Oil and gas exploration and production activities can have a wide range of impacts on biodiversity, both positive and negative. These impacts, which can be defined as changes in the quality and quantity of biodiversity in a physical environment, will vary in scale and significance, depending on the activities and environmental conditions involved. Impacts to biodiversity can be broadly divided into two types: primary and secondary (see Box 1). This document focuses on the specific challenge of negative secondary impacts, beginning with a discussion of how secondary impacts differ from primary impacts and then examining the difficulties of understanding and addressing the negative effects of secondary impacts.
