Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System (BIRS)

Transcription

1 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System (BIRS) Proposal for a habitat-based biodiversity monitoring system at Holcim sites Prepared by the IUCN-Holcim Biodiversity Advisory Panel: Christoph Imboden, Peter-John Meynell, David Richards, Marc Stalmans

2 Credits The designation of geographical entities in this book, and the presentation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of IUCN. This publication has been made possible in part by generous funding from the Holcim Group. Published by: Copyright: IUCN, Gland, Switzerland 2014 International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Reproduction of this publication for educational or other non-commercial purposes is authorized without prior written permission from the copyright holder provided the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of this publication for resale or other commercial purposes is prohibited without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Citation: Cover photo: Edited by: Layout by: Produced by: Available from: Photos, illustrations: Ch. Imboden, Meynell, P-J., Richards, D., and Stalmans, M Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System (BIRS): Proposal for a habitat based biodiversity monitoring system at Holcim Sites. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. 54 Pp. Maria Ana Borges/IUCN Amy Sweeting Christoph Imboden and Maria Ana Borges IUCN Global Business and Biodiversity Programme IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Global Business and Biodiversity Programme Rue Mauverney Gland Switzerland Tel Fax biobiz@iucn.org John Grainger, Christoph Imboden, Peter-John Meynell, Dave Richards, and Marc Stalmans

3 CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Biodiversity Management System 1.2 Approach 1.3 Purpose of this paper 2. SCOPE AND CONSTRAINTS OF BIRS Boundary conditions 2.2 What questions to answer? 2.3 Limitations of BIRS 2.4 Costs and benefits 3. SUMMARY OUTLINE OF IBMS Purpose and goal of an IBMS 3.2 Required biodiversity information 3.3 Site Biodiversity Importance Category 3.4 Assessing biodiversity impacts and biodiversity risks 3.5 Biodiversity management levels 3.6 Implementation 4. SUMMARY OUTLINE OF BIRS General overview 4.2 BIRS vs. NPI and NNL 5. ASSESSMENT OF HABITATS Habitat classification 5.2 Habitat definitions Operational Areas Rehabilitation Areas Ruderal Habitats Caves and subterranean habitats 5.3 Estimation of habitat extent 5.4 Habitat condition assessment Assessment questions Scoring Minimum size of habitat blocks Sampling Data recording Default values and special habitats Calculation of habitat condition index Habitat enhancements The special case of karst 5.5 Habitat Threat Score 5.6 Habitat Condition Class 5.7 Habitat Context Factor

4 6. SITE BIODIVERSITY CONDITION General 6.2 Derivation of the composite site condition index 6.3 Site Threat Score 6.4 Site Threat Report 6.5 Site Condition Class 7. HIGHER-LEVEL AGGREGATION AND REPORTING OF INDICES National and Global Biodiversity Condition Indices 7.2 Reporting on biodiversity assets 7.3 Reporting on changes 7.4 Biodiversity key performance index (KPI) 7.5 Biodiversity management performance 8. IMPLEMENTATION OF BIRS General 8.2 Management commitment 8.3 Required base information 8.4 Internal capacity 8.5 External expertise 8.6 Implementation plan System preparation Training Rollout and implementation sequence Review and quality control GLOSSARY and ABBREVIATIONS 52 ANNEX 1: ANNEX 2: ANNEX 3: Habitat Decision Tree and Habitat Definitions Recording Sheets for Habitats and Sites Habitat Questionnaires

5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This proposal would not have been possible without stimulating discussions, suggestions, advice and comments from a wide range of people all over the world. To all we are deeply grateful for their generous help. We would like to express our special thanks to: Holcim Technology staff, especially Rashila Kerai, Holcim local staff in the countries we have visited, and IUCN regional staff and at headquarters, above all Maria Ana Borges. Despite these many external inputs, responsibility for the authorship of this report and its content lies entirely with the members of the IUCN-Holcim Biodiversity Advisory Panel. Christoph Imboden, Switzerland Peter-John Meynell, Laos David Richards, UK Marc Stalmans, South Africa March 2014

6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY What and Why? This document is a proposal to Holcim Ltd. to establish a Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System (BIRS) for its worldwide operations and to implement it in a consistent and professional manner, by creating the necessary instruments and making appropriate provisions into policy, strategic and operational processes. 1. The proposed Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System (BIRS) builds on, and is complementary to, the Integrated Biodiversity Management System (IBMS) developed by IUCN. Both systems are intended for companies that want to take responsible and positive actions for biodiversity. 2. BIRS has been designed by an independent group of experts, in close cooperation with the mineral extraction industry for the building sector, and drawing on the help and advice of a wide circle of biodiversity conservation specialists. 3. BIRS provides information that allows a company to answer three questions: (1) How are we affecting habitats and ecosystems for which we have management responsibility? (2) How effective are our biodiversity mitigation and habitat rehabilitation measures? (3) How do we measure, and report on, our biodiversity management activities? 4. BIRS is designed as an easy-to-apply system for calculating an annual biodiversity condition index for every active or disused extraction site and reserve landholdings, taking into account (1) the extent of every habitat type found on a site (including operational and rehabilitation areas), (2) the ecological condition of these habitats, especially their suitability for biodiversity and (3) the uniqueness and ecological importance of each habitat in the regional context (Fig. 0). BIRS essentially represents a balance sheet of a company s natural capital and summarises the composite value of its landholdings for supporting biodiversity. 5. The indices of all sites in a selected region or country can be aggregated into a regional/national index that can in turn be combined on a global level indicating whether the overall biodiversity suitability of the global landholdings over which a company has management control is increasing or decreasing. 6. BIRS allows the company to formulate a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) on biodiversity at the local, national and/or global level. 7. Practicality of implementation by a commercial company, including affordability of costs, has been a key requirement in the design of BIRS. Although the advice and assistance of external experts and periodic independent quality control are needed when setting up the systems at extraction sites, the annual index assessments can be done by local company staff. Although there will be some inevitable scientific restrictions of such a system operated by non-experts, the end result is a good (and so far the only available) system for reporting on the overall status of biodiversity in a portfolio of landholdings. 8. While BIRS requires one-to-two working days per year per site, a training programme, the development of some internal biodiversity expertise and an ongoing commitment from top management, it will ultimately bring benefits to the company, for example in the form of reduced risk from biodiversity issues (including shorter permit cycles), development of in-house capacity to manage biodiversity risks, a more secure licence to operate from local partnerships and enhanced brand reputation.

7 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 2 Figure 0: Simplified overview of BIRS (for more detail, see Figure 2) Identify all habitat types Measure extent of each habitat Assess condition of each habitat Assess habitat threats Assess regional context factor of each habitat Aggregate results for all habitats of a site SITE CONDITION CLASS (QUARRY CLASS) Aggregate all site condition classes of a country Aggregate all national indices NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY CONDITION INDEX GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY CONDITION INDEX

8 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 3 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 1.1 Biodiversity Management System Between 2008 and 2010, an Independent Expert Panel (IEP) of five scientists appointed by IUCN developed an integrated Biodiversity Management System (BMS) for Holcim Ltd. This system is now being gradually introduced and operationalised throughout the Holcim Group. In 2012, the Holcim-specific BMS was adapted to a more general system, the Integrated Biodiversity Management System (IBMS), and then introduced in a publication entitled Integrated management of biodiversity risks and opportunities in the extraction of non-renewable natural resources for building materials, published by IUCN in As part of the IBMS, biodiversity management must be supported by a credible programme of monitoring & evaluation (M&E) if it is to be integrated into planning and operational processes in a convincing manner. Such M&E programmes are routine for all other aspects of business performance, whether output of products, economic performance, health and safety, pollution control or others. Ultimately, the IBMS suggests that biodiversity management could result in a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for individual operations or for an entire company. However, while the IBMS provides the principles and rationales of M&E and some general guidance as to how it should be done, it does not contain practical recommendations for how a company should approach the task of developing a credible M&E programme. A new Biodiversity Advisory Panel (BioPan), consisting of four former IEP members, was appointed by IUCN in 2011 to further develop such a monitoring system. The resulting Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System (BIRS) supports the repeated, consistent assessment of the landholdings of a mineral extraction company, in order to measure their suitability for biodiversity, and the aggregation and reporting of these assessments at every level, from local to global. Conceptually and methodologically, BIRS is original work; it has not been adapted from other tools or methods. While, theoretically, BIRS can be used without implementing a full IBMS, it is strongly recommended that the two systems be operated together, because they have important complementary elements. A proper application of the IBMS will automatically provide essential baseline information that is required for BIRS and that otherwise would have to be collected in the BIRS preparatory steps. The use of IBMS, accompanied by the implementation of BIRS, can enhance the protection and management of biodiversity at extraction sites. For this reason, the key elements of the IBMS are summarised in Chapter 3 of this document. 1.2 Approach The BIRS approach has been developed through a collaborative process over the course of several years. At a first workshop, held on September 2011 and attended by 14 experts (BioPan members, IUCN staff and seven external specialists), the possible relevance of other biodiversity measuring systems already used by other companies and possible parameters for a biodiversity KPI system were reviewed. 1 IUCN Biodiversity management in the cement and aggregates sector: Integrated Biodiversity Management System (IBMS). Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. Available at:

9 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 4 As a result of the workshop, two background studies were commissioned: Literature review of indicators for measuring biodiversity changes, by Jacquelyn Eales and Julia P. G. Jones (School of Environment, Natural Resources & Geography, Bangor University, UK), February Holcim Biodiversity Monitoring Scheme Technology screening, by E.C.O. - Institut für Ökologie, Klagenfurt, Austria, February The first study provided BioPan with guidance on available techniques, including pros and cons, required manpower, and financial and knowledge input. The second study explored new technologies and instrumentation that could potentially be adopted for a new M&E system. In April 2012, BioPan presented the emerging ideas to a small group of Holcim staff as part of an ongoing consultation process designed to ensure practicality of the system for an industrial user. The discussions resulted in the first outline of the Biodiversity Information and Reporting System (BIRS V1). The draft BIRS was presented at an event at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Jeju, South Korea, in September 2012, and feedback was sought from other experts working with the natural resource industry. This led to BIRS V2. A revised version, BIRS V3, was prepared in January 2013, taking into account further development work and discussions in India in November This version, and especially the draft habitat questionnaires, were thoroughly discussed with a group of external experts in April 2013, leading to many improvements of the system and the proposed method of habitat assessment. In June 2013, BIRS was field tested at five (aggregate and hard rock) quarry sites in France, leading to substantial improvements and changes in the concept (BIRS V4). Further field testing was carried out in Costa Rica in August 2013, including an assessment of every active Holcim hard rock and aggregate site in the country, resulting in yet more improvements to the system (BIRS V5). Finally, in December 2013, a peer review of BIRS was undertaken by three external scientists, resulting in constructive comments and suggestions that have been taken into account in this final version of BIRS (V6). 1.3 Purpose of this paper This paper explains how, under ideal circumstances, BIRS should be set up and implemented by any company that is active in natural resource extraction activities that involve the disturbance and ecological alteration of land areas. However, it does not provide detailed guidance on implementation. Such guidance must be developed individually, taking into account company-specific needs and circumstances. It will probably require a period of pilot-testing in order to assess how to deal with the specific complexities of differing natural environments or operational processes pursued by the company. The concluding chapter summarises the important points to be addressed in a company implementation document.

10 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 5 2. SCOPE AND CONSTRAINTS OF BIRS 2.1 Boundary conditions Based on lessons learned during the development of the Holcim BMS and the IBMS about what is, and is not, possible for a company in the business of natural resource extraction, it was clear from the outset that the indicator system should: ensure that all sites are evaluated; be meaningful, but relatively straightforward to measure; be largely assessable by non-experts (i.e. company staff); be measurable by means of a standardised methodology that can be used worldwide in any habitat or ecosystem; allow information to be collated internally as part of an existing environmental reporting system; be sensitive to major changes to habitats and biodiversity when they happen as part of mineral extraction operations; be designed to be expressed by numerical values; and allow aggregation of individual site values to national and global levels. 2.2 What questions to answer? The following question should be the point of departure for an indicator system: What does the company want to measure, and what does it want to be able to report on? In order to ensure that BIRS is directed towards the right kind of questions, and also to assess if the industry is clear about the purpose of such a biodiversity monitoring system, 70 staff members from a cement company, ranging from technical to executive levels, were asked to indicate what questions they would like to be able to answer through a biodiversity indicator system. The following five top questions emerged: 1. What biodiversity do we have on our sites? 2. How are our operations affecting important habitats and species on our sites? 3. How effective are our biodiversity mitigation measures? 4. How successful are our Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs)? 5. What is the biodiversity KPI for each site/for each country/for the company globally? Questions 1 and 4 cannot be answered through BIRS: Question 1: BIRS does not provide a biodiversity inventory, nor does it provide a biodiversity rating of a site. This should have been determined earlier as part of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) process advocated in the IBMS (Section 3.3). Question 4: Biodiversity management targets pursued through a BAP or as part of a Rehabilitation Plan should be monitored through M&E provisions required for any biodiversity management target (Section 3.5), which will be more specific and detailed than BIRS. However, questions 2, 3 and 5 do represent a logical flow, which BIRS is designed to track (Box 1).

11 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 6 BOX 1 WHAT QUESTIONS IS BIRS SEEKING TO ADDRESS? A. How are we affecting habitats and ecosystems for which we are responsible? B. How effective are our mitigation and habitat rehabilitation measures? C. How do we measure, and report on, our biodiversity management performance? 2.3 Limitations of BIRS There will inevitably be tensions and challenges with a monitoring system that fulfils all the criteria set for BIRS (Box 2): BOX 2 THE TENSIONS AND CHALLENGES OF BIRS Expensive Scientific rigour Expectations of conservation community Biodiversity requirements Affordable Simplicity, practicality Expectations of local stakeholders Legal and regulatory requirements The ideal system, one that is scientifically rigorous and still practical and affordable (i.e. the benefits are thought to be greater than or proportional to the costs) for a mineral extraction company (implementing it mainly through its own staff), does not exist. Trade-offs will have to be made, and important limitations must be recognised. For example, the system will have to use relatively coarse measures and is not designed to detect small incremental changes in relation to biodiversity; instead, it will have to focus on bigger and longer-term changes. However, where a more refined and rigorous approach to evaluating the success of biodiversity management is required, it should be done with a BAP, which would have scientifically more robust provisions for M&E. In addition, causality, especially in relation to question A in Box 1, cannot necessarily be established. In some cases, it will be obvious without detailed scientific investigations that the resource extraction operation is having an impact on biodiversity, e.g. when a forest is cleared before mining. In other cases, causal links may be suspected but impossible to prove with the proposed BIRS, for example possible changes in biodiversity in adjoining habitats (e.g. through noise or dust pollution or through habitat fragmentation). As a result of the inevitable simplifications required for a global-scale operationalisation, a company using BIRS may not be able to pick up subtle changes in biodiversity triggered by its activities or, vice versa, may record negative changes in biodiversity for which it might not be the cause.

12 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 7 BIRS relies on assessment of habitat condition using a simplified habitat classification system and questionnaires that apply globally. Any questions that would require significant ecological expertise to answer have been removed; those that are left can be answered with relative consistency by nonexperts, and are generally true across all ecosystems and biomes. Without these simplifying boundary conditions, the implementation of BIRS across the operation of an entire globally operating company would probably be ruled out by considerations of cost and practicality. Therefore, what may be true on average will be less reliable at a local or even regional level. For example, tropical rainforests are likely to score higher for structural questions linked to biodiversity suitability than temperate or boreal forests; tropical rivers carrying high sediment loads will never reach the water clarity levels that generally favour high biodiversity suitability. To avoid such issues, it may seem logical and this was explored during the development of BIRS to use local or national benchmark maxima for each habitat, so that the temperate forests are not expected to be as structurally complex as tropical rainforests, and tropical rivers are not penalised for being turbid. The problems with this solution are, first, that there is no logical point to stop local customising (why not have a reference benchmark for each river catchment or forest type?) and, second, that it would require a large amount of work (and cost) to customise the questionnaires at any level of scale. Another limitation is that an important element of biodiversity and habitats, the ecological functions and services they provide, cannot be measured in such a simplified approach. Nevertheless, although the anomalies generated by BIRS are inevitable, their effect on the credibility and usability of the methodology is limited, for the following reasons: 1. BIRS focuses on changes in biodiversity suitability, rather than absolute levels of biodiversity values. There is no reason to compare the habitat class of one forest type in one biome with that of another forest type in another biome. What matter are the magnitude and direction of changes between two successive assessments. 2. Differences between the assessed score and some benchmark would be more of a concern if they were always over- or underestimates. There is no logical reason why this should be the case it is more likely that the true suitability of a tropical rainforest will be underestimated, whereas other assessments may be overestimates. The global, standardised nature of BIRS is likely to affect the precision of individual assessments, but this will improve with the averaging and aggregation processes. BIRS is unlikely to introduce a systematic error, or bias, in the results and their aggregated expressions. 3. Anomalies generated in BIRS are most likely to occur in the extreme variants of each habitat, but the overwhelming majority of quarry sites for cement and aggregate production are not found in such extremes. Thus, the effect of such inconsistencies on the overall integrity of BIRS will be very small, and does not justify the additional cost and complexity that would be involved in regionalising all the questionnaires. 4. It might appear that the accuracy of BIRS assessments and classification would benefit from subjecting the sampling and arithmetic aspects of the methodology to a thorough statistical review, to validate the techniques chosen. However, this would be missing the point of BIRS. There is no existing proven methodology to do what BIRS seeks to do; it is based on numerical methods, but its design depends more on iteration by expert ecologists who are seeking to tune

13 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 8 the outputs of testing phases until they most accurately reflect their combined experience in this field. It is not that the accuracy of the numerical data collected does not matter, but rather that the overall accuracy of the system depends much more on the experience and expert inputs during the design phase than on the perceived accuracy of the numbers and calculations. 2.4 Costs and benefits BIRS, like every other monitoring system, will cost money. While, generally, the higher the investment, the better and more meaningful the results, BIRS tries to keep cost levels as low as possible, but in a manner that allows for meaningful answers about the company s overall biodiversity performance and its impact on habitats to be gained from the data. However, the costs will also bring clear benefits, for example in the form of reduced risk from biodiversity issues (including shorter permit cycles), development of in-house capacity to manage biodiversity risks, stronger licences to operate from local partnerships, and enhanced brand reputation. A particular benefit of BIRS is that it provides a link between the site and its neighbouring landowners and communities. Local experts advise the operating company on the local context of the habitats present on the site, which creates the basis for a dialogue with other local actors, including communities, landowners, NGOs and government agencies, on achieving wider conservation gains. This, in turn, enhances the company s local licence to operate. Furthermore, the involvement of such external local experts is also a good way to keep the assessments as objective as possible, for example not biasing them towards favourable scores. There are usually no co-users on an active extraction site, except possibly where the company s landholdings include large buffer zones of habitats excluded from exploitation and local farmers are allowed to use the land as part of good land stewardship or a community relations programme. In some cases, where extraction cycles are short (sand, gravel or shallow limestone deposits), the land is quickly restored and handed back to local owners, thus providing for ongoing dynamic interactions with local stakeholders.

14 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 9 3. SUMMARY OUTLINE OF IBMS 3.1 Purpose and goal of an IBMS The general purpose of an IBMS is to make biodiversity conservation considerations an integral part of a company s environmental management strategy, to ensure that the company is following high standards of responsible environmental stewardship. The overall goal of such a system is the integrated, prioritised management of biodiversity at extraction sites and in all activities, aimed at delivering better outcomes for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. To maximize efficiency and effectiveness, an IBMS involves integrating appropriate biodiversity measures and considerations into existing strategic and operational processes, rather than creating all new planning and management steps. The IBMS provides guidance for addressing and managing biodiversity issues in all parts of the business, from strategic policy development and target setting to site-level implementation, and at every stage of the project life cycle, from initial scoping to site closure and postclosure rehabilitation (Fig. 1). Figure 1: Structure of an IBMS and relationship with BIRS General Biodiversity Policy Planning Phase Operational Phase Guidance for Guidance for Guidance for Guidance for Initial scoping and feasibility investigations ESIA Biodiversity Management (EMP, BAP, biodiversity targets in Rehab. Plans) Rehabilitation Plan Guidance for Biodiversity inventories Guidance for Biodiversity monitoring Special monitoring of targeted biodiversity features in BAPs, etc. BIRS Monitoring of biodiversity condition of all habitats

15 Biodiversity Indicator and Reporting System - BIRS Page 10 Fig. 1 shows the relationship between IBMS and BIRS: the latter is one part of the monitoring systems proposed by IBMS, without which the pursuit of an integrated management system would not make sense and would lack credibility. At the same time, BIRS is dependent on and builds upon the proper implementation of an IBMS. The following sections summarise those recommendations of the IBMS that are particularly relevant for BIRS and necessary for understanding the monitoring system proposed in this document. (For a detailed description of all aspects of the IBMS, please see the original publication.) 3.2 Required biodiversity information The IBMS includes a recommended sequence of biodiversity information gathering that helps ensure that the effort, and hence costs, involved are proportional to the biodiversity needs of each stage. At the earliest stage, prior to feasibility studies, the emphasis is on identifying fatal flaw issues, such as the presence of threatened species or protected areas on or near the site, which would mean that significant harm would be unavoidable if the development proceeds. By the time a site is in operation, there should be enough biodiversity information of good scientific quality to enable several questions to be answered accurately. These concern the allocation of the site to a category of biodiversity importance (Section 3.3), assessment of the likely impact to biodiversity, and the design of appropriate management plans (Section 3.5). Depending on the answers to these questions and the tools that result, a biodiversity inventory will be compiled for the site, which may be categorised as basic, standard or advanced. Some elements of BIRS will be difficult to implement if there are significant deficiencies in the biodiversity inventory available for a site. The IBMS provides guidance on how to fill such gaps. 3.3 Site Biodiversity Importance Category One of the first steps in the IBMS is the identification of the Biodiversity Importance Category (BIC) of a site. This is done through a quick screening process, mainly focusing on the presence or proximity of protected areas, important habitats and threatened species, and using global, national and local scales for these criteria (Table 1). BIRS does not assess the BIC of a site. Determining the presence or absence of a certain species may be a challenge when the only source of information is an online tool, such as the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT). The species in question may be linked to habitats that are not represented on the extraction site, or the data used to establish the range may be too coarse or out of date. Therefore, it is important for any online search results to be verified by a local expert.