COMPENSATION OF UNMITIGATED IMPACT 



Even with the most successful habitat restoration and other mitigation, 

 a certain amount of adverse wildlife impact would be unavoidable should the 

 project be built (see discussion on adverse impacts which cannot be avoided, 

 p. 107). In the words of Pengelly (1973), mitigation implies an admission 

 that "some loss will occur and that you will try to do as little harm as 

 possible. Unfortunately for wildlife, this is a decision that is being 

 increasingly made with inevitable long-term results -- a one-way attrition." 

 However, unmitigated wildlife losses need not -- and should not -- be written 

 off as an unavoidable cost of development. Loss or degredation of wildlife or 

 habitats, which are public resources, may be considered to be part of the cost 

 of development, and there is no reason the public should be required to bear 

 this cost any more than the public should bear more direct costs such as cost 

 of materials and labor. Compensation of development-related losses of private 

 property is standard practice, and compensation of losses of public resources -- 

 such as wildlife -- is no less valid. The legal framework for compensation of 

 unavoidable impact is provided at the national level by NEPA, which requires 

 federal agencies to consider the following means by which developer would 

 ultimately bear all project-related costs (including losses of public resources): 



a) Avoiding the impact altogether by not taking a certain action 

 or parts of an action. 



b) Minimizing impacts by limiting the degree or magnitude of the 

 action and its implementation. 



c) Rectifying the impact by repairing, rehabilitating or restoring 

 the affected environment. 



d) Reducing or eliminating the impact over time by preservation and 

 maintenance operations during the life of th-? action. 



e) Compensating for the impact by replacing or providing substi- 

 tute resources or environments. 



It will be noted that (a), (b), and (c) above deal with mitigation of impact as 

 defined earlier, while (d) and (e) deal with compensation o-*" Impact. Cost- 

 effectiveness should be an important consider6':ion in determining tiie optimal 

 strategy for dealing with project-related losses; in some cases, compensation 

 or related strategies may yield greater and more cost-effective benefits than 

 mitigation alone (Thompson 1979). Two possible strategies for compensating 

 unmitigated impact are described below; the conceptual basis for these strategies 

 is presented in Appendix 6. 



Compensation by Enhancement 



Unmitigated short-term losses could be compensated by enhancement management, 

 either on-site or off-site. Compensation by enhancement involves management to 



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