Conservation Credit Scheme for Builders Launched in UK

UK has launched an innovative conservation credit scheme for builders to offset the damage they are doing elsewhere.

The pilot project has been launched with the sale of shares in a £100m project to restore and reconnect fragmented wetlands, woodlands and grasslands around the headwaters of the river Thames.  The shares are being sold through the Environment Bank, a bank launched with the avowed aim of delivering mitigation and compensation schemes associated with planned development. The bank was set up the three years ago by Rob Gillespie, a town planner and Professor David Hill, an ecologist. The new Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron is a votary of this scheme.The builders would be encouraged to invest in schemes in the same region as their business, so that local communities would stand to benefit.

Conservation credit schemes are on trial n the US, Australia and South Africa. In the US, which is at the forefront of conservation credit schemes, $3bn was raised for wetlands alone in 2008.