Background
Why do we need a unit for biodiversity? What is a unit?
Last updated
Why do we need a unit for biodiversity? What is a unit?
Last updated
This section covers some basic concepts and taxonomies for those who are unfamiliar with biodiversity credits, or those who know something about carbon credits but haven’t done a deep dive into how these types of markets operate.
In this section:
Defining a unit is how people communicate quantity. Units allow people and computer systems to understand and compare results. A unit of water is a liter or a gallon. A unit of a water contaminant is in parts per billion (ppb). You’ll notice that the water unit is a single unit, relating just to the amount of one thing. Parts per billion is measuring two things: the amount of the contaminant in relation to the amount of water. For some units, time is a factor. For example, kilometers per hour is a measure of speed that includes distance and time. Environmental units, like CO2 tons per year, indicate the material (carbon dioxide), the weight (metric tons), and the time unit (year).
Similarly, in order for us to talk about biodiversity, we need a unit that creates a mutual understanding among people who are measuring biodiversity. Years ago, people concluded it wasn't possible. But those people also didn't bother to ask Indigenous Peoples.
For their own survival, Indigenous peoples have needed to assess the health of their ecologies, including biodiversity. More importantly, the people we need to communicate with are those same Indigenous Peoples, because they steward 80% of the biodiversity, and conserve 30% of the intact ecosystems on the planet. The job of this particular unit is to bridge between the people funding ecological preservation and the people who are performing ecological preservation on the ground. Even if the scientific community created a biodiversity unit that was agreed upon by all Universities, if the Indigenous People cannot understand the unit, it would be useless, because it would be incomprehensible to the people who are essential for preserving and restoring 80% of the planet’s biodiversity.
The Unit of Biodiversity described in this paper is 1 hectare per month with measured integrity from 0-1, with a value of bronze silver, gold, or platinum, as described in the following section.
Both the industrialized and non-industrialized world need transparent, fair, accounting for biodiversity actions and impacts. However, we cannot transact fairly to protect or restore Nature unless we agree on what these transactions are for. Many paradigms about the worth of Nature are not shared across the territories we need to protect. Therefore a unit for these transactions must be acceptable for both parties — and cross paradigms about what can be measured, and what has value. This problem applies across industries — in impact metrics for charitable funding, outcome metrics for nation-state funding, or biodiversity credits for commercial markets.
This interoperable biodiversity unit was co-designed with Indigenous representatives from four continents with intact cultural lineages who have a demonstrated track record of fighting for Nature — even at a financial loss. It was designed to represent their work, and Nature itself, fairly for financial exchanges with industrialized-world parties who did not share their paradigms or values but did want to see the same outcomes.
This collaboration rapidly simplified the problem of a universal biodiversity unit. As Indigenous Peoples understand clearly, biodiversity cannot be judged around its value to humans, it must be measured from the perspective of an intrinsic right to exist. Insurmountable scientific and accounting problems are resolved cleanly when recontextualized to outcomes for other species.
A metric is any core measurement. Usually, these have a scientific protocol for standardization. For example, the "diameter of tree at breast height" is the core metric in almost all forest carbon estimates. Everything else is calculated from this raw data with allometric equations for scale. But there are some standard instructions for measuring trees because they don't grow in a perfect circle and different species have different carbon densities.
So in biodiversity, "species observation" might be a metric, but identifying a species is very different with different protocols depending on the kingdom (insects, trees, fish, etc.) or ecosystem (identifying dolphins in the ocean is different from sand crabs on the beach). Raw data, like game-camera footage is converted into a metric like a species observation, through a fairly formal process that controls for taxonomy, natural variation, DNA vs phenotypes, and species evolution.
In this document, we talk about a UNIT of biodiversity which is based on the METRIC of identification of indicator species using a camera trap. Other metrics of biodiversity have been proposed (such as eDNA testing of water), and local Indigenous people use their own metrics (such as the taste and size of a fruit when it fully ripens). Both are highly accurate chemical tests, but practically impossible to correlate to one another. As stated above, it’s essential to use metrics and units that can be understood the same way by different cultures.
A methodology is a protocol to make meaning out of metrics. In the biodiversity crediting market these methodologies are technical documents that explain how to generate biodiversity credits. For instance, Savimbo's Indicator Species Methodology takes a metric like a game camera footage identified as a bush dog (one of the rarest species in the Amazon), and describes a formal replicable set of instructions to interpret how this camera footage is translated into the UNIT of biodiversity credits.
Once a methodology is published, the methodology can be used by projects worldwide to calculate their credits. Some methodologies have certification from companies that provide certification of biodiversity credits. Buyers of biodiversity credits can purchase certified or uncertified biodiversity credits issued directly by projects, or through credit marketplaces.
Projects for preservation of nature have the choice to use whatever methodology is best for their ecosystems. Biodiversity credits are a nascent market. Savimbo has created a unit that is easily understandable across different cultures, and it is our ambition to have this become a universal standard unit for multiple different biodiversity methodologies. We recognize that new standards and units will emerge as the industry matures, but one of the major drivers for widespread adoption will be the alignment of multiple methodologies and multiple agencies around a standard unit. A standard unit provides a level of certainty to buyers in the biodiversity credit markets.
As with carbon credits, we expect the industry to mature over time and publish different types of biodiversity methodologies.
The unit is just the final format. Different ecosystems and actions need different metrics and methodologies. Analyzing oceans and freshwater systems are different. Jungle is different from desert. These are different actions, different species, and different equipment. The UNIT is how you compare what you did with everyone else. It's a standard set of expressions. Like we use "hectares" instead of "acres".
This unit is designed to work with the following methodologies:
Restoration (“uplift”)
Eradication
Pollination
Agrobiodiversity
Conservation
Corporate impacts
There will likely be more than one type of unit for biodiversity. This protocol is for an area-based biodiversity unit which covers the majority of immediate use-cases, but we see clear potential for other types of units in the future, such as a species unit.
This unit also controls for industry lobbying by groups with strong financial incentives and better science in ecosystems that have been frankly inaccessible to true animal populations for hundreds of years (i.e. farmland in US and Europe), when compared against IP and LC protecting planetary treasures with little to no resources (i.e. fishing village in Mexico guarding blue whale UNESCO birthing site).
The point is not to cover all use cases for biodiversity, the point is to start somewhere now. It is urgent that we preserve the intact ecosystems today, therefore, we need a unit that works now and that is acceptable enough to start with.
We're not arguing that a biodiversity unit has to be a commodity. In fact, we'd much prefer if it were used interchangeably. But using we like commodities helps a lot for Indigenous projects because it's a product Indigenous Peoples can leave at the borders of their lands, with no strings attached. (We don't like Nature asset classes; we advise Indigenous Peoples to never sell off their assets.)
Many people are using biodiversity units in the form of credits, designed to access existing carbon credit commodities markets. And for this use in particular the tangibility of the unit is a major differentiator in its utility. Legally, commodities units must be tangible. They can’t be an arbitrary calculation made by a brand. ManyLots of biodiversity credit schemes misunderstand this basic legal facet of commodities markets. They want to use similar climate market mechanisms to carbon credits but don't talk to commodities exchanges first. Commodities exchanges are heavily regulated. Formed to manage agricultural products, — they buy, sell, and trade real-world items that have a real-world expiration date.
Biodiversity cannot be offset. Trying to offset one ecosystem for another is like taking out a person’s liver and giving them an extra gall bladder to replace it. They aren’t the same thing. Different functioning parts in a complex adaptive system can adapt--to some degree--but they can’t just be eliminated and replaced somewhere else. Similarly, you can’t “compress” biodiversity by moving the same amount of wildlife into a smaller area. Overcrowding makes the ecosystem less healthy, not more healthy. Healthy, intact, biodiverse ecosystems must be respected for the value they provide as the basis for the functioning of our planetary health.
