questionnaire to inform policy design of the social dimensions related to offset acceptability. The majority of respondents accepted offsetting as a means to allow economic development; the option to reject development (and an offset) was selected in 13% of possible offset scenarios. Substituting protection of a species affected by the development with protection of a more endangered species was a desirable policy characteristic, as was having the offset implemented by a third party or the government rather than the company responsible for the development. Direct offset activities (e.g., improving degraded habitat) were preferred over indirect activities (e.g., a research program), and respondents were strongly against locating the offset at a site other than where the impact occurred. Positive and negative characteristics of offsets could be traded off by changing the number of birds protected by the offset. Our results show that Australians are likely to support increased flexibility in biodiversity‐offset policies, particularly when undesirable policy characteristics are compensated for.     

Rapid assessment of insect pollination services to inform decision-making

Pollinator declines have prompted efforts to assess how land-use change affects insect pollinators and pollination services in agricultural landscapes. Yet many tools to measure insect pollination services require substantial landscape-scale data and technical expertise. In expert workshops, 3 straightforward methods (desk-based method, field survey, and empirical manipulation with exclusion experiments) for rapid insect pollination assessment at site scale were developed to provide an adaptable framework that is accessible to nonspecialist with limited resources. These methods were designed for TESSA (Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-Based Assessment) and allow comparative assessment of pollination services at a site of conservation interest and in its most plausible alternative state (e.g., converted to agricultural land). We applied the methods at a nature reserve in the United Kingdom to estimate the value of insect pollination services provided by the reserve. The economic value of pollination services provided by the reserve ranged from US$6163 to US$11,546/year. The conversion of the reserve to arable land would provide no insect pollination services and a net annual benefit from insect-pollinated crop production of approximately $1542/year (US$24∙ha^–1∙year^–1). The methods had wide applicability and were readily adapted to different insect-pollinated crops: rape (Brassica napus) and beans (Vicia faba) crops. All methods were rapidly employed under a low budget. The relatively less robust methods that required fewer resources yielded higher estimates of annual insect pollination benefit.