Biodiversity net gain offers opportunity and challenge

摘要

Doing a 12-month budget is difficult enough. At Iford Estate in East Sussex, managing director Ben Taylor has to draw up a 30-year budget to evaluate the potential of offering land on which developers can offset their obligation to improve biodiversity.The estate has been accepted as one of nine Natural England BNG pilot projects, aimed at establishing baselines and ultimately a backstop or bank of land that can be offered to developers for offsetting.The Iford Estate pilot area is 925ha and, using the Defra system prescribed for measuring biodiversity, its current farming and estate operations offer 3,204 habitat units.The plan includes cutting the 700ha arable operation by two-thirds and converting it to chalk grassland of varying qualities, so it is a dramatic practical, logistical and financial change for the estate.