BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS - MAKING CONSERVATION, RESTORATION & PROTECTION OF GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY A STANDARD PART OF BUSINESS PRACTICES

Ruth Sandra Sperling
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In earlier posts, I have stated about being a forest lover and wanting trees planted.

Well, I have felt this way a long time.

It was in 2001 that I read in the magazine of The Nature Conservancy (July/August 2001 issue)about Forest Trends, a DC-based company that is helping to "promote sustainable forest management and conservation by creating and capturing market values for ecosystem services" as stated in their Mission on their website. I also read about the 2 U.S. companies, General Motors and American Electric Power donating millions of dollars to fund the land purchase and restoration of Brazil's Atlantic Forest, which is one of the hottest global biodiversity hotspots on the planet - and at that time, had only 7% of the original forest remaining.

I was so excited, I then felt like jumping for joy!!

Mainstream United States businesses were joining our battle to protect the biodiversity of our planet.

Believe you me, it gave me hope for our planet and us!!

And the restoration of Brazil's Atlantic Forest is still going on as a major project of The Nature Conservancy: http://www.plantabillion.org/. (see my next post in a few minutes!)

Even more gives me hope when I read the website of the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program, which has the following statement on their website:

"Our vision and expectation is that biodiversity offsets will become a
standard part of business practice for those companies with a significant impact
on biodiversity. The routine mainstreaming of biodiversity offsets into
development practice will result in long-term and globally significant
conservation outcomes.Our vision and expectation is that biodiversity offsets
will become a standard part of business practice for those companies with a
significant impact on biodiversity. The routine mainstreaming of biodiversity
offsets into development practice will result in long-term and globally
significant conservation outcomes."

In my opinion, protecting and restoring biodiversity and our forests needs to be a part of every business, so I feel biodiversity offsets should be a standard part of business practice.

I personally do what I can by donating to groups that I feel are making significant contributions to biodversity and telling people about what these groups are doing, such as The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and The Aldo Leopold Foundation.

What can you do?

Ruth