Kennecott Utah Copper mine, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto Plc, is North America’s largest copper mine. During the mid-1990s the company needed to acquire land to store mining waste. The company purchased an area adjacent to its mining operations along the south shore of the Great Salt Lake. However, this property contained designated wetland habitat and Kennecott was, therefore, required by law to offset the loss by creating of an agreed number of “habitat units”. A wetland mitigation plan was developed that identified nesting and migratory shorebirds and waterfowl as the primary focus. Although the plan called for an offset of 426 ha of wetlands, Kennecott decided on a larger voluntary offset, aiming to enhance and restore a landscape which would be more likely to succeed in conservation terms and initially identified and purchased 1,010 ha suitable for wetlands mitigation which officially became known as the Inland Sea Shorebird Reserve (ISSR). A five-year monitoring programme indicates that wildlife values have increased substantially, with a 1,000-fold increase in bird use over the baseline numbers for the same site. In 1997 the site was expanded from 1,010 ha to more than 1,450 ha and four ponds were added. In the long-term, the company plans to hand the site over to National Audubon to become part of its large bird reserve and eight-mile contiguous shoreline habitat.

Adapted from: ten Kate, K., Bishop, J., and Bayon, R. 2004. Biodiversity offsets: Views, experience, and the