​A mitigation bank is a wetland, stream, or other aquatic resource area that has been restored, established, enhanced, or in certain circumstances preserved for the purpose of providing compensation for unavoidable impacts to aquatic resources permitted under Section 404 or a similar state or local wetland regulation.

A mitigation bank may be created when a government agency, corporation, nonprofit organization, or other entity undertakes these activities under a formal agreement with a regulatory agency. Mitigation banks have four distinct components:
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• The Bank Site: the physical acreage restored, established, enhanced, or preserved;
• The Bank Instrument: the formal agreement between the bank owners and regulators establishing liability, performance standards, management and monitoring requirements, and the terms of bank credit approval;
• The Interagency Review Team: the inter-agency team that provides regulatory review, approval, and oversight of the bank; and
• The Service Area: the geographic area in which permitted impacts can be compensated for at a given bank.

The value of a bank is defined in "compensatory mitigation credits." A bank's instrument identifies the number of credits available for sale and requires the use of ecological assessment techniques to certify that those credits provide the required ecological functions. Although most mitigation banks are designed to compensate only for impacts to various wetland types, some banks have been developed to compensate specifically for impacts to streams (i.e., stream mitigation banks).

Mitigation banks are a form of "third-party" compensatory mitigation, in which the responsibility for compensatory mitigation implementation and success is assumed by a party other than the permittee. This transfer of liability has been a very attractive feature for Section 404 permit-holders, who would otherwise be responsible for the design, construction, monitoring, ecological success, and long-term protection of the site.

Mitigation banking has a number of advantages over traditional permittee-responsible compensatory mitigation because of the ability of mitigation banking programs to:

• Reduce uncertainty over whether the compensatory mitigation will be successful in offsetting project impacts;
• Assemble and apply extensive financial resources, planning, and scientific expertise not always available to many permittee-responsible compensatory mitigation proposals;
• Reduce permit processing times and provide more cost-effective compensatory mitigation opportunities; and
• Enable the efficient use of limited agency resources in the review and compliance monitoring of compensatory mitigation projects because of consolidation.

Knowledge Credit: 

• www.epa.gov/cwa-404/mitigation-banking-factsheet 
• http://www.nab.usace.army.mil/Missions/RegulatoryA/Mitigation/

To think like a mountain is to have a complete appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of the elements in the ecosystems. It is an ecological exercise using the intricate web of the natural environment rather than thinking as an isolated individual. 

This term coined by Aldo Leopold in his book A Sand County Almanac. In the section entitled "Sketches Here and There" Leopold discusses the thought process as a holistic view on where one stands in the entire ecosystem. To think like a mountain means to have a complete appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of the elements in the ecosystems. It is an ecological exercise using the intricate web of the natural environment rather than thinking as an isolated individual.

Aldo Leopold first came up with this term as a result of watching a wolf die off. In those days of Leopold’s adventures, no one would ever pass up killing a wolf because fewer wolves meant more deer, which meant great hunting experiences. However, when Leopold saw the “fierce green fire dying in her eyes” he knew that neither the mountain nor the wolf deserved this. Leopold stated in his book, A Sand County Almanac:

​"Since then, I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn … In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers … So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the change. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea".

In this example Leopold shows that the removal of a single species can result in serious negative consequences in an ecosystem. While trophic cascades is one way to think like a mountain, there are countless other environmental actions that can be categorized under this broad and interconnected concept.

What do you think about  the holistic view of the entire ecosystem? Share your thoughts.


Knowledge Credits:
https://faculty.ithaca.edu/mismith/docs/environmental/leopold.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_like_a_mountain