Biodiversity offsetting is a last-resort scheme to prevent biodiversity loss due to development.However, measuring biodiversity is a complex endeavour, even more so in hyperdiverse landscapes.With few South African scientists able to comprehensively measure biodiversity, assuming equivalence between sacrificial and offset areas would be problematic and potentially fatal.Caution is required as the erosion of our unique biodiversity is at stake.We advise that a panel of biome-specific experts and data modellers unite to provide tools for more accurate trade-offs, based on functional diversity.In the meantime, the value of focusing on landscape heterogeneity is highlighted.
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Crous et al. (2024) studied this question.
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