Professor Richard (Dez) Delahay from RSK Biocensus and colleague Professor Debbie Bartlett (from the University of Greenwich) published a Viewpoint article in CIEEM’s March edition of In Practice on the need for an evidence-based approach on the effectiveness of mitigation practices.
This is the abstract of the article
“Recommending and implementing practices to mitigate and compensate for the impacts of development on biodiversity are the bread and butter of ecological consultancy. In a time of unprecedented biodiversity loss, it is more important than ever that such interventions are demonstrably effective in achieving positive conservation outcomes. The following article by the CIEEM Academia Special Interest Group questions if this is the case and challenges the profession (including ourselves) to do better.”
Both authors are members of the CIEEM Academia Special Interest Group (ASIG), which is aiming to showcase and signpost sources of evidence that may help practising ecological consultants to encourage initiatives to train ecologists in how to assess evidence and use it to inform decision-making, and to facilitate discussion and collaboration between academics and practitioners. ASIG is looking for support in this endeavour, so please get in touch with the authors Richard Delahay or Debbie Bartlett if you can help.
As the authors say: “For ecological consultants to access and use the expanding evidence base we need to raise the profile of existing sources of information on the effectiveness of conservation practices and provide training in how to recognise and assess different types of evidence.”