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Parmi les principaux écueils qui sont attribués à la séquence Éviter-Réduire-Compenser (ERC), sa hiérarchisation est souvent questionnée. Appliqué à l’échelle d’un projet, le triptyque concentrerait l’essentiel de l’action autour de la réduction et de la compensation, sans pour autant en attester l’efficacité. Afin de rééquilibrer la séquence ERC, les auteurs de cet article proposent de prendre du recul sur ses composantes spatiales et temporelles pour l’inscrire dans un processus plus large qui reposerait sur la connaissance du territoire et l’accompagnement des actions prévues.

Among the main issues attributed to the mitigation hierarchy (referred to herein as AMO sequence), its prioritization (avoidance first, then minimization and offset last) is often questioned. Applied at a project scale, the triptych might concentrate most of the action around minimization and offset without attesting to its effectiveness. As a result, avoidance measures are usually marginalized and offsets may be ephemeral and far from the no-net-loss objectives established in 2016 by the French law for the recovery of biodiversity, nature and landscapes. In order to rebalance the mitigation hierarchy, we propose to step back on the spatial and temporal aspects to include it in a broader process based on the knowledge of a territory and the support on the implemented actions. This KAMOA sequence (to Know - Avoid - Minimize- Offset- Accompany) suggests redistributing the undertaken efforts to better define the avoidance step and to make sure that the ecological impact of offsets are consistent within an ecocomplex. We will illustrate, through two examples, the way in which different actors in a territory (an offset operator and a project holder) can be involved in this approach and the benefits that they can expect from it.