Biodiversity offsets seek to counterbalance loss of biodiversity due to major developments by generating equivalent biodiversity benefits elsewhere, resulting, at least in theory, in ‘no net loss’ (or even a ‘net positive gain’) in biodiversity. While local costs of major developments themselves receive significant attention, the local costs of associated biodiversity offsets have not.

The conceptual framework for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) highlights that land degradation in developing countries impacts men and women differently, mainly due to unequal access to land, water, credit, extension services and technology. It further asserts that gender inequality plays a significant role in land-degradation-related poverty hence the need to address persistent gender inequalities that fuel women’s poverty in LDN interventions. This paper presents recommendations for moving towards a twin-agenda: gender equality and land degradation neutrality.

Private forests are widespread in Europe providing a range of ecosystem services of significant value to society, and there are calls for novel policies to enhance their provision and to face the challenges of environmental changes. Such policies need to acknowledge the importance of private forests, and importantly they need to be based on a deep understanding of how property rights held by private forest owners vary across Europe. We collected and analysed data on the content of property rights based on formal legal requirements existing in 31 European jurisdictions.