“No Net Loss” to Open Space - Exploratory Paper

Recently I have had cause to examine and unpack the open space planning concept of "No Net Loss". I put these thoughts together because I experienced a situation where the concept was being applied both to biodiversity loss and also to human loss of opportunity, albeit without the person knowing that was what they were doing. I have written a paper on the concept and I have included the paper below. I encourage any comments on this important open space planning concept.

The term No Net Loss (NNL) is generally agreed to acknowledge the inability of humans to reduce or limit impacts on biodiversity. The reference to “net” implies an assumption that natural resources, environmental quality or biodiversity will continue to be lost due to economic development and our increasing human footprint, and that residual losses should be counterbalanced in some way by equivalent gains elsewhere (Maron et at, 2019).

In its environmental application, the concept of NNL is governed in Australia through the Federal Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), Environmental Offsets Policy, which seeks to “improve or maintain the viability of matters of national environmental significance” and whose application is triggered by “dynamic scenarios, usually declining” to provide offsets to replace lost environmental values.

In Victoria the concept of NNL is governed by the Native Vegetation Clearing Regulations, which provides a policy framework to control the removal of biodiversity and/or open space.

Despite the concept of NNL, and the mechanism of offsetting loss, being associated with the Act’s and Regulations listed above it is implied rather than stated as a policy.

Even though the origins of NNL are in the environmental biodiversity discipline it is now being adopted as a concept in a broader application across the open space portfolio in general. It can now be considered in three inter-connected streams, biodiversity, open space, and community value. As highlighted above, the term NNL has traditionally been used within the environmental disciplines but is more recently being seen in all aspects of open space planning. This more contemporary and broader application of the term is being adopted by a number of different land management agencies, including local government and state agencies whose focus is not primarily natural resource management. This expansion of the use of the term is demonstrated most clearly when applied to the provision of physical activity opportunities and their potential “loss”.

To add further complexity to the concept, NNL can then be broken down into sub-components of either Fixed or Dynamic. Fixed NNL applies to singular components; either loss of biodiversity, loss of open space or loss of community value. Strategies are then applied within this singular context. Dynamic NNL encompasses the concept of NNL across all three factors, with corresponding strategies aimed at addressing loss across the spectrum. As will be highlighted in this paper the Dynamic approach is viewed as being more effective where the open space provides a multi-facetted value. I have developed a No Net Loss Process Map to assist decision makers work through these factors and is included below.

Background

To better understand the application of the three components of the concept we need to consider its broadest meaning across the land management spectrum, firstly by narrating how it is applied, and then look at some scenarios where it is used in application and finally to consider its potential use as a planning mechanism.

Definition of No Net Loss of Open Space

The point at which the impacts on any given environment, biodiversity or community value are balanced by measures taken to avoid and minimise the impacts or to offset significant residual impacts, if any, on an appropriate geographic scale.

No Net Loss of Open Space

The concept of no net loss is an overarching guiding principle for estate and open space planning and management. It is viewed as a guiding principle rather than a planning framework. It can be applied to the many components of open space and their management. Further, it can be applied to the provision of open space as well as an approach that aims to neutralise negative environmental impacts from human activities. NNL is also a mitigation policy goal aimed to prevent and/or offset the destruction or degradation of open space land. It can be the protection or off-setting of any given area of open space. Through the policy, open space currently in existence is conserved, if possible, or if loss is unavoidable then offset. No net loss is achieved through;

·        environment protection

·        creation of new open space

·        restoration, enhancement, and management

·        education, research, and information

In its simplest form the concept is applied to actual land size i.e. if we have 1500ha of land, such as a wetland, the aim is to maintain 1500ha of wetland. In a natural setting the concept is fairly easy to apply, in that it is like for like. The complexity comes in when we start to consider any human use of the land and the value that the community places on said land. If we keep its natural form, and we ensure that the total area remains, then there is no net loss, of either land or biodiversity.

To better understand how NNL can be applied to the loss of community value we need to look at how we describe different types of public land. The terms “open space”, “parks” and “protected areas” are used inter-changeably and often describe the same thing, albeit within different settings, different genre or within different context. Even though the term “open space” primarily describes parks and reserves, there are specific types of open space that are exclusive to some land management agencies, such as local government authorities, where land, such as drainage corridors or road reserves, can be classified as open space.

Public Open Space (POS) refers to publicly accessible land set aside for sport, recreation and community purposes and may include parklands, sporting fields, playgrounds, bushland and built areas such as civic squares, plazas or skate parks. POS contributes to a range of community service and environmental functions. Apart from providing spaces for sport and physical activity, children’s play and exploration, relaxation and social interaction, POS can enhance the visual amenity of the landscape and assist with urban water management and nature conservation. Use of POS plays a role in engendering a sense of place and community connection, influencing feelings of community safety, contributing to economic value of neighbourhoods, providing spaces for community facilities, cultural festivals and events and significantly enhancing residents’ quality of life. 

To assist this narrative the following definitions are provided for guidance:

The Federal Government defines protected areas as:

“…a protected area as a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed through legal or other effective means to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values”

The Victorian National Parks Association describe Victorian protected areas as such:

“Native vegetation in Victoria can be described as existing within a ‘two track’ landscape – part of it is made up of largely ‘intact’ native vegetation, often protected within national parks, while the rest is ‘fragmented’, and found in small patches of native bushland on roadsides, within private property, along creeks, streams and riverways.”

Local Government’s describe open space as such:

“Public Open Space is land in public ownership that is used primarily for the purposes of recreation and/or environmental conservation. It includes all the land zoned RE1 Open Space Recreation. Public Open Space also includes public land zoned E2 Environmental Conservation and can also include lands zoned for special purposes (drainage reserves, road reserves and utility corridors), open space around community facilities, public urban spaces and road verges and nature strip.”

Therefore, the general term “Open Space” can be a combination of the definitions detailed above. It can be defined as land that is used primarily for the purposes of recreation and/or environmental protection, as well as being land that is for other purposes. It can include the land classified as Crown Land, Crown Land Reserves and other publicly accessible land. For some land managers it can also include land zoned for special purposes such as drainage reserves, road reserves and utility corridors, open space around community facilities that are not part of a larger open space, public urban spaces, as in the case of “village greens” within townships and road verges and nature strips.

However, in addition to this, open space can also include private land, whether it is available to the public or not, as long as it is perceived to be land that has not been “developed” beyond a point that is perceived to be “natural”. For example, private golf courses can be classified as open space. In fact, all the capital cities in Australian states have significant quantities of their total open space portfolios in the form of golf courses. Private universities also own a significant amount of open space and is often used by the community as public open space.

As stated, the definition “open space” does not rely upon its primary purpose being for conservation or recreation. As discussed, cases in point include riparian corridors, drainage corridors and flood mitigation zones. In relation to flood mitigation zones a large number of Australian towns and cities have constructed large open space detention basins to mitigate future flood events. These basins are often then embellished as open space for the community. The primary purpose of these areas may be to ensure effective drainage of natural or man-made overland water flows; however, they also have a secondary purpose of being open space. Hence, you can often have open space by “accident” and not design.

All of this discussion is intended to highlight the fact that when you are considering the goal of NNL, land managers need to consider the bigger picture, open space at the macro level. If a land manager is considering a project that has an NNL consideration, and offsets are a strategy, then land that in part of the larger portfolio may provide an offset where none is available on the managers own estate.

No Net Loss of Community value of Open Space (No Net Loss of Opportunity)

The goal of No Net Loss can also be applied to the value that the community derives from open space. It is possible to maintain the quantity of open space but lose its value to the community, or conversely, to decrease the amount of open space but increase its value to the community. The value that the community places on open space is often created by the way that the community engages with the space and/or the embellishments constructed on the land to facilitate that engagement. Examples of engagement are many and diverse, as are the facilities that facilitate that engagement; including sports fields, playgrounds, shade structures, even BBQ’s. All helping to create additional value of open space for the community. As an example; for Albert Park in Melbourne, the value that the community derives from the space could be considered to be far in excess of the value of the open space itself.

In providing opportunities for engagement the community may determine that the addition of a new community facility, with a potential loss of open space, such as the aquatic centre example outlined in the scenario below, is of more value to the community than the actual open space itself. Therefore, any particular project should be viewed for its impact, not just on open space, but also its impact on the public’s valuing of the open space.

A community may value an aquatic centre more highly than the open space on which it is to be located. This then implies a perceived value of the land in regard to its overall value to the community, the values that the community places on the land and the perceived benefits derived by the community from the open space.

Therefore, the goal of NNL can also include existing built assets that add value to open space, if it is perceived that value will be lost if the asset is not maintained. For example, if the degradation or removal of a built asset, such as a toilet block, BBQ facility, or the degradation of a walking trail decreases the visitation to a particular park, then there is an intangible loss to open space through the loss of value to the community.

When viewed this way the goal of NNL has two divergent components, the protection of total open space land and/or the goal of protecting the value of open space to the community. This second goal could be described as No Net Loss of Opportunity from open space and comes under the banner of Dynamic NNL, as highlighted previously.

Open Space Trends (that effect “No Net Loss”)

A number of factors are at play in regard to open space and its accessibility by the community. These factors and drivers directly or indirectly have an impact on the goal of No Net Loss:

• Within an urban setting people are living in higher density settings. They have smaller backyards or no backyards and activities that once took place in those settings are now taking place more in the public realm.
• There is an increased awareness of and interest in protecting the local environment and improving sustainability
• Concerns about loss of biodiversity, trees and wildlife, as a result of fragmentation of habitat, increased urbanisation and new developments
• Concerns about declining levels of physical activity and the health and social implications of this
• Concerns about loss of connection with the natural world (nature deficit disorder)
• Play spaces as areas for the whole family, evenly distributed to ensure access for all and promotion of nature play to encourage learning and development
• Increase in walking for recreation and fitness, growth in cycling for recreation, mountain bikes, road bikes, with increasing demand for safe, accessible well connected walk/cycle paths.

Scenario’s

Scenario One – Total Space

A local government authority has a total of 1500ha of open space land, spread across 378 different parks and reserves. The land is valued by Council for its conservation, utility, as well as its recreation value to the community. It may seek to make use of that land in various ways. Council may construct sports fields, playgrounds or other amenities on some of it. As these facilities are a value-adding asset to the total open space and the facilities are ancillary to the purpose of the land there is no net loss. After these kinds of development there is still 1500ha of open space.

Scenario Two – Community Facility

Council wishes to construct a new aquatic centre to meet the community’s need and demand. It must be built on land that is controlled by Council; therefore, part of their open space is chosen. After completion the land on which the facility is built is no longer open space, as its purpose has been changed to such an extent that it is no longer of the same nature, either as open space, or its value to the community. There is therefore a loss to the total 1500ha of open space. However, there is a gain of community value of the space. To ensure both the maintaining of open space and the gaining of community value from the facility, it is desirable, if possible, to construct facilities such as this on land that is not classified as open space, but if unavoidable, then offsets should be considered.

Scenario Three – Rock Climbing

Rock climbing, classified as an unstructured recreation, has been allowed to take place on a number of different sites across the park estate for many years. The activity has not been governed by an organisational policy, but rather considered on a case by case basis at the local level. This follows the same pattern as many other community activity opportunities that take place on the park estate.

Recently, the activity has attracted attention in regard to the potential damage that it is causing to culturally sensitive sites throughout the landscape. When first allowed to take place the sensitive nature of the sites was not a focus of community value. Due to this community sensitivity rock climbing has become more regulated and controlled at many sites.

The regulation of the activity can be viewed as an NNL management strategy to ensure the maintenance of the natural environment. However, this then has a flow-on effect, and can cause a net loss of opportunity to the community. Due to the potential for a loss of opportunity through the regulation of the activity a secondary management strategy should be to identify alternative sites for the activity to take place.

Scenario Four – New Road

An authority needs to build a new road. The preferred option is to take the road through existing open space as this has the least impact on existing infrastructure. The option is to build the road through a component of open space that is part of Council’s total 1500ha of open space. If the project were to go ahead then there would be a net loss of open space, as well as a loss to biodiversity and connectivity of habitat, through the splitting of habitat by the road. In regard to the loss of any existing opportunity, there is a loss of access to open space by the community. In this scenario all three components have suffered a loss. This is what was described above as a Dynamic NNL trigger. Any offsets identified in this scenario will not replace all three components.

Scenario Five – Tree Banking

Another example would be a land developer who needs to remove trees from a parcel of land that he is developing for houses. In this scenario the trees can be classified as an “asset”. Even though the open space will be lost to the development regardless, the trees themselves are viewed as an additional asset where the concept of No Net Loss can be applied. To ensure that the principle of NNL is met the developer will “tree bank” trees in another location to ensure that there are just as many trees after “his” are removed. Some state governments have introduced legislation to ensure that trees being lost are replaced. Legislation often stipulates that a replacement factor of 6 to 1 ratio is applied i.e. for every tree that is lost 6 are planted for replacement.

However, obvious complications are apparent in this scenario. The replacement of trees in another location will still eventuate in a loss of biodiversity and habitat in the developed location.

Scenario Six – Wildlife Corridors

There are both tangible and intangible factors to the goal of NNL. The loss of open space often eventuates in the loss of other important factors in the environment. Often this falls under the general concept of loss of biodiversity. The creation or maintaining of habitat corridors is one example of this.

The figure left highlights a new development in western Sydney, Mt Gilead. This development sits between the Georges River to the east and the Nepean River to the west. This area is home to the largest koala population in Australia. During mating season, the males move between the two river corridors to access females. The development is set to remove open space land, which is planned to be offset in another location, but will cut these access corridors for the koala’s movements. The arrows on the figure are planning considerations to protect these access corridors, along with the placement of a regional sports park to further protect corridors. This example highlights the complexity of the goal of NNL, and also shows its limitations.

Offsets

As has been explored in the tree banking and wildlife corridor scenarios, one of the fundamental management mechanisms of the No Net Loss goal is the concept of Offsets. Offsets are used less often by state government land management agencies than by local government. This is because the management of open space land by local government is primarily for the benefit of the community, whereas for state agencies the management of the park's estate has been primarily for conservation. This then allows local government, and private landowners who are governed by local government authorities, to offset loss, whereas loss in conservation cannot be offset.

As has been highlighted by the scenario’s above often the value of a new facility to the community is such that open space land needs to be sacrificed. It will then be proposed to offset that lose, through the acquisition of new open space, the enhancement of “low value” open space, or in the case of trees, the replacement of trees through tree banking. Some state governments have introduced legislation that requires an offset to any project that will be constructed on “high value” land. A project may have an offset built in that acquires “offset” land in another location to “replace” the land lost to the project.

In the case of the road scenario the offset may eventuate in no change to the total 1500ha of open space land within the municipality. However, it could be strongly argued that the value of open space, to the community, has been reduced, whilst still maintaining the 1500ha total. In this case the principle is to generate gains elsewhere, for example, through protection and restoration efforts, so the net result of the losses and gains is neutral. 

Conclusion

The purpose of this exploratory paper is to examine the concept of No Net Loss from a holistic perspective, and consider how it might apply in a more broader sense than its traditional application within the environmental discipline. Further work and thought will need to be undertaken to expand on the thoughts that I have compiled in this document.