In recent years, many countries have adopted biodiversity offset policies to internalize the ecological impacts of land developments. Although national policies share the general principle of equalizing ecological harm with gain, there is substantial variation across programs regarding the institutional forms governing offsetting. In this paper, we compare biodiversity governance in the United States and France to reflect more broadly on the factors shaping divergent trajectories of green developmental policies. Both countries have some form of biodiversity offsetting in place, but the major fault line of difference is the more extensive use of market‐based instruments (MBI) in the United States. Using a historical lens, we argue that one important reason for this variation lies in the different legal‐institutional definitions of biodiversity. A narrower definition in the United States focused on individual species, versus a broader definition in France focused on ecosystems, has facilitated a more standardized biodiversity governance arrangement in the United States. Leveraging this standardization, biodiversity markets have expanded in the United States while similar efforts to institutionalize market mechanisms have struggled in France. The comparison allows us to draw insights into the challenges in greening economic development, particularly in showing how historical scientific, legal, and institutional structures condition policy outcomes.

中文翻译：

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绿色发展政策的历史基础：美国和法国的不同轨迹


近年来，许多国家都采取了生物多样性抵消政策，将土地开发的生态影响内部化。尽管国家政策遵循生态危害与收益均等的一般原则，但不同计划在管理抵消的制度形式方面存在很大差异。在本文中，我们比较了美国和法国的生物多样性治理，以更广泛地反映塑造绿色发展政策不同轨迹的因素。这两个国家都实施了某种形式的生物多样性抵消，但主要的差异是美国更广泛地使用基于市场的工具 （MBI）。从历史的角度来看，我们认为这种差异的一个重要原因在于生物多样性的法律-制度定义不同。与法国侧重于生态系统的广义定义相比，美国侧重于单个物种的较窄定义，这促进了美国更加标准化的生物多样性治理安排。利用这种标准化，生物多样性市场在美国得到了扩展，而法国则为市场机制制度化做出了类似的努力。这种比较使我们能够深入了解绿色经济发展所面临的挑战，特别是展示历史科学、法律和制度结构如何制约政策结果。