A UK-based conservation charity released Tuesday a site-based biodiversity standard applicable to all land management projects, including habitat restoration, tree planting, and agroforestry initiatives.
The Botanical Gardens Conservation International (BCGI) worked with Plan Vivo Foundation, the Society for Ecological Restoration, and others to develop the Global Biodiversity Standard (TGBS), aimed at certifying that projects are protecting, enhancing, and restoring biodiversity based on scientific approaches from the global botanical community.
“Certified projects provide credibility to funders, stakeholders, and the public about biodiversity impacts. This credibility is essential for attracting investment and community support, as well as for fostering trust in the project’s outcomes,” said the methodology.
“Ecosystem restoration provides an effective way to recover biodiversity lost because of previous degradation, but requires that best practices are continually updated, adopted, and implemented.”
The methodology takes into account eight criteria that cover a range of aspects, including selecting appropriate sites to improve existing biodiversity, as well as criteria related to partnerships with local communities, tackling invasive species, and implementing robust monitoring and management plans.
Criteria are based on a TGBS paper released in 2021, which outlined how to implement reforestation initiatives that foster biodiversity recovery, carbon absorption, and benefits to local communities.
Under the newly published methodology, each criterion is scored out of 10 points, with the overall rating determining the project’s certification tier.
Basic certification is awarded to projects with a minimum rating of five and no negative points under any criteria, while scoring thresholds of seven and nine trigger the advanced and premium certification tiers, respectively.
A pre-certification can also be granted to projects that demonstrate the intent for positive impacts on biodiversity but have yet to achieve these outcomes because of recent implementation, TGBS said.
The certification process. Source: TGBS
MONITORING FRAMEWORK
Biodiversity uplift is measured through combining remote sensing data with field surveys of the project site, including assessments of ecosystem integrity, stakeholder engagement, and management activities.
The remote sensing survey includes comparing historical trends at the project site against a reference area, which serves as a baseline to evaluate biodiversity uplift.
“The process of extracting historical trends involves using multi-temporal satellite imagery to develop a comprehensive time series of biophysical characteristics of the assessment site, reference sites, and highly degraded sites,” said the methodology.
“The remote sensing survey shall typically precede the field survey. This allows for interesting signatures detected by the remote sensing survey to be investigated and verified during the field survey.”
Field surveys can rely both on traditional methods and the use of advanced technologies, such as remote sensing, acoustic monitoring, camera traps, and environmental DNA (eDNA).
Following the verification of the results by the TGBS secretariat, hosted by the BCGI, certifications are granted for a period of five years, after which projects must renew their applications.
While the TGBS methodology does not explicitly mention voluntary biodiversity credits under its scope as it covers a far wider range of metrics, the standard could be used together with the BGCI’s Biodiversity Impact Credit set of methodologies.
BGCI released three biodiversity credit methodologies last year in a bid to drive private sector purchasing of credits that achieve an improvement in the population of tree species at risk of extinction.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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