The report, which will be provided free to the public on Ecosystem Marketplace’s main page on March 5^th, expands on our initiative to track conservation banks (www.SpeciesBanking.com) along with active and developing biodiversity offset and compensation programs around the world.  The report represents a massive research effort, including: interviews and personal communication with over 60 key contacts around the world; outreach to over 60 US regulators; online research; and research of published articles and reports.

A sample of our research findings:

·         The global annual biodiversity market size is $1.8-$2.9 billion at minimum, and likely much more, as 80% of existing programs are not transparent enough to estimate their market size

·         39 existing compensatory mitigation programs around the world, ranging from programs with active mitigation banking of biodiversity credits to programs channeling development impact fees to policies that drive one-off offsets

·         Another 25 programs in various stages of development or investigation

·         Within each active offset program, there are numerous individual offset sites, including over 600 mitigation banks worldwide

·         Yearly sales volume of mitigation banking in the US is about $1.2-2.4 billion, representing the sale of ecosystem service credits from environmental restoration and preservation of habitat ranging from Florida panther habitat to coastal wetlands to California tiger salamander habitat

·         US wetland and species credit prices range from about $1,500 to $600,000

A press release for the report can be found here: http://www.katoombagroup.org/signups/sbmr/SBM_Press-Release.pdf.  Again, the final report will be released online Friday, March 5^th, on the Ecosystem Marketplace’s main page.