Mitigation is an effective way to protect, restore or enhance significant wetlands and streams in Mississippi. Mitigation banks or lands are areas set aside permanently to provide compensation for wetlands and streams lost or disturbed during public and private development projects. Land developers or public agencies purchase credits from a mitigation bank. Credits are units of exchange that allow a bank operator to protect, restore or enhance wetlands and streams and the ecological functions they perform (protecting water quality, lessening floods, providing wildlife habitat) and manage them in perpetuity. Mitigation lands or banks allow operators to compensate for isolated or scattered wetland or stream losses at one larger site that has more ecological value than many smaller sites. Mitigation lands usually compensate for wetland or stream losses that occur in the same river basin where the habitats were destroyed or disturbed. Wildlife Mississippi s mitigation lands are in stream corridors, allowing us to contribute to the protection of at-risk aquatic and terrestrial species and habitats.

Wildlife Mississippi offers reasonably priced mitigation credits so businesses and industries can expand and offer more jobs in the state.

We call this initiative to establish a network of wetland mitigation lands across the state the Mississippi Strategic Wetland Acquisition and Management Program, or The Mississippi SWAMP. Today, Wildlife Mississippi owns and manages approximately 20,000 acres of mitigation lands.

View The Mississippi SWAMP website.

Wildlife Mississippi operates 12 wetland and streams mitigation banks across the state. Seven banks are approved and are offering credits to commercial entities or the Mississippi Department of Transportation; approval is pending on five other banks. Other sites have been established to satisfy wetland or stream compensation related to individual or specialized projects (permitee-responsible projects).

For more information on purchasing credits Wildlife Mississippi wetland mitigation banks, contact:

Steven Gruchy
Environmental Banking Coordinator
P.O. Box 187 Amory, MS 38821 Office: (662) 256-4486 Mobile: (662) 871-0713