What is the ES index?
Ecological credits are carbon credits which offer significant additional environmental benefits. Projects seeking to be identified as generating ecological credits area assessed against water quality, biuodiversity and land systems protection criteria, and these are summarized in the Ecological Services (ES) index. For example a biodiverse forest offers significantly more to native plant and animal populations than a monoculture planting, and a biodiverse forest that links other areas of remnant vegetation offers significantly more than an isolated remnant. Likewise plantings which abut significant waterways will protect aquatic wildlife more than those which are found on hillsides. The ecological credit index seeks to simply clarify the range of services offered by projects which restore locally indigenous vegetation.
