NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service today announced that the agency welcomes public comments through Monday, July 12 on its Draft Mitigation Policy for Trust Resources, which aims to improve conservation of NOAA-managed fish, wildlife, and cultural resources through more effective mitigation of impacts to them. Once adopted, the policy will be reviewed biennially in collaboration with other relevant NOAA offices.
The draft policy includes the following 8 principles to guide NOAA recommendations and decisions about mitigation:
- Apply the mitigation sequence appropriately
- Employ the best scientific information available
- Apply a holistic landscape and/or seascape approach
- Promote mitigation strategies that have a high probability of success
- Consider climate change and climate resilience when evaluating and developing mitigation measures
- Implement mitigation that is proportional to impacts to NOAA trust resources and fully offset those impacts
- Use preservation of intact habitat as compensation appropriately, taking into account the high risk of habitat loss in many rapidly developing coastal and marine landscapes and seascapes
- Collaborate with partner agencies and stakeholders
