Ecocide (wilful damage to the environment, ecosystems, biodiversity) should be internationally recognised as a crime of the greatest magnitude.
"It's difficult to even visit the mining areas, but we desperately need quantitative data and assessments of the environmental impact of jade mining," says Davis. "We can't overlook the human costs or the overall damage to the environment and biodiversity.
Invasive plants are non-native plants introduced to a specific area and have a tendency to spread causing harm to the native biodiversity with consequent damage to the human economy and/or human health [ 8].
In many regions, the introduction or altered abundance of ungulate herbivores (particularly Cervids) is considered damaging to the sustainability of biodiversity, primary productivity, stand regeneration or economic value of forests (Vázques 2002; Côté et al. 2004; Latham et al. 2005; Tremblay et al. 2007; Apollonio et al. 2010; Schumacher and Carson 2013).
And virtually unknown to most is the collateral damage to freshwater biodiversity arising from mismanaged watersheds and waterways.
In these scenarios, new pest problems arise or existing pests become more serious and cause significant damage to crops, biodiversity and landscape valued at billions of dollars per annum.
Furthermore, the increase in offset-led restoration multiplies the consequences of failure to restore, since the promise of effective restoration may increase the chance that damage to biodiversity is permitted.
There was still no clear strategy on coastal erosion, damage to biodiversity from warming rivers and lochs and the potential for disruption to telecommunications and digital infrastructure, despite those being raised by the committee nearly five years ago.
The scheme aims to ensure that when a development causes unavoidable damage to biodiversity, "new, bigger or better nature sites will be created".
There's already a requirement to compensate for unavoidable damage to biodiversity built into European regulations and English planning policy, but these rules are not rigorously enforced by the government.
