A 'licence to trash'

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23502362

'Licence to trash' offsetting scheme set back until Autumn

There's slightly less of a whiff of BO down at the Department of the Environment these days.

Nothing to do with sweltering civil servants; this BO is the nose wrinkling acronym for biodiversity offsetting - a concept that has been criticised by some environmentalists as a licence to "trash" the countryside.

The government is very keen on the idea, the offsetting, that is, not the trashing.

But despite their interest, new proposals on offsetting have now been kicked into the autumnal long grass.

The idea of biodiversity offsetting works like this : Developers who want to build houses in environmentally sensitive areas would be allowed to go ahead with their schemes if they could offset any damage by paying for conservation activities in other locations.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) believes the idea can help grow the economy and improve the environment at the same time.

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