Application of the Next Generation of Mitigation to Oil & Gas Development

摘要

In the intensive natural gas development areas of south/ central Wyoming, The Nature Conservancy worked with the Bureau of Land Management and the British Petroleum Company to employ new strategies for mitigation for oil and gas development. Using regional biological assessments from its ecoregionai planning the Conservancy first advised BP about the best locations to mitigate the impacts on important sage brush habitat of its exploration activities and, then, used the same ecoregionai data to advise BP and the BLM about the most important places to avoid the direct impacts of drilling. This approach incorporates both more rigorous use of the mitigation protocol and viewing mitigation in a regional planning context to minimize and compensate for ecological impacts.