Environmental mitigation

Environmental mitigation refers to the process by which measures to avoid, minimise, or compensate for adverse impacts on the environment are applied.

For example, it may be defined as the process by which measures to avoid, minimise, or compensate for adverse impacts on the environment are applied.

[18][19] This is debated and the role of aims like NNL and tools like biodiversity offsetting to achieve or undermine conservation goals is disputed.

[22] The Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act in 1934 included the first legal expressions of the duty to minimise and compensate for negative environmental impacts.

[33][34] The act was a response to the impacts of rapid urban expansion and dam building in the US on salmon and other migratory fish.

[33][34] These efforts were later expanded on with the introduction of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and with other regulations that require compensatory mitigation for some projects.

Compensatory mitigation is defined by the US Department of Agriculture as "measures to restore, create, enhance, and preserve wetlands to offset unavoidable adverse impacts.

Developers can purchase credits from mitigation banks to offset the "debit" of negative environmental impacts with the aim of achieving no net loss of wetlands.

"[7] It is put forward as the final step of the mitigation hierarchy and regulations require that it is applied only after measures to avoid or reduce impacts.

[42] Debits arise where significant adverse environment impacts (such as degradation of a habitat or damage to a natural resource) are planned at a permitted site.

[47] As part of this system, credits are purchased from mitigation banks by anyone who incurs a debit from impacts to wetlands and other aquatic habitats that cannot otherwise be avoided or reduced.

[54] The principle of quantifying biodiversity value by using credit and debit units is debated, with some people considering it an impossible task or reject the idea for ethical reasons.

[43] For example, coverage ratios of 3:1 would require 3 compensatory mitigation credits for each unit of "debit" caused by an ecological disturbance.