Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Habitat Crediting Programs for Conserving At-Risk Species

Abstract

Conservation across jurisdictional boundaries can help achieve recovery goals for species at risk, provide funding for conservation actions by private landowners, and reduce regulatory burdens. Habitat crediting programs, a type of offsite mitigation, are a relatively new form of cross-boundary conservation. To better understand the current status of these programs and their perceived strengths and shortcomings for species conservation, credit providers (e.g., private landowners), and credit purchasers (e.g., federal agencies), we surveyed the literature and online resources, and engaged with a small group of professionals who have been closely involved with habitat crediting programs. From these resources and interactions, we identified nine habitat crediting programs in the United States. Those engaged in these programs suggest that the programs may provide regulatory relief, a positive return on investment for participants, and benefits to species conservation in some contexts. However, economic and institutional challenges include up-front costs of participation and divergent preferences for short-term or permanent contracts. Furthermore, programs tend to measure ecological success by monitoring habitat amount and condition rather than species' abundance, survival, and reproduction. As such, monitoring is not always sufficiently rigorous to assess ecological outcomes and account for environmental change. We suggest that habitat crediting programs hold promise for meeting multiple objectives for at-risk species, landowners, and developers, but their potential often is hampered by high transaction costs and a lack of the ecological information needed to evaluate success.