Saenz Shirley, Walschburger Tomas, González Juan Carlos, León Jorge, McKenney Bruce, Kiesecker Joseph
Northern Andes Program, The Nature Conservancy, Bogota, Colombia.
PLoS One. 2013 Dec 5;8(12):e81831. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081831. eCollection 2013.
Mitigation policy and regulatory frameworks are consistent in their strong support for the mitigation hierarchy of: (1) avoiding impacts, (2) minimizing impacts, and then (3) offsetting/compensating for residual impacts. While mitigation frameworks require developers to avoid, minimize and restore biodiversity on-site before considering an offset for residual impacts, there is a lack of quantitative guidance for this decision-making process. What are the criteria for requiring impacts be avoided altogether? Here we examine how conservation planning can guide the application of the mitigation hierarchy to address this issue. In support of the Colombian government's aim to improve siting and mitigation practices for planned development, we examined five pilot projects in landscapes expected to experience significant increases in mining, petroleum and/or infrastructure development. By blending landscape-level conservation planning with application of the mitigation hierarchy, we can proactively identify where proposed development and conservation priorities would be in conflict and where impacts should be avoided. The approach we outline here has been adopted by the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development to guide licensing decisions, avoid piecemeal licensing, and promote mitigation decisions that maintain landscape condition.
（1）避免影响；（2）将影响最小化；然后（3）抵消/补偿残余影响。虽然缓解框架要求开发商在考虑对残余影响进行抵消之前，在现场避免、最小化并恢复生物多样性，但这一决策过程缺乏量化指导。完全避免影响的标准是什么？在此，我们探讨保护规划如何指导缓解层级的应用以解决这一问题。为支持哥伦比亚政府改善规划开发的选址和缓解措施的目标，我们研究了五个预计矿业、石油和/或基础设施开发将大幅增加的地区的试点项目。通过将景观层面的保护规划与缓解层级的应用相结合，我们可以提前确定拟议开发与保护优先事项可能冲突的地方以及应避免影响的地方。我们在此概述的方法已被哥伦比亚环境与可持续发展部采用，以指导许可决策、避免零散许可，并推动维持景观状况的缓解决策。
