Scientific research on the mitigation hierarchy has steadily increased over the past few years at the international level. While some seek to improve the application of this public action instrument, others point out its shortcomings and risks. This opinion paper—which focuses on the French context—does not provide an exhaustive overview of existing research but instead targets specific issues considered to be a “priority”. We mainly investigate the relevance and implementation of the mitigation hierarchy, especially from an ecological point of view. Part of this paper thus questions the very principle of biodiversity offsetting (BO)—the last resort of the mitigation hierarchy that brings together numerous controversies—and the adequacy of the mitigation hierarchy with the objective of no net loss (NNL) of biodiversity. The general idea underlying this paper is to show how the mitigation hierarchy has been built and based on what values (mainly economic and legal, which leads us to conclude about the lack of ecology in the policy itself). In doing so, we provide a few perspectives as to what should be done to (better) integrate ecology into land use planning and development.

Dans cet article, nous revenons sur ce qui constitue le cœur de l’écologie scientifique, et montrons comment cette discipline peut enrichir les formations interdisciplinaires à plusieurs égards. L’écologie a longtemps eu tendance à laisser l’être humain en dehors de son champ d’étude. Or, au regard des crises que nous vivons actuellement, la perspective écologique a pris un tournant pour s’orienter vers des approches plus transversales. Nous verrons comment cette science de la rencontre (rencontre des disciplines, des courants de pensée, des valeurs, des rationalités…) et de la connaissance du sensible permet un changement de paradigme au travers de concepts clés, tels que les (socio-écosystèmes, la complexité, la dynamique, les interrelations ou encore les incertitudes. Les questionnements et savoirs issus de l’écologie scientifique ont donc vocation à favoriser une meilleure compréhension générale des fonctionnements des sociétés humaines imbriquées au sein des systèmes vivants.

The current strategy for biodiversity conservation is doomed. Based on a study of evidence-based summaries known as environmental impact assessment reports produced over the past 44 years, we suggest that biodiversity loss has not been halted because of a failure to accurately identify and assess the ecological effects of the drivers of change linked to land use planning. This failure is due to the poor representativeness of biological diversity in the practices of planners and the inadequate involvement of the ecologist community. Researchers in ecology could play a key role in improving the environmental considerations in project designs by focusing on preventive assessments instead of curative solutions.