Voluntary Biodiversity Net Gain in Forest Investment with Maurice Ryan

Description

Today, Maurice Ryan, Director of Business Development at Green Belt, joins me in conversation. We dig into the voluntary approach of biodiversity net gain that Green Belt applies to some of its forest assets. At this point, biodiversity net gain is not legislated in Ireland as in other jurisdictions. Still, Maurice is finding that some forest owners and capital providers are nonetheless interested in reshaping low-production areas into highly productive ones in nature. We discuss what is needed to scale this approach in Ireland and how encouraging or accelerating natural regeneration is a pragmatic way to restore biodiversity to a site. Maurice explains the breadth of biodiversity data they collect to demonstrate the improvements on the sites where they take this approach. We talk about how to bring this biodiversity net gain approach to other jurisdictions and the importance of stakeholder engagement when defining biodiversity objectives.

Getting on the ground and touching, feeling, smelling in a forest is a whole different ball game altogether, you know, and depending on what their mindset is, whether it's a long-term legacy and it's a nature-based project or it’s commercial return, feet on the ground makes all the difference.

We like to bring them [investors] on the journey with us because then there's a sense of trust from the off and decision-making then is much easier if they've spent time with us and our foresters on the ground.

Useful resources

Greenbelt

Maurice email: maurice@greenbelt.ie

Apple tree (Malus domestic)

Production team

Host/Expert: Shauna Matkovich - The ForestLink

Producer and editor: Magdalena Laas - Unscripted Creatives