Lost habitat not easily replaced
The science suggests it's very hard to replace a lost environment in another location without losing species, which is something that many offset projects attempt to do, the scientists warn. Image: davemantel/iStockphoto With up to a billion hectares of wilderness likely to be cleared to feed the world in the coming half century and an area the size of China devoured by cities, leading environmental scientists are urging caution over the extent to which lost ecosystems can be replaced or restored.In a major scientific article, a team including Australian researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) has advised governments worldwide to think twice before assuming an environment lost to development can easily be replaced elsewhere.“There’s been a lot of talk among policymakers about ‘offsets’, meaning that if you damage or lose the environment in one place you compensate by restoring or protecting an equivalent area somewhere else,” explains...