French mitigation banking: a framework to assess ecological relevance of restoration projects

The implementation of French mitigation bank requires an approval (agrément SNC) delivered by state services through an instruction phase. However, the ecological expectations of state services need to be clarified. To assist stakeholders, we developed an assessment framework whose aim is to specify the useful criteria to justify/determine whether or not a mitigation bank project is ecologically relevant. In this context, we intended to answer the following question: regarding its ecological gains strategy and the site location, is the project suitable to achieve its ecological gains objectives? We define as ecologically relevant a mitigation bank project whose (1) ecological gains strategy is based on acceptable objectives, realistic and operational restauration, management and monitoring measures. This strategy must be (2) consistent with the intrinsic characteristics of the host site(s) and the (3) landscape context in which the project takes place. (4) The respect of the offset principles is ultimately the guiding line of any mitigation project. The different criteria identified through those four assessment components were organized under the form of a project reading grid on which we give more details.