Book Description

This document reports wetland mitigation banking experience to date. The Environmental Law Institute conducted an inventory of banks that supplemented information gathered as part of the National Wetlands Mitigation Banking Study conducted by the Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources (IWR). Additional information was gathered by IWR in a detailed study of selected banks. Wetland mitigation banking offers the potential for restoration and conservation of ecologically meaningful and robust wetland systems, planning on a landscape scale, and the harnessing of entrepreneurial as well as public funding to the task of wetland compensation. It provides practical advantages in monitoring and management of compensatory wetlands. Like other forms of compensatory mitigation, it presupposes a wetland policy that continues to allow the lawful destruction of certain natural wetlands. Its potential utility must be measured not in comparison with a ban on wetland conversions, but on whether it can improve upon current compensatory methods. It appears that it can.