Development by design: blending landscape-level planning with the mitigation hierarchy

Compensatory mitigation, or biodiversity offsets, provide a mechanism for maintaining or enhancing environmental values in situations where development is being planned, despite detrimental environmental impacts. Offsets are generally intended as an option for addressing any remaining environmental impacts of a development plan, after efforts have been made to avoid, minimize, or restore on-site impacts. Although offset programs require that developers adhere to the mitigation hierarchy to avoid, minimize, and restore biodiversity on-site before considering an offset for residual impacts, no quantitative guidelines exist for this decision-making process. What criteria are needed to require that impacts be minimized or avoided altogether? Here, we examine how conservation planning can provide a way to address this issue. By blending landscape-level conservation planning with application of the mitigation hierarchy, we can ensure that the use of biodiversity offsets is consistent with sustainable development practices.