Habitat restoration

Mitigation banking is the restoration, enhancement, creation, and in exceptional circumstances, preservation of wetlands or other aquatic habitats to provide compensatory mitigation in advance of authorized impacts to these aquatic habitats, i.e. you can improve wetlands now to balance out any damage to wetlands you may do later.



The Service is part of a multiagency team in South Florida that ensures ensure mitigation banks are successful and provide a full suite of wetland values. Currently, the Service is involved in the planning, construction, and operation of approximately 30 wetland mitigation banks in South Florida. These range in size from 200 to 13,000 acres, and are designed in part to support the enhancement and protection of larger tracts of wetlands than would normally be associated with mitigation for development. Banks are often sited adjacent to publicly held natural areas, increasing the expanse of protected lands. The strategic location of mitigation banks benefits wide-ranging wildlife species, such as the Florida panther, by providing natural corridors between environmentally sensitive areas.



Mitigation banks have the potential to complement the recovery of many of Florida’s threatened and endangered species through habitat restoration, and the restoration and maintenance of the biodiversity of native plants and animals. Incentive may be provided to mitigation banking applicants for designing banks which would meet elements of a recovery plan for a particular listed species, or which could ultimately increase a species' population.

Facilities

Green sea turtle hatchling in the sand
Serving Florida by conserving our most imperiled species and working with others to conserve plants, fish, and wildlife.

Contact

Image
Grayscale U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service logo
Division Manager, Conservation Delivery
Ecological Services
Additional Role(s)
Supervisory biologist
Expertise
At-risk species and habitat conservation.,
Working with federal, state and local government and private landowners.
Area
FL

Programs

A rocky shoreline of a river. The water is calm. Mist and green branches line the river.
The Ecological Services Program works to restore and protect healthy populations of fish, wildlife, and plants and the environments upon which they depend. Using the best available science, we work with federal, state, Tribal, local, and non-profit stakeholders, as well as private land owners, to...