Biodiversity is declining worldwide, reaching already critical levels in some parts of the world.
The conservation status of many species and habitats is unfavourable in Finland, too. The
EU is committed to halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services
by 2020, and mitigation hierarchy is an integral part of the no net loss principle. It includes
steps to avoid, minimize, restore and compensate the negative impacts of human impacts on
biodiversity.
Currently only Natura 2000 regulation operationalizes the whole mitigation hierarchy in
Finland. Otherwise Finnish legislation does not comply with the mitigation hierarchy. In
principle the main environmental acts enable protection of species and habitats, but there
are gaps and other deficiencies in law. For example, there is no effective regulation on
finding and choosing the least biodiversity harming location for a project. Also, Finnish EIA
legislation lacks the requirement to assess possible compensatory (offset) measures. While the
requirement of ecological compensations is included only in Natura 2000 stipulations, regional
environmental authorities, ELY Centers have sometimes required compensatory measures in
permit conditions when it has granted derogations on species and habitat protection. More
frequent and consistent use of compensations would require either law amendments or
a guideline by the Ministry of Environment.