Affiliate projects

SNAPP Compensatory Conservation

Governments and proponents of development are increasingly turning to compensatory mechanisms, such as offsets, to counterbalance unavoidable biodiversity and ecosystem service impacts from development. Supported by the Science for Nature and People Partnership from 2016-2019, the SNAPP Compensatory Compensation group sought to explore and illustrate the limits to traditional biodiversity offsetting and develop and demonstrate a new approach that aligns ecological compensation with jurisdictional biodiversity targets. Find out more about the approach, called Target-based Ecological Compensation, here and view our video here.

Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy

The Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy (MCH) is a global framework for uniting diverse human actions towards net positive outcomes for nature. This novel framework builds on the Mitigation Hierarchy, by placing it within a broader framing that encompasses all conservation actions. Through its application in policy-setting, business planning and individual consumer choices The Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy can guide the actions of diverse stakeholders towards sustainable human footprints and aspirational positive outcomes for nature, and help to evaluate the effectiveness of those actions.

The Conservation Hierarchy initiative represents a coalition of academics, NGOs and private sector organisations working on developing the conceptual framework for the MCH, applying it to real-world situations, and developing case studies and lessons learned across divers sectors and stakeholder groups. Through our collective knowledge and experience, we believe the MHC can create the step change nature needs.

See here for more information, or contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The COMBO Program – Conservation, Mitigation and Biodiversity Offsets

The Conservation, Mitigation and Biodiversity Offsets (COMBO) program is an initiative that mainstreams biodiversity conservation into national policy and development practice. The COMBO partnership is led by the Wildlife Conservation Society, working closely with partners Biotope, Guinée Ecologie and BIOFUND, and currently implements activities across Africa and in South-East Asia. The COMBO approach aims to apply the mitigation hierarchy to prioritise avoidance of impacts from infrastructure and development to prevent loss and degradation of nature. We help governments, developers and practitioners to remediate residual impacts through implementing offsets or compensation to achieve development goals such as No Net Loss or a Net Gain of biodiversity as well as contribute to national biodiversity targets. 

The first phase of our activities ran from 2016-2020 was implemented with partner Forest Trends and was supported by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the Fond Français pour l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM) and the Mava Foundation. AFD and FFEM have continued their valuable support for a second phase starting in 2021 with aligned activities supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).

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