1. Which governance for marine biodiversity offset?
Céline JACOB, PhD student CREOCEAN – Center for Functional Evolutionary Ecology
MSEAS – 31/05/2016
Thoughts/consideration

2. Mitigation objective : the No Net Loss of biodiversity components
Net gain
Offset
Biodiversity impact
Biodiversity impact
Biodiversity impact
Biodiversity impact
 significant!!!‘Offset’ is considered as actions permitting the achievement of ecological equivalency. It could be direct actions on marine environment (e.g.: ecological engineering) or management actions to reduce human pressures on the marine environment (BBOP, 2012)
Reduction
Avoidance
Avoidance
Net loss

3. Marine offset practice
Active recovery measures: keystone species and ecosystem engineers
Passive recovery measures
Ecological engineering techniques
Transplantation (e.g. coral, seagrass)
Management measures (MPAs)
Knowledge acquisition

4. Offset governance in the marine realm
Currently literature focuses on terrestrial offset systems (mitigation banking)
In the marine realm: mechanisms in early stages, not yet studied
 forward-looking vision

5. The Actor-Network Theory
Knowledge utilisation:
Common linear-rational models
Translation models / actor-network theory
Knowledge generation influenced not only by its internal merits but also by receptors strategies (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987)
 Importance of message translation into agents’ stakes (for their incorporation into the actions, values and projects of others): obligatory passage point

6. ANT important features
No distinction between human and non-human elements: ‘actants’
Positive and negative ‘modalities’ (argument that takes debate away from the contestable conditions under which knowledge was produced)
Translation process

7. France & California France California Coastlines
5,600 km (Mainland France)
EEZ: 11 million km2
5,600 km
EEZ: US: million km2
Regulations
French Coastal Act (1986)
CA Coastal Act (1976)
Environmental agencies
Conservatoire du littoral
Agence des Aires Marines Protégées
Coastal Conservancy
Ocean Protection Council
Coastal Commission

8. SONGS project
1974: permit approval from Coastal Commission, after its 1st denial in 1973 but under the conditions of the implementation of an independent Marine Committee Review - MRC for impact assessment and offset design
1991 and 1997: permit amendments to integrate offset

9. SONGS project
Bight fish loss through entrainment and impingement (water cooling): creation and restoration of 150 acres of coastal wetlands San Dieguito lagoon (2011)
Discharge impact on macroalgae beds and associated communities: artificial reef for the development of 150 acres of macroalgae (2008) and funding of a hatchery

10. California Eelgrass Mitigation Policy and Implementing Guidelines
1991: 1st document released for Zostera marina L. in SoCal
2014: new version more scientific throughout CA
Parameters to be monitored to assess impacts
Different offset solutions are displayed (management plans, in-kind, mitigation banking, In-Lieu Fee out-of-kind)

11. California Eelgrass Mitigation Policy and Implementing Guidelines
ANT elements
Element description
SONGS
California Eelgrass Mitigation Policy and Implementing Guidelines
Non-human actants
Impacted element
Macroalgae and fish
Eelgrass
Pressure
Macroalgae: Interference with hydrological processes, turbidity
Fish: Entrainment and impingement / loss of fish habitat
Any
Human actants
‘Skilled intermediaries’
Coastal commission, Marine Committee Review
National Marine Fisheries Service
Potential modalities
Status
Macroalgae: Essential Fish Habitat, Habitat Areas of Particular Concern 
Fish: no status
Essential Fish Habitat, Habitat Areas of Particular Concern and Special Aquatic Site
Methodology to size offset
Macroalgae: creation of a macroalgae surface equivalent to the one lost
Fish: no standardized method
Method similar to Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA)
Existing technical solutions
Macroalgae: solution based on different experimental design
Fish: out-of-kind solution based on feedbacks on wetlands restorations
Feedbacks on transplantation projects over the past 25 years

12. California Eelgrass Mitigation Policy and Implementing Guidelines
ANT features
ANT elements
Element description
SONGS
California Eelgrass Mitigation Policy and Implementing Guidelines
Translation
Key element
Implementation of an independent committee
Impacts and offset assessment by independent scientists
Objectives of the different agencies aligned
Obligatory passage point
Developed instrument
Offset solutions specially designed with an experimental phase required in the amendment of the permit (project-scale)
Guidelines required in USACE permits (throughout the State)

13. Conclusions Importance of:
‘skilled intermediaries’ (Cowell and Lennon, 2014)
translation process
 Development of innovative instrument relying on:
A reconfiguration of existing stakeholders
A rescaling of spatial and time scales
CAFWS
escp

14. Thank you for your attention
Céline JACOB,