A visitor to a conservation bank will find no ATMs or lines at a teller counter. These banks contain wildlife habitat being permanently protected and restored, thanks to an innovative concept that's catching on widely in California.
Conservation banking enables landowners and developers to satisfy their legal requirements to mitigate for causing environmental impacts on land elsewhere by helping to preserve other parcels with natural resource values like wildlife habitat or species present.
Instead of mitigating here and there on single-site parcels that don't offer especially significant resources values, landowners and developers can buy “credits” in choice habitat. Funds used to purchase the credits help pay for protecting and restoring the habitat. Credits can be “bundled” at sites recognized to be high priorities for regional conservation.
Conservation banks lessen adverse effects of development in areas experiencing rapid growth by creating permanent habitat preserves, and they provide property owners a financial return for conserving land rather than developing it.
New Catalogue
For the first time, the California Resources Agency and
Department of Fish and Game have compiled a report listing 39
conservation banks with land worth at least $40 million in 12
counties.
The report, “A Catalogue of Conservation Banks in California: Innovative Tools for Natural Resource Management,” is available from the Resources Agency (916-653-5656) or on-line through the California Environmental Resources Evaluation System at http://ceres.ca.gov
Three conservation banks are located in Northern California, 10 in Central California (including six in metropolitan Sacramento), and 26 in Southern California (including 20 in San Diego County, three in Kern County).
“Conservation banking is a highly promising new tool for effective resource management,” Secretary for Resources Doug Wheeler said. “It uses the forces of the marketplace to fund and promote sound, regional habitat conservation and biodiversity. It's a way to pursue environmental and economic objectives concurrently.”
What Banks Do
Under a 1995 Wilson administration policy, conservation
banks are specifically encouraged in areas where they support
continuing regional habitat conservation strategies.
For instance, in San Diego County, the Boys and Girls Clubs of East County Foundation is helping finance its youth programs by creating the San Vicente Conservation Bank, a 1,500-acre cattle ranch, which will be a wildlife preserve consistent with the region's Multiple Species Conservation Program, which is part of the state's Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) program.
In western Placer County, a private entrepreneur has created Wildlands, Inc., a 315-acre preserve of wetland and riparian habitat established through the sale of credits for the mitigation of Sacramento area developmental projects.
The 260-acre Carlsbad Highlands Conservation Bank created last year by the Bank of America has sold all available credits. The preserve created by the conservation bank supports the Carlsbad Habitat Management Plan, an element of NCCP.