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The Endangered Species Act Compensatory Mitigation Policy is a comprehensive policy that will implement recent Department of the Interior mitigation policies that necessitate a shift from project-by-project to landscape-scale approaches to planning and implementing compensatory mitigation. The policy is also needed to improve consistency in the use of compensatory mitigation as recommended or required under the Endangered Species Act to offset unavoidable adverse impacts to listed species and species at risk of being listed as threatened or endangered in the foreseeable future.  The policy would cover permittee-responsible mitigation, conservation banking, in-lieu fee programs, and other third-party mitigation mechanisms, and would stress the need to hold all compensatory mitigation mechanisms to equivalent and effective standards.