Compensation for damage to biodiversity

Verified 25 February 2025 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

The damage to biodiversity generated by the execution of any work, activity or work project, or by the execution of a plan, scheme, program or other planning document must be given priority avoided, if not reduced. If this is not possible, the planned or foreseeable damage to biodiversity must then be compensated. We present you with the information you need to know.

The compensatory measures are the measures taken obligatory by a legislative or regulatory instrument to compensate for planned or foreseeable damage to biodiversity caused by any of the following:

Measures to compensate for damage to biodiversity must respect the following principles :

  • They must comply with the principle of preventive action and correction, as a priority at source, environmental damage, using the best available techniques at an economically acceptable cost. This principle implies that compensation for damage should only take place once all the measures to avoid and reduce damage to biodiversity and the services it provides have been company. Compensatory measures cannot replace avoidance and reduction measures.
  • Compensation for infringements which could not be avoided or reduced must take into account species, natural habitats and ecological functions affected, in accordance with their ecological equivalence.
  • The measures must be aimed at target of no net loss of biodiversity, or even strive for a gain in biodiversity.
  • They must result in a obligation of result and be effective throughout the period of damage. This obligation of result must be assessed in the light of the two objectives of the compensation: ecological equivalence and the absence of net loss.

The obligation of result implies that the developer shall ensure that compensation ensures the sustainability of a natural area on compensation grounds with species, natural habitats and ecological functions similar to those affected. The surface of the compensation fields must ensure that there is no net loss of biodiversity in the long term.

The developer is person responsible for the study and monitoring of conservation land.

Example :

A project inevitably leads to the removal of a wetland on a small area, after measures have been put in place to avoid and reduce damage to biodiversity. This wetland is home to about ten species of fish, amphibians, insects and about twenty plant species. This wetland serves as a breeding ground for some of these species and a living environment for others. It also helps prevent floods and droughts for the nearby village, provides fish and helps clean water. And it stores carbon, helping to mitigate climate change.

The developer shall create a new wetland with the same ecological functions as the deleted wetland. This will be located on or in the immediate vicinity of the damaged site and will allow for no net loss of biodiversity.

Please note

If the damage caused by the project cannot be avoided, reduced or satisfactorily compensated, the project cannot be authorized as it stands.

The compensation measures must be implemented:

  • In priority over damaged site
  • Or, if that is not possible, in functional proximity to it (near and within the same ecosystem) in order to guarantee its ecological features in a sustainable way.

If this is not possible, compensation measures shall be implemented as a matter of priority within the zones of preferential renaturation identified by the Territorial Coherence Schemes (SCoT) and by planning and programming guidelines (PAOs) relating to sectors to be restored, where the guidelines for the restoration of those areas or sectors and the nature of the compensation provided for the project so permit.

FYI  

Measures to compensate for damage to biodiversity are geolocated and described in a interactive map available here.

The contracting authorities must provide the competent services of the State with all the information necessary for the proper keeping of this map: type of measure, duration, name of the project, date of decision, municipality(s) of the project, etc.

Where measures to compensate for damage to biodiversity are implemented on land belonging neither to the person subject to the obligation to implement those measures nor to the compensation operator designated by him, a contract concluded with the landlord and, if there is one, the lessee or operator shall define the following:

  • Nature of compensatory measures
  • Conditions for implementation
  • Duration.

Any person subject to an obligation to implement measures to compensate for biodiversity damage shall do so by one or more of the following means:

  • Either directly
  • Either in confidentby contract, the implementation of these measures at a clearing operator
  • Either in acquiring compensation, restoration or reorganization units as part of a natural site for compensation, restoration and restoration.

In any case, the developer remains solely responsible with respect to the administrative authority which prescribed those compensatory measures.

One guide to the development of a natural compensation site was published by the Ministry of the Environment.

Please note

Where the compensation relates to a project, plan or program subject to environmental assessment, the nature of the compensation proposed by the developer shall be specified in the impact assessment submitted by the applicant with his application for authorization.

Where the measures to compensate for damage to biodiversity are insufficient to respect the ecological equivalence between damage and compensation, additional requirements may be ordered.

Any person subject to an obligation to implement measures to compensate for damage to biodiversity may be obliged to establish financial guarantees. These are intended to ensure that the compensatory measures are carried out.

Control and procedure in the event of non-compliance

Where a person subject to an obligation to implement measures to compensate for damage to biodiversity did not satisfy it under the conditions imposed on it, it may be formal notice to comply with it within a specified period.

Where, on expiry of the time-limit set, the person has not regularized the situation, the competent administrative authority shall to proceed of its own motion, in place of and at the expense of that person, the execution of the prescribed measures.

This can be done by:

  • Or by entrusting the implementation of these measures to a clearing operator
  • or by acquiring compensation, restoration or restoration units within the framework of a natural site for compensation, restoration and restoration which correspond to the characteristics of the prescribed measures.

Failure to implement compensatory measures

A person who has not carried out the compensatory measures shall be liable to a penalty which may take the form of a administrative fine of a maximum of €15,000. It may also require the person given notice to enter in the hands of a public accountant before a specified date an amount corresponding to the amount of the work or operations to be carried out.

The person is also exposed to criminal proceedings.