In their new commissioned report, researchers from the Finnish Natural History Museum, University of Helsinki and Jyväskylä, and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) give an overview of the opportunities and challenges that biodiversity offsetting poses to biodiversity conservation in Finland.
In biodiversity offsetting, losses caused by human activities are offset by producing equitable biodiversity gains elsewhere. Offsetting is part of the mitigation hierarchy, where biodiversity losses are first to be avoided, then minimized and finally, once all other measures have been taken, the residual losses are offset.
As Finland is updating its Nature Conservation Act, biodiversity offsets have been proposed as a new tool to support conservation efforts. When appropriately designed and based on scientific knowledge, biodiversity offsets can deliver benefits to species and habitats. The newly published report gives an overview on the aspects that need to be considered when calculating biodiversity losses and gains, and how offsetting could be implemented in the Finnish context.