Since Term 2 of the Biodiversity Partnership started in 2006, there has been progress towards ‘embedding biodiversity in BAT’. Publication in November 2006 of the Biodiversity Statement was an important milestone.

In it, BAT recognises its dependence on biodiversity and commits to assessing and mitigating its impacts. Various ‘tools’ such as biodiversity roadmaps and guidelines help to put these intentions into effect. Most importantly, it is BAT Policy that Operating Companies shall assess ‘any negative impacts due to company operations on the diversity of life and natural systems’. ‘Biodiversity Risk Assessment’ is at the core of BAT’s approach to managing its relationship with ecosystems. But how should companies ‘assess biodiversity risks’?

493 British American Tobacco employees from the Asia Pacific (ASPAC) region have applied to become employee fellows since 2001.

The necessity to reverse rainforest degradation and prevent further loss makes it essential to both restore degraded areas of forest in a manner which allows biodiversity and ecosystem function to be maintained, and to assess the likely resilience of the rainforest system and its key components and hence mitigate the impacts of climate change. The British American Tobacco employee fellows joining this project in October 2008 will assist Earthwatch scientists in gathering data to tackle these pressing issues.

FFI with BATBP funding support assisted the Cebu Biodiversity Conservation Foundation (CBCF) in developing a wide-ranging, integrated biodiversity conservation programme in the Philippines.

This island is one of the world’s highest conservation priority areas in terms of both numbers of threatened endemic taxa and degrees of threat. The target area of the project has been the forests of Nug-as which have 13,500 people in 2,435 households living in them within karst (limestone) mountain landscape which produces 90% of commercial crops for the island.

The experiences and lessons learned form Best Practice Risk Assessments trialled in Indonesia and Uganda should be shared across the group.

The purpose of the tool is “to provide a simple method for assessing the threats of our business activities to biodiversity and ecosystems”. It should involve managers, employees and other stakeholders such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) local universities or local communities.