The Netherlands

The mitigation hierarchy has been part of Dutch spatial planning and environmental laws since 1961 in regard to forests, with extensions to other nature conservation acts since the 1990s. Over the years these laws have changed, along with their interpretation and application. Consequently, the roles and responsibilities of the central and regional governments have also shifted, with responsibilities regarding the enforcement of the mitigation hierarchy being transferred from the national government to the twelve provinces. Since 2017, three nature conservation laws have been merged into a single Nature Conservation Act, with the aim of clarifying and simplifying regulations. In the years to come, the new Nature Conservation Act will be incorporated into an overarching Environment and Planning Act, together with dozens of other pieces of legislation related to spatial planning and the environment. In summary, while Dutch law takes account of no net loss and offset mechanisms, the plurality of designations and regulations applying to sites has proven confusing to both practitioners and regulators. This chapter outlines the main policy mechanisms related to the mitigation hierarchy in the Netherlands, the application thereof, as well as successes and failures as outlined in recent studies. Our particular focus is on biodiversity offsets, which have received much attention in recent years. We discuss the scale of application, the transparency and availability of documentation regarding offset projects, along with the various offsetting mechanisms currently in place (restoration offsets, in-lieu fees). We also briefly touch upon recent developments regarding a habitat banking system and generic metrics to measure no net loss.