Conservation Leadership NetworkUpcoming Courses
The 2023 course offering is a comprehensive course about compensatory mitigation program and includes content from former courses: Conservation Banking Training Course and Training Course for Mitigation Banking & In-Lieu Fee (ILF) Program Interagency Review Teams (IRTs)
Compensatory mitigation is a tool to conserve both aquatic resources (wetlands, streams, and riparian areas) as permitted by the Clean Water Act (404 regulation) and endangered, threatened, and other at-risk species and their habitat as permitted by the Endangered Species Act. Other benefits include:
- Regulatory efficiencies for agencies, industry, project proponents, bank sponsors, and credit buyers
- Increased transparency and predictability through advance planning at a landscape level
- Greater economic incentives for conserving species that result in effective and sustainable conservation outcomes
This course is designed to foster collaboration among regulators, compensatory mitigation sponsors, and users (buyers of credits) -- ensuring that all entities have a thorough grounding in compensatory mitigation policy in order to facilitate the establishment of compensatory mitigation programs on the ground. In addition to addressing core elements of compensatory mitigation instrument establishment and implementation, this advanced course also covers in-lieu fee programs and other credit trading systems and concepts.
Course Objectives
- Provide a thorough grounding in the relevant federal policy and regulations guiding the review, establishment, and operation of compensatory mitigation programs
- Enable participants to identify the need for and opportunities associated with compensatory mitigation programs including economic benefits of third party compensatory offsets from both a banker's and user's perspective
- Provide practitioners and reviewers expertise on how compensatory mitigation programs are effectively and efficiently reviewed and overseen in both their establishment and operation
- Provide leadership and team building skills necessary to be an effective member of a compensatory mitigation partnership and, for agency staff, an effective member of a Mitigation Review Team
Target Audience
A pre-determined number of slots are available to representatives of partnering agencies including: US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), USDA Office of Environmental Markets (OEM), Department of Defense (DOD), US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), as well as representatives from state agency counterparts and other mitigation partners (by application, see below).How To Register
Federal Agency Representatives:Those interested in attending should contact their agency POC (see list below) ASAP as slots are limited. POCs will fill their agency's slots from among the requests received then submit their list of participants to course organizers by April 15th.
Federal Agency Points of Contact:
- BLM: Deblyn Mead (dmead@blm.gov)
- DOD: Ryan Ornforff (ryan.b.orndorff.civ@mail.mil)
- EPA: Palmer Hough (hough_palmer@epa.gov)
- FHWA/DOT: Richard Darden (richard.darden@dot.gov) *state DOTs should use the application form below
- FWS: Jason Miller (jason_miller@fws.gov)
- NMFS: Angela Somma (angela.somma@noaa.gov)
- USACE *please use the application form below
- USDA: Chris Hartley (chartley@oce.usda.gov)
State Agency Representatives and Other Mitigation Partners:
Representatives from state agencies and other mitigation partner organizations (e.g., NGOs) are also welcome to apply to attend this course. Preference will be given to applicants that participate in the compensatory mitigation process either as a regulator or credit user. The application deadline is Friday, April 15th. CLICK HERE TO APPLY.
