Creating market for biodiversity by using habitat banking: preliminary assessment of applicability to Finland

The aim of this study is to make a preliminary assessment of the applicability of habitat banking in Finland. The pros and cons of the mechanism as well as the most essential aspects from the Finnish perspective are assessed. The study concludes that habitat banking is one of the mechanisms which could be used in Finland to prevent or slow down the degradation of biodiversity. The mechanism includes ecological and economic risks, and thus the possible implementation in Finland should be preceded by a careful and relatively long-lasting piloting phase. Habitat banking could be used as a mechanism to compensate direct or indirect ecological harms caused to conservation areas e.g. by large scale infrastructural development projects or to compensate negative impacts of peat production. Furthermore, it could be used to compensate harms caused by large-scale development projects to other sites with specific ecological importance. However, the application of the mechanism should be carefully defined and restricted so that compensation demand would not lead to the hindering of ordinary economic activity.