Ecological compensation and mineral extraction : a rocky path

Abstract: Ecological compensation builds on the idea of substitutability, meaning that destroyed values can be replaced or substituted with new values that are equal to the ones lost. Through this equivalence between “lost” and “gained” values compensation is meant to allow dynamic economic development without causing irreversible biodiversity loss. Compensation is increasingly used as a means to reduce the conflict between development interests such as mineral extraction (mining) and conservation interests. In Sweden the most frequently occurring compensation projects are connected to the mining industry. Despite the use of the concept, the national legislations around compensation gives room for interpretations and the actuality of equivalence between values is questioned. These two problems are examined through a case study of an ongoing compensation project for a chalk quarry in Slite, Gotland, South-Eastern Sweden. The case embodies the tension between conservation and developmental wills by both showcasing societal benefits and large determents to nature. In addition to the background research of the case study, stakeholders and actors were interviewed and crucial data was collected from grey literature such as compensation plans and legal documents. A compensation-effectiveness framework developed by Maron et al. (2012) was used to analyze the case study. Based on the analysis factors uncertainty, time-lags and inability to measure, from the framework, I found that the Slite case, due to current legislations and room the for interpretations risks allowing a “license-to-trash” scenario. This means the national legislations may fail to protect the intended nature and instead give legitimacy to the damages, which was concluded by this case. It was also found that achieving an equivalence between ecological values in this case is highly difficult, as a lot of the values involved are either irreplaceable or very rare. The results show that this compensation case has a high risk of ineffectiveness especially because there is an uncertainty surrounding what values can actually be compensated for in practice and how the surrounding legal framework should be interpreted. Additionally, when addressing the tension between conservation and development wills, this case highlights, on a wider scale, if demand for minerals does not decrease, the development that is conducted today will need quarries such as the Slite one. Even though ecological compensation is far from fool proof and in fact filled with uncertainties, on could also say as one of the interviewees, “at least it’s better than nothing”.