While the cultivation of nature was traditionally related to the exploitation of nature, it is today also applied in nature conservation policy. Biodiversity is one of the values in nature that warrant conservation. In response to its decrease, nature management policies apply biodiversity offsetting to compensate for its losses at an impact (development) site by generating ecologically equivalent gains elsewhere (i.e. an offset site) The practice of the biodiversity offsetting is not an entirely successful, especially in the case of complex habitats. With little evidence of its success, the focus is on improving its technical feasibility and knowledge, while an in-depth, ethical reflection is missing. Biodiversity offsetting is used as an example to illustrate the ethical dilemmas, and to propose an alternative approach based on integrating nature conservation with design and sociological aspects.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8009337