EnviroAtlas Use Cases
Assessing Ecosystem Markets Opportunities on Public and Private Lands: New Tools and Data for Decision-Making
By Forest Trends, Ecosystem MarketplaceWASHINGTON, DC (15 November 2017) — Since 2014, Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace has partnered with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of Environmental Markets to expand access to tools and data on ecosystem market mechanisms in the United States. The partnership aims to support policy-makers, natural resource managers, and private entrepreneurs in their decision-making on conservation investments and ecosystem market opportunities.
An early goal of the partnership was to make high-quality spatial data on ecosystem markets projects and activities freely available through EPA’s EnviroAtlas web-based mapping platform.
Now, we are pleased to share a new analysis that harnesses EnviroAtlas tools and data to answer real-world questions about ecosystem markets development.
In the first use case, we investigate opportunities to access markets for wetland compensatory mitigation to help the US Forest Service achieve its goals for collaborative all-lands restoration and acquisition of inholdings adjacent to and within in the Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests in South Carolina.
In the second case, Magnolia Land Partners, an environmental offsets developer, uses EnviroAtlas data to evaluate potential sites in Illinois for a wetland mitigation bank that will provide credits specifically for agricultural producers under USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service banking program for conservation compliance.
- Download the first use case: Assessing the compatibility of wetlands compensatory mitigation of lands prioritized for protection adjacent to Forest Service-owned lands
- Download the second use case: Evaluating sites for an agricultural wetlands mitigation bank in Illinois
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An Atlas of Ecosystem Markets in the United States
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