Saving Biodiversity Through Credits to Offset Damage: Good Ideas or Good-looking Scams?

Can't decide if this is good news or bad news. The Ecosystem Marketplace reports that there are 39 projects world wide which are trying to protect biodiversity by "making it possible for real estate developers to offset their damage to nature by paying for the creation or preservation of habitat." Among them are six active projects in Canada, mostly involving habitat banks. Another 25 projects, including one in Canada, are in development.

At first glance, these sound like initiatives that bear encouragement if development is going to allowed in the first place. Certainly the idea of "carbon credit" kind of support safeguarding ecosystems has precedent in such things as cleaning up acid rain. But there's a caveat: the report notes that 80 per cent of the projects are not "transparent" enough for the research team to tell how big the positive impact might be. And experience shows that it's wise to beware when there's a lack of transparency.

In December Philip Gourevitch reported for The New Yorker on one man's effort along these lines. The story "The Monkey and the Fish" tells about how philanthropist Greg Carr is trying to save Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Carr has hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend in his efforts, but Gourevitch shows just how tough the job is.