Habitat Banking and Its Challenges in a Densely Populated Country: The Case of The Netherlands

Mechtilde M. J. Gorissen, C. Martijn van der Heide and Johannes H.J. Schaminée
Additional contact information
Mechtilde M. J. Gorissen: Institute for Water and Wetland Research (IWWR), Radboud University Nijmegen, Heijendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands
C. Martijn van der Heide: Wageningen Economic Research, Prinses Beatrixlaan 582–528, 2595 BM The Hague, The Netherlands
Johannes H.J. Schaminée: Institute for Water and Wetland Research (IWWR), Radboud University Nijmegen, Heijendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-36

Abstract: Due to a growing population, urbanization, industrialization and agriculture, the quality of nature and biodiversity globally has decreased enormously. This also applies to The Netherlands. Habitat banking is a market-based instrument for nature conservation and sustainable development to counteract this decrease. We analyze under which conditions habitat banking can indeed offer possibilities and opportunities for improving biodiversity, nature conservation and sustainable development in The Netherlands. For this, we first identify the shortcomings of mandatory nature compensation in The Netherlands and link them to current innovations in Dutch nature policy. In addition, we investigate three necessary instruments for a successful habitat banking system: (1) a system for nature valuation, (2) a method for creating ecological opportunity maps, and (3) the institutional setting in which habitat banking can be operationalized. We conclude that habitat banking contributes to solving the problems for nature and biodiversity and to sustainable development in The Netherlands, provided that this is primarily addressed (i) in the domain of voluntary nature compensation, (ii) in bottom-up pilots for integrated area development (in this article shortly referred to as area pilots) where the widest possible range of owners and users of these areas is involved, (iii) in a context of participatory decision-making and (iv) learning and experiment en route to social-ecological systems (SESs). To actually realize the added value of habitat banking for The Netherlands, further scientific research is required to collect and analyze empirical data from relevant stakeholders.

Keywords: nature compensation; habitat banking; voluntary compensation; socialization of nature; sustainable development; integral area development; socio-ecological learning; evolving human–nature relationships (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3756/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3756/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:9:p:3756-:d:354348

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().