EMROP: Waihi North Project WAI-985-000-PLN-LC-0001_Rev0 clean The Department of Conservation (DOC, 2014) and Local Government New Zealand (Maseyk et al. 2018). provide guidance for offset design. These offset design guidelines represent best current practice for achieving a net environmental gain, as is the intention in this case (rather than ‘no net loss’). Important aspects of offset design include: 1. Restoration, enhancement and protection actions undertaken as a biodiversity offset are demonstrably additional to what will otherwise occur, including that they are additional to any avoidance, remediation or mitigation undertaken in relation to the adverse effects of the activity. 2. Offset actions should be undertaken close to the location of loss, where this will result in the best ecological outcome. 3. The values to be lost through the activity to which the offset applies are counterbalanced by the proposed offsetting activity, which is at least commensurate with the adverse effects on indigenous biodiversity. Where possible the overall result should be no net loss, and preferably a net gain in ecological values. 4. The offset is applied so that the ecological values being achieved through the offset are the same or similar to those being lost (‘like for like’). 5. The offset is legally protected in perpetuity, such as via a conservation covenant. Covenanted areas are required to have stock exclusion fences. 2.3.2 Principles of biodiversity offsetting The Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme (BBOP, an international collaboration between companies, financial institutions and civil society organisations) set out ten principles that underpin the concept of biodiversity offsetting. These principles are identified in Table 2 and with an explanation of how the proposed offset for WNP will satisfy them. Table 2. Principles of biodiversity offsetting and how these are achieved for WNP. Principles of biodiversity offsetting How these principles are achieved 1 Adherence to the mitigation hierarchy: A biodiversity offset is a commitment to compensate for significant residual adverse impacts on biodiversity identified after appropriate avoidance, minimisation and onsite rehabilitation measures have been taken according to the mitigation hierarchy. The TSF3 footprint avoids key features of SNA 166 that trigger its ecological significance, being the known moko skink location and a kauri tree stand. This EMROP proposes to minimise potential mortality to native fauna through management actions around timing of vegetation removal, to preworks surveys and associated capture and relocation (lizards) or avoidance actions where species are detected (active native bird nests, bats) 2 Limits to what can be offset: There are situations where residual impacts cannot be fully compensated for by a biodiversity offset because of the irreplaceability or vulnerability of the biodiversity affected. The biodiversity values are relatively young (40 years), structurally simple and have low species richness (Bioresearches 2022). While the two specimen trees within SNA 166 (kauri, pōhutukawa) are not considered to be replaceable, the losses are
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