Wetland impacts from land development in Florida are regulated via state and federal environmental permitting programs. To permit unavoidable wetland impacts, the regulatory agencies require lost wetland functions to be made up or mitigated by creating or enhancing wetlands somewhere else. Historically, the entity impacting the wetlands did this mitigation on their own land.

But that led to small, fragmented mitigation sites surrounded by development. Also, there was no incentive, beyond permit compliance, to ensure the success of this wetland mitigation. As a result, this historical approach had a low success rate and was cumbersome to use.

Mitigation Banking