| |||||||||||||||||||
|  |
Regional Habitat Conservation Plans: the California experienceorganized by David Zippin (Jones & Stokes) and Laura Watchman (Defenders of Wildlife)LAURA HOOD WATCHMAN, Defenders of Wildlife, Washington, D.C., USA, lwatchman@defenders.org Habitat conservation plans (HCPs) have become an important tool in the United States for balancing development and conservation of endangered species habitat. In regional HCPs, local governments allow some development of endangered species habitat in exchange for conserving most endangered species within the jurisdiction. As HCPs have moved into implementation, a variety of issues arise, which generally fall into two categories: (1) compliance and (2) biological effectiveness. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency that approves and enforces most HCPs, has limited capacity to monitor implementation. Lack of compliance has generally not been a problem, but biological effectiveness can often be compromised by issues that arise during implementation. Also, while compliance is relatively straightforward to determine, determining and ensuring the biological effectiveness of HCPs requires expensive long-term monitoring of habitat and individual species, as well as adaptive management that is tied to monitoring. The biological effectiveness of some HCPs will never be known because of the lack of biological monitoring. Whether an HCP fulfills its biological goals is affected by multiple factors, including adequacy of funding for acquisition, land availability for preserve acquisition, threats to habitat on preserve lands, and status, trends, and threats for the species overall. AN OVERVIEW OF REGIONAL HABITAT CONSERVATION PLANS IN CALIFORNIA: STATUS AND TRENDS VICKI CAMPBELL, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sacramento, CA, USA, vicki_campbell@fws.gov In California in the early 1980s, federal, state, and local governments and stakeholders developed an innovative approach to the conflict between the conversion of natural landscapes for development and infrastructure, and endangered species conservation. This approach to the conflict was the habitat conservation plan. In 1982, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was amended, using the California experience as the example, to allow non-federal entities to take endangered species and provide for their conservation. California continues to lead the nation in advancing habitat conservation planning, including developing the current concept of regional plans. Regional habitat conservation plans usually include multiple species, multiple jurisdictions, and are framed by political, topographical, or ecological boundaries. Implementation of regional plans is showing us that the complexity and level of detail in a plan influences its success over time. Protecting functional ecosystems, providing adequate funding, identifying and monitoring key elements, and the capability of a plan to change over time through adaptive management have proven to be important and challenging issues when implementing and developing regional plans. The success of future plans lie with our ability to predict ecological and economic changes into the future, and our willingness to learn from past lessons. MANAGEMENT OF THE WORKING LANDSCAPE BARTON THOMPSON, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, buzzt@law.stanford.edu Management of farms and ranches—the “working landscape”—will be critical to effective protection of biodiversity in California, as well as elsewhere in the nation. Although some species survive only in their natural habitat, many can be protected through a combination of natural habitat and well managed farm and ranch land. Historically, however, regional habitat conservation plans in California and elsewhere have focused on the creation of large land reserves, rather than management of working lands, and indeed farmers and ranchers often have refused to take part in such regional HCPs. Some recent regional habitat conservation plans, such as the Natomas Basin HCP, finally have begun to integrate management of the working landscape into their strategies. This presentation will examine why regional HCPs have historically not involved management of the working landscape, as well as ways in which HCPs might take greater advantage of the working landscape. It also will consider the important role that safe harbor agreements and candidate conservation agreements can play in encouraging farmers and ranchers to participate in biodiversity protection. DEVELOPING LONG-TERM AND LARGE-SCALE MONITORING PROGRAMS FOR REGIONAL CONSERVATION PLANS BRENDA JOHNSON, California Department of Fish and Game, Sacramento, CA, USA, bjohnson@dfg.ca.gov A growing number of regional, multiple species conservation plans (NCCPs / HCPs) have been developed in California since the early 1990s. These plans establish landscape-scale reserve networks and long-term programs that are designed to conserve and adaptively manage large numbers of species legally “covered” by the plan, as well as to maintain native biodiversity, rare and representative habitat types, and natural ecological processes across hundreds of thousands of acres. These broad goals require that effectiveness monitoring programs integrate assessment of ecosystem integrity and biodiversity with tracking of species “covered” by plan permits. These and other logistical considerations, such as an incomplete knowledge base and incremental assembly of reserves, make creating such monitoring programs a challenge. Case studies will be used to illustrate different approaches and lessons learned to date, and recommendations will be presented for improving design of monitoring programs for regional conservation plans. IMPROVING SCIENCE DELIVERY FOR REGIONAL CONSERVATION PLANS: LESSONS FROM SCIENCE ADVISORY PROCESSES IN CALIFORNIA WAYNE SPENCER, Conservation Biology Institute, San Diego, CA, USA, wdspencer@consbio.org California’s habitat conservation plans (HCPs) and Natural Communities Conservation Plans (NCCPs) have a checkered but generally improving record for incorporating best available science. In 2002, independent scientific input became mandatory for plans prepared under California’s NCCP Act, which authorizes take of state-listed (as well as unlisted) species. As an NGO conservation biologist who often leads HCP and NCCP science-advisory processes, I offer some recommendations for how conservation biologists can better contribute their expertise to conservation plans, whether in California or elsewhere. Better science provides at least the promise of better decisions; but to affect change, science delivery must be clear and useful to the consultants, decision-makers, and stakeholder groups that develop and implement the plans. Scientists must realize that most plan participants don’t even think like scientists, let alone follow the peer-reviewed literature. Thus, in addition to serving as technical advisors, more scientists are needed to serve as science facilitators, to focus expert inputs on the right questions, and work to integrate and translate diverse scientific advice for those expected to implement it. Conservation plans will improve as more biologists willingly step outside academic boxes, learn policies, develop facilitation skills, and commit to communicating applied science to non-academic audiences. IMPLEMENTING THE SAN DIEGO MSCP PROGRAM: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES Tomas Oberbauer and JEREMY BUEGGE, County of San Diego, CA, USA, jeremy.buegge@sdcounty.ca.gov The San Diego MSCP was adopted in 1997 as was one of the first HCP / NCCPs. Others looking to prepare or implement HCP / NCCPs often look to San Diego to see if the program has been worthwhile. The program has three parts: habitat acquisition and maintenance, development regulation, and biological monitoring. Habitat acquisition has been extremely successful, with about 60% of state, federal, and local commitments met within the first eight years of a 50 year plan. Development regulation has also been successful in providing adequate review of projects in a more efficient manner and conserving land that contributes to a regional preserve. Not enough time has elapsed to adequately analyze biological monitoring data to determine success of the program. In addition, few surveys have been repeated on recently acquired lands and the monitoring plan is being revised. Some of the challenges of this program are a waning institutional memory of planning history, lack of wetland coverage under MSCP, dispersed authority and leadership, and divided time of staff implementing the plan. It is important to remember that this is a long-term plan, still in its infancy. The necessary framework exists but requires focused people to achieve success. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SAN BRUNO MOUNTAIN HABITAT CONSERVATION PLAN AFTER 23 YEARS THOMAS REID and Victoria Harris, Thomas Reid Associates, Menlo Park, CA, USA, reid@traenviro.com The 1982 San Bruno Mountain Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) was the nation’s first HCP, ushering in a new approach to conservation under the Endangered Species Act. Clearly the main objectives of the plan have been met, namely protecting the butterfly populations through limiting development and controlling woody non-native invasive plant species. Without the purposeful management of the HCP, gorse (Ulex europaeus), French broom (Genista monspessulana), and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) would have substantially eliminated habitat. Changing conditions over the past 23 years, however, have resulted in new management problems which were unforeseen at the time of the original plan: the difficulty in containing herbaceous weeds, the emergence of new weeds including ?micro-weeds,? anthropogenic threats such as climate change and nitrogen deposition which may be accelerating natural succession, and changing regulations and public opinion which have impaired the use of tools such as burning and grazing to control threats to the grassland habitat. The terms of the original 1982 plan do not fully provide either the techniques or the budget capable of dealing with emerging management needs. A conservation plan intended to establish a perpetual ecological reserve inevitably requires ongoing reassessment of objectives and new funding sources for implementation. | |||||||||||||||||
|
|
| Copyright © 2012 Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Direct questions, comments, and technical problems to the webmaster SCB is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization |