Ducks Unlimited is an accredited land trust with a bio-engineering staff skilled at implementing wetland restoration projects in even the most complex regulatory settings. When landowners, developers, or agencies plan projects that impact wetlands, streams, or aquatic resources, they’re required to offset those impacts through compensatory mitigation. In simple terms, this means creating or protecting new wetlands to make up for what’s lost, ensuring both regulatory compliance and meaningful conservation benefits. Ducks Unlimited helps clients navigate this process, secure credits, and restore critical habitats nationwide.
Compensatory mitigation means restoring, enhancing, or creating wetlands and other aquatic resources to offset unavoidable impacts from development or infrastructure projects. This ensures that when negative impacts affect our natural resources, new healthy wetlands are created or protected, so communities and wildlife continue to benefit.
In the U.S., compensatory mitigation is required by federal and state laws, such as Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, to achieve “no net loss” of wetlands. Ducks Unlimited offers trusted mitigation banking, in-lieu fee programs, and permittee-responsible solutions to help clients meet these requirements and keep projects moving forward.
With a legacy of wetlands conservation since 1937, Ducks Unlimited provides proven compensatory mitigation solutions that help project sponsors and developers meet federal, state, and local requirements, while investing in high-priority habitat restoration.
Our mitigation options include:
Pre-approved banks with available credits that offset impacts before they occur, streamlining permitting and reducing risk.
Programs where permittees pay a fee to transfer their mitigation obligation to DU, which then delivers approved restoration projects.
For unique projects where credits are unavailable, DU plans, implements, and monitors custom site-specific offsets.
DU also provides conservation banking for species, migratory bird offsets, and other measures required under environmental policies like EO 11990 and NEPA.
Ducks Unlimited’s mitigation services don’t just help you check a regulatory box — they help you deliver real conservation outcomes while keeping your project moving forward. Benefits include:
Since 1937, Ducks Unlimited has restored, enhanced, and protected tens of millions of acres of wetlands and associated habitats across North America. As the world’s largest nonprofit dedicated to wetlands conservation, DU stands apart through:
Decades of bioengineering, science, and restoration success in diverse landscapes.
Strong working relationships with federal and state regulators to help projects stay compliant.
Revenue from mitigation projects is reinvested in high-priority conservation, benefiting wetlands, waterfowl, and local communities.
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Compensatory mitigation restores, enhances, or creates wetlands to offset unavoidable development impacts, ensuring no net loss of vital habitats and helping communities and wildlife continue to thrive, all in compliance with federal and state regulations like the Clean Water Act.
These services are typically required by individuals, companies, or organizations involved in development activities that impact wetlands, streams, or other aquatic resources, such as land developers and builders, energy companies, state and federal agencies, transportation, real estate and investment firms, and more.
DU is continually expanding our popular mitigation services, often in areas overlapping our conservation mission priorities. Please check out the latest mitigation service area map, showing existing and planned mitigation program locations.
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