Synergies and Trade-Offs between Biodiversity and Carbon in Ecological Compensation

Ecological compensation, which is widely applied, is presumed to be an important mechanism to address environmental degradation that commonly occurs due to activities related to development projects and resource use. The objectives of this review are to investigate synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon offset, the challenges in their implementation, and the potential of biodiversity and/or carbon offsets to be used as a proxy for other ecosystem functions in the implementation of ecological compensation. In comparison to carbon offsets, the implementation of biodiversity offsets are more challenging due to difficulties in biodiversity measurement, determining ecological equivalence, the relatively longer time taken, the higher level of uncertainty, the uniqueness of ecosystems, and the irreversibility of species loss. Generally, there is a positive relationship between biodiversity and carbon stocks; however, there are also cases where there are no clear or even negative relationships between biodiversity and carbon stocks. Ecosystem functions are directly or indirectly affected by environmental degradation, and ecological compensation measures usually compensate for only a few components of the ecosystem functions. Since biodiversity is interconnected and underpins ecosystem functions, it has the potential to be used solely or as one of the proxies. However, we recommend developing a sound methodology to rank the important ecosystem functions and identify the few ecosystem functions, which can be used as proxies to indicate the achievement of ecological compensation goals.

Automated summary

Ecological compensation is an important mechanism for addressing environmental degradation caused by development projects and resource use. This review examines the synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon offsets, the challenges in implementing biodiversity offsets, and the potential for using biodiversity and/or carbon offsets as proxies for other ecosystem functions in ecological compensation. Biodiversity offsets are more challenging to implement due to measurement difficulties, ecological equivalence determination, longer time and higher uncertainty, unique ecosystems, and irreversibility of species loss. Biodiversity and carbon stocks generally have a positive relationship, but there are cases where there are no clear or even negative relationships. Developing a methodology to rank important ecosystem functions and identify proxies for ecological compensation goals is recommended.