The Real-Estate CRUNCH - habitat protection may actually harm certain species

Animals, Sept, 2000 by Joni Praded

Meanwhile, a state harboring some of the nation's most expensive real estate and anticipating substantial population and economic growth had been looking for a way to merge the disparate interests of the land-rights and conservation communities. The state legislature passed the Natural Community Conservation Planning Act of 1991 (NCCP)--a measure that aims to provide for regional biodiversty protection "while allowing compatible and appropriate development and growth." Unlike the ESA, the NCCP focuses on crafting conservation agreements that cover many species and many landowners over a long period of time. And unlike the ESA, it is voluntary.

The small songbird that had become the country's most noted casualty of urban sprawl became the NCCP's pilot project, and planning to create protected areas got under way. But according to a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report, relatively few acres were in fact enrolled in conservation plans, and development on unenrolled lands continued full-force: "In Orange and San Diego counties alone, over 7,600 acres of coastal sage scrub were razed during the program's inaugural years, hardly a mark off the preceding period"--with most of the clearing done where the gnatcatcher usually nests.

Fearing a spotted-owl-like standoff and responding to a property-rights lobby that was already calling for Congress to weaken the ESA, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt responded with something that would characterize his tenure: compromise. The bird was listed in 1993, but as threatened, not as endangered. And with the listing came a special rule that allowed the recovery efforts to be managed by California's NCCP process--similar to the HCP process.

A grand experiment ensued, and it influenced the handling of all subsequent endangered-species issues. But warns NRDC senior attorney Joel Reynolds, "The truth is, we're not going to know if it's a success or failure in a true sense for 100 years or more."

What the HCP and the NCCP processes boil down to, say Reynolds and others, is a leap of faith. And it's a leap made much more frightening by a "no-surprises" clause that was added to HCP language in 1994 to further appease the concerns of private landowners. Essentially, the clause assures anyone entering into an HCP-type agreement that no additional funds or land will be required of them even if situations change drastically or plans fail--except in extraordinary circumstances.

"These no-surprises clauses have been implemented in more than 250 conservation plans since the administration came in," reports Leona Klippstein, conservation programs director for the southern California-based Spirit of the Sage Council. According to Klippstein, "Back when the HCP amendment was made, there was a big problem with the environmental groups in Washington not understanding its potential. What it essentially did was gut the Endangered Species Act."

Recently a federal judge declared several high-profile HCPs in Alabama illegal. The case involved the critically endangered Alabama beach mouse. The USFWS had issued incidental-take permits for large-scale beachfront developments that would destroy the little occupied habitat the erosion-controlling mouse still maintains.