New Biodiversity Credits Could Save At-Risk Grasslands in Târnava Mare
Lily Robinson, Harm Schoten, & Zsofia Toth
This article draws on a presentation by Max Bodmer and Nat Page, made to the Agriculture & Conservation Network in February 2025. It also features quotes from farmers, which have been translated into English. The farmers interviewed all asked to be identified by aliases. The first names used to identify farmers in this article are fabricated.
In early May, the World Resources Institute (WRI) published the article “Grasslands are Some of Earth’s Most Underrated Ecosystems.” It delves into the vast benefits grasslands provide, from storing 34 percent of the world’s terrestrial carbon to supporting pollinators, endangered and endemic species, and the livelihoods of over one billion people. However, grasslands are one of the world’s least protected habitats. Nearly half of all grasslands have already been converted from their natural state and more are lost to agricultural intensification and other development each day.
Such is the tale playing out in a region of Romania’s sub-Carpathian foothills. Here, one of lowland Europe’s last remaining high nature value (HNV) farmed landscapes is facing rapid conversion and degradation due to increasing economic pressure. But its story has the potential to play out differently. The landscape is the focus of a pilot project led by the conservation NGO Fundatia ADEPT Transilvania (ADEPT) and the mission-led project developer RePlanet. The pilot tailors biodiversity credits to work for groups that have previously been excluded from and undervalued by emerging nature markets.
Farmers carrying traditional farming into the 21st century protect Târnava Mare’s biodiversity
The Târnava Mare region of Transylvania, Romania, has been uniquely well-preserved thanks to generations of farmers who adopted and passed on traditional, low-intensity management techniques. Târnava Mare stretches across about 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of central Romania. One third of its area is characterized by HNV grassland, including about 10,000 hectares (24,000 acres) of species-rich hay meadows.
Small-scale land ownership—defined by farms of about 10 hectares (24.7 acres) or less—and traditional farming techniques create a mosaic landscape of grazing and haymaking that maintains soil carbon and supports exceptional biodiversity. In 2012, the study “Plant species richness: the world records” showed Târnava Mare had some of lowland Europe’s most flower-rich grasslands.
While intensive farming practices aim to reap the greatest short-term output from the land, often at the expense of sustainability and ecosystem benefits, traditional farming fosters long-term health in the landscape. The latter uses techniques that maximize biodiversity, including late mowing, rotational livestock grazing, the use of natural fertilizers, and manual weed control.
After joining the EU, the context for farming in Romania changed. Not all of it was positive.
Though traditional farming techniques have persisted through decades of challenges in Transylvania, their stewards face greater pressure each year. Particularly in the lead up to, and following, its accession into the EU, Romania’s agricultural sector underwent a transformation, marked by new access to international markets, an influx of large-scale farms, corresponding loss of small farms, and farmland abandonment.
According to RePlanet, more than 47 percent of farmland in Romania has now been bought up by large agrifood companies. As these companies look to expand, land prices rise about 10-15 percent each year.
“The threats to the area [Târnava Mare] are growing,” said ADEPT President Nat Page. “In 20 years, this very special part of Eastern Europe will become pretty much the same as Western Europe unless we do something very clever.”
For decades, the public, private, and non-governmental sectors have been attentive to biodiversity loss across Europe. But many of the tools and solutions that have been developed have had significant shortfalls, some even exacerbating biodiversity loss.
The EUs Common Agricultural Policy has unintended impacts on sustainable farming
This is particularly true for grasslands, which find themselves in competition with societies’ increasing demand for food production. The European Union’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) plays a significant role in the trajectory of farming and food production across Member States. The policy is designed to improve the viability of farming to protect food security in Europe. Environmental protections are baked into the policy, but due to poor design, some CAP payments incentivize more intensive practices, including expanding monocultures, and increasing the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and unrestricted grazing.
Thus, once permanent grasslands—typically defined in the EU as areas kept as grassland for five or more consecutive years—are ploughed for crops or opened to grazing, diminishing their biodiversity, releasing decades worth of stored carbon, and impairing the ability of the soil to retain new carbon.
Recently, CAP payments have also been reduced and criteria for receiving them has been modified such that they benefit fewer small-scale farmers. Eugen, a Târnava Mare farmer, said the payments were once “a great deal of help” for his farm, but that he no longer qualifies for them due to a requirement that cattle be kept off grassland until August 1. “What should [we] do with the animals until then?” he asked. He said his grass is already tall in early June and that it will be too old for the cattle to graze by August. Still, he maintains some of the practices he initially implemented to qualify for CAP payments because he likes seeing flowers mixed into the grassland landscape.
Two other farmers were disheartened by the changes. “The payments were an encouragement at first, but now they have failed,” said farmer Nicusor. “There are measures for which we were not paid. Conditions have become tougher.” Another farmer, Radu, once received both agri-environment payments and those associated with organic certification. Now he only qualifies for the latter. If those payments go as well, he said, “I will plough all my land and do whatever I want to get money.”
Biodiversity credit markets are a new frontier, but mete out rewards inequitably
Where government falls short, however, the private sector comes out to play. This is true in the development of nature markets as well. Biodiversity credits—akin to carbon credits but a beat behind in development and adoption—are an increasingly popular innovation. The mechanism measures trends in biodiversity and translates them into tradeable units meant to reward nature stewardship.
There is no single definition for, or design of, biodiversity credits. In fact, RePlanet’s Head of Nature-based Consultancy, Max Bodmer, said there are more than 50 existing methodologies for generating biodiversity credits. While the lack of a cohesive understanding of the tool poses challenges for their adoption, most schemes are in agreement over certain pillars. Bodmer said that mechanisms fall into one of three categories, rewarding either restoration, loss avoidance, or stewardship.
Furthermore, he looks for five markers of integrity in biodiversity credit design. These are for the mechanism (1) to be globally applicable, (2) to directly measure different elements of a project’s success, (3) to maximize data integrity, (4) for that data to be open access, and (5) for the scheme to be intuitive and easily understood.
A common flaw of biodiversity credit schemes is a tendency to favor restoration work over enduring long-term stewardship. This is because many schemes generate credits based on a measured difference in biodiversity on the same plot of land at two different points in time.
These methods put high value on restoration work done on severely degraded landscapes but make for a declining return on investment as the original status of the land improves. A family farm that has been carefully stewarded and managed using traditional techniques passed down through generations will already have high levels of biodiversity. Even if there is room for improvement, the margins will be small. Alternatively, a farmer who has mistreated their land for decades will start off with meager biodiversity and will reap the benefits of large beginner gains as they begin to implement sustainable practices.
Many small-scale farmers in Târnava Mare said they either had not heard of carbon credit schemes, or did not understand them well enough to implement on their land. Radu said he felt left out of those that existed. “I tried to contact, and contacted, carbon credit companies for certificates, but they only go for arable [land],” he said. “I felt that.”
Established trust between ADEPT and farmers is a critical element of the project
ADEPT is no newcomer swooping in to save the day. The organization has been embedded in conservation work in Transylvania for over 20 years. It has brought in numerous LIFE project grants for conservation and restoration projects and has successfully shaped policies in the region to better serve farmers and conservationists.
“In spite of this, we are still losing these precious grassland habitats,” said Page. “So, we are desperately looking for a more viable solution to this: how to reward farmers properly at a large scale over a long period and to measure the fact that they are doing it properly.”
ADEPT’s longtime commitment to the region has earned it the trust of many Transylvanian farmers. That will be an important piece of the puzzle come rollout. “I want to understand who I’d be signing a contract with,” said farmer Doru. He is not familiar with RePlanet but thinks highly of ADEPT. “If the payments came with very tough conditions, I might be reluctant. But if ADEPT is part of the process and can guarantee things, then it’s different. Still, I would need to clearly understand the terms before deciding.”
A new methodology seeks to create a universal methodology to reward stewardship and raise investor confidence
The ADEPT-RePlanet scheme uses the Wallacea Methodology. This strategy was developed by the conservation research organization Operation Wallacea, based on the measurement strategy used in the Retail Price Index (RPI) to compare inflation rates internationally. RPIs are highly context dependent, as each nation’s goods and services are different. What is important is not that each nation measures the same goods and services, but that the measurements of each country’s chosen economic indicators are comparable.
This translates well to biodiversity measurement. The health of different landscapes and habitat types are based on vastly different indicators. Butterflies are a strong indicator of health in grassland ecosystems, but measuring their presence in a coral reef ecosystem would be meaningless.
Thus, those seeking to earn income from biodiversity credits will need to propose a “basket” of at least five metrics that effectively demonstrate biodiversity in the landscape they are stewarding. The basket must then be approved by an expert panel. After that, one biodiversity credit is generated by each 1 percent uplift in biodiversity per hectare, as defined by these metrics.
The Târnava Mare pilot built its basket based on six metrics: the presence of breeding birds, herpetofauna, plants, butterflies, aboveground arthropods, and soil invertebrates. The resulting credits represent a universally applicable measure, making them clear and attractive to corporate investors. It also enables them to be packaged, marketed, and bundled with carbon credits.
However, the pilot goes one step further to address the lingering issue of rewarding enduring stewardship. To do so, it uses credits that test the avoidance of biodiversity loss. It uses the same basket of measurements, but instead of comparing a landscape to itself before and after intervention, it compares the managed land to a similar parcel that is not being stewarded. The difference in measures between the two properties after a designated amount of time will determine how many credits the stewarded land generates.
What the impact could look like
If successful, the work ADEPT and RePlanet are doing will create a replicable and transferable tool to make biodiversity credits accessible in diverse habitats around the world, significantly advancing existing nature markets. Proof of their efficacy will be tested in Târnava Mare, where the first carbon and biodiversity credits will be marketed under the scheme. About 115 small-scale farmers will receive direct payments for pledging to maintain and boost traditional biodiversity-friendly farming practices over a period of 25 years.
These payments will be significant. Laura Chirilă-Pașca, marketing and enterprise manager for ADEPT, said that payments for maintaining traditional hay meadows would be about 180 euros to 200 euros per hectare ($205-$228 USD), annually. Currently a farmer owning five cows, 15 sheep, and nine hectares of hay meadow can expect a net annual income of 3,150 euros ($3,400), which includes recently reduced CAP payments. Adding biodiversity credit funding would increase that income by over 50 percent to between 4,770 euros to 4,950 euros ($5,429-$5,634 USD). Payment rates will be linked to inflation.
Additionally, when a project backer sells a credit, 60 percent of its profit will go to the farmer who generated it. “These payments will be sufficient to alter farmers’ decisions and tilt the balance in favour of preserving the all-important traditional farming practices,” wrote Chirilă-Pașca.
Making payments worthwhile matters. Many farmers want to comply with sustainability recommendations, but they also need to survive. Radu said his participation will depend on the rules of the game. “As a father, I still have to take care of my wallet and to take care of my cows so they produce well for me because they are my workers. But I will do my upper best to find a way that I can balance this out.”
The project’s founders are confident in the scheme. “It’s not the one key, but it’s a very important element to saving these landscapes in the future,” said Page. “And I would say that it’s essential to get private funding in soon, to save these landscapes over a long 25-year period.”