Household survey investigating the social impact of biodiversity offset: a case study from Madagascar 2014-2015

Bidaud, Cecile and Jones, Julia P.G. and Schreckenberg, Kate and Rabeharison, Manolotsoa (2019). Household survey investigating the social impact of biodiversity offset: a case study from Madagascar 2014-2015. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852341

Biodiversity offsets can be defined as fulfilling three criteria: “(1) they provide additional substitution or replacement for unavoidable negative impacts of human activity on biodiversity, (2) they involve measurable, comparable biodiversity losses and gains, and (3) they demonstrably achieve, as a minimum, no net loss of biodiversity.” (Bull, Suttle, Gordon, Singh, & Milner-Gulland, 2013, p371). In developing countries, mining companies are implementing biodiversity offset projects to compensate the degradation caused by the extraction of minerals. Mining companies can represent an important national financial windfall and offsets are seen as counteracting any associated environmental loss. However, the implementation of such schemes faces critical challenges which need investigation. For instance, how to integrate the socioeconomic targets as a proxy for poverty alleviation into biodiversity offsets is still poorly explored and not yet properly considered by mining companies (Seagle, 2012). In this project, we analysed biodiversity offset mechanisms and their consideration of local livelihoods through one case study: Ambatovy a mining company operating in Madagascar. The main aim of the research is to determine the potential impacts of biodiversity offsets on local livelihoods through changes in the supply of locally important ecosystem services and how the outcomes for poverty alleviation can be improved.

Data description (abstract)

This dataset is part of the Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme, in particular the P4GES project: Can Paying for Global Ecosystem Services reduce poverty? The database is the result of a household survey investigating the magnitude and distribution of biodiversity offset project impacts on local livelihood. 170 households in 3 different sites around biodiversity offset project in Madagascar have been surveyed. The survey includes elements on demography, income activities and assets, change of income activities and assets within five years, as well as questions about development aid (donation and training) received by the household, involvement in local association and impacts from the offset project.

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