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  • Executive summary
  • Front Material
    • Contents
    • Index of figures
    • Index of tables
    • Acronyms and abbreviations
    • Terms and definitions
  • Getting started
  • Introduction
    • The urgency of targeted biodiversity conservation
    • Simplicity, complexity theory, and biodiversity
    • Inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities by design
    • Biodiversity methodology benefits
  • Overall description
    • Objectives
    • Scope
    • Limitations
  • Project description
    • Principles
      • Principles of working with IP
    • Eligibility criteria
      • Land ownership and law
    • Additionality
    • Project boundaries
      • Spatial limits of the BCP
      • Temporal limits of the BCP
      • Grouped projects
    • Implementation plan
      • Measurement approaches
      • Indicator species observations
      • Risks and uncertainty
    • Effective participation
      • Community involvement
      • Capacity for action
      • Financial transparency
      • Safeguards checklist
  • Calculation
    • Unit calculations
    • Area calculations
    • Time calculations
    • Integrity calculations
    • Value calculations
  • Baseline assessment
    • Baseline ecosystem categorization
    • Analysis of agents and drivers of biodiversity loss
    • Baseline biodiversity (optional)
    • Baseline risk of biodiversity loss
    • Indicator species selection
    • Indicator species integrity score
  • SDG contributions
  • Monitoring plan
    • Monitoring report
    • Additional monitoring requirements
  • Authors
  • References
  • Appendices
    • Appendix A: Biodiversity methodologies comparison table
    • Appendix B: Sample legal proof of land control
    • Appendix C: Sample baseline ecosystem categorization
    • Appendix D: Species categorization of richness
    • Appendix E: Sample selection of indicator species
    • Appendix F: Sample indicator-species observations
    • Appendix G: Sample open-source code and calculation
    • Appendix H: Indigenous authors
    • Appendix I: Letters of support
      • Fernando Ayerbe, Ornithology
      • Ned Hording, Biodiversity
      • Olber Llanos, Zoologist
      • Mike McColm, Ethnology
      • Peter Thomas, Anthropologist
      • Jesús Argente, Marine biology
      • Sara Andreotti, Marine Biologist
      • Carolina Romero, Lawyer.
      • Daniel Urbano, Herpetologist
      • Ramesh Boonratana PhD, Primatologist
      • Theodore Schmitt, Conservationists
      • Anja Hutschenreiter, Ecologist and Tropical Conservationist
      • Miguel Chindoy, Indigenous leader
    • Appendix J: Sample uses of biodiversity unit
    • Appendix K: How to do FPIC
    • Appendix L: Independent Expert Panel Checklist
    • Appendix M: How to calculate a biodiversity credit by hand
    • Appendix N: How to calculate home ranges
    • Appendix O: How to calculate integrity scores
  • Document history
  • Disclaimer
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Calculation

Calculating biodiversity credits under the indicator species biodiversity methodology

PreviousSafeguards checklistNextUnit calculations

Last updated 1 year ago

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The core of the methodology is this. We have a fungible, traceable, and culturally translatable metric for conserved biodiversity which is interoperable with other biodiversity metrics and methodologies.

A VBC under the ISBM represents 30 days of 1 hectare of a protected ecosystem with a value corresponding to the baseline (normalized to ). The protection of the ecosystem is determined by the presence of a qualified and its . Which if <1.0, may result in fractional crediting.

Here is an example site, with one year of data showing an interactive view of this methodology. Following, we will explain the sequential steps required to arrive at this view.

Figure 7. Biodiversity credits appearing and disappearing over time with different species observations.

Here we explain the theory and the logic of the computer code but recommend BCPs use automated calculations from a vetted source.

The calculations are devised to avoid double-crediting under a simplified methodology that does not identify individual species. Any specific hectare of land can only be counted only once at any given time, and cannot achieve a value greater than 1.0, nor will it achieve full crediting if the indicator species found there does not merit it.

It should be noted that calculations are simple in theory, and relatively complex in execution. The complexity has been offloaded to in order to make the observation points required at a project level simpler.

However, all calculations can be easily automated, and open-source code for this is available while manual calculations are demonstrated in .

open-source computer code
Appendix G
Appendix M
ecosystem value
four levels
indicator species
integrity score
Page cover image