Comments on FWS's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Concerning Compensatory Mitigation Mechanisms

Abstract

Mitigation means steps taken to avoid, minimize, or offset the impacts of human activities on the biodiversity world. Strong mitigation helps conserve existing natural resources and recover degraded ones, and federal agencies have wide authority to require activities which they carry out or provide permits for - such as development - properly apply mitigation. Conservation banking is a special type of compensatory mitigation. Conservation banks purchase and manage habitat, then sell ‘credits’ supported by those lands. When projects cannot avoid or minimize all the impacts of their actions, they may be required (or volunteer) to buy these ‘credits’ to cover remaining losses. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 required the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop uniform regulations on conservation banking for the Endangered Species Act. CCI led the comment for Defenders, supporting the development of comprehensive regulations, and making recommendations as to how those regulations could best conserve threatened and endangered species.