Sixty projects up to 3.5 million hectares of land in size at their largest are in development with the aim of generating biodiversity credits, an international survey has shown.

The International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB) surveyed project developers of biodiversity credits, and/or nature-based carbon credits, from 31 countries in spring this year.

“Projects being developed by respondents ranged in size from as small as 50 ha to projects with a potential of over 3.5 mln ha,” IAPB said in the report.

The unnamed largest project, which could generate biodiversity credits aross 3.5 mln ha, is in a country in South America, the secretariat of the UK-France led international panel told Carbon Pulse.

Around two-thirds of the project managers said they are also aiming to generate carbon credits from the land, alongside biodiversity credits, the secretariat said.

The survey received responses from initiatives around the world. While 80% of the projects in Europe were “very small” at less than 5,000 ha, South American and African countries had representation from all project sizes.

More than half of respondents (34) said their initiatives were still in the pilot phase, or under development. However, 18 respondents had reached later stages of being implemented or scaled out.

The x axis indicates the percentage of respondents. Source: IAPB

BIODIVERSITY AND CARBON

Some 42 out of 60 respondents said they aim to link, or acquire, co-benefits through the voluntary carbon market, alongside biodiversity credits, the secretariat said.

Five respondents said they sought to stack payments through the wetland mitigation market, also alongside biodiversity credits. The market for compensating for impacts on wetlands most prominently operates in the US.

Several respondents noted in their comments how stacking of payments for environmental services could have the potential to scale up private finance for conservation, the secretariat said.

The survey did not ask how much financing each project had secured. However, 39 respondents said lack of financial resources was the most common challenge to developing biodiversity credit schemes.

Some 52 respondents said their project had been already registered, or were planning to register, under a biodiversity standard.

The results followed IAPB reports published earlier this year on a challenges to scaling the market and market models.

The independent IAPB aims to facilitate the growth of high-integrity biodiversity credit markets, while encouraging enabling policy and regulatory mechanisms.

The panel is being closely monitored ahead of the COP16 UN biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, later this year when it is expected to release a set of final recommendations with actionable outcomes for the emerging market.

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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