Plan to Preserve Wildlife Habitat Draws Criticism

A much-heralded program to save large swaths of open space for endangered plants and animals in Southern California is flawed by inadequate scientific scrutiny, funding uncertainties and murky controls, a national environmental group concludes.

Although widely touted as a national model, the program needs retooling and better science if it is to live up to its promise, the Natural Resources Defense Council cautions in a report to be released today.

The report contrasts with the rosy picture painted by Clinton and Wilson administration officials and some landowners and environmentalists who have hailed the experiment as a historic balance of business and wildlife interests.

“While we applaud its aspirations, we find the program wanting in several important respects: in clear standards, in adequate funding, and, above all, in the fulfillment of its scientific promise,” states the report, which the council calls the first comprehensive analysis of the Natural Community Conservation Plan, a state program developed with staunch Washington backing.

Despite the harsh wording, the group does not condemn the program. It praises its goals and makes recommendations for improvements.

To illustrate its point, the group plans to release the report today near the proposed route of a major toll road in south Orange County. The region contains a wealth of coastal sage scrub frequented by the California gnatcatcher, the rare songbird the conservation plan was designed to protect, and environmentalists question the wisdom of building a major highway there.

In a related event Wednesday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 that the federal government violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to designate “critical habitat” for the gnatcatcher.

The decision may make it more difficult to build planned toll roads in Orange County.

State and federal officials took issue Wednesday with many of the conclusions in the council’s report--maintaining that conservation plans being launched in Southern California have received sound scientific review.

“We had a lot of science. It may not be absolute perfection, but that’s not the case anywhere,” said Larry Eng, the acting chief of environmental services at the state Department of Fish and Game.

Nationally, the report is being released at a time when many environmentalists and scientists have become disenchanted with the Clinton administration’s attempts to create conservation plans for endangered species that live on private land.

Since 1993, in an attempt to avoid what Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt calls “economic train wrecks,” federal officials have switched from strict enforcement of the Endangered Species Act to creating such plans. Almost 400 have been developed over the past four years.

By preserving some habitat for a variety of species while allowing the rest of the land to be developed, the idea behind Babbitt’s policy is to strike deals that quicken the pace and soften the blow for landowners.

The first major Southern California plan was approved in 1996 in central and coastal Orange County, where a 37,000-acre wildlife preserve was set aside to protect nearly 40 troubled plant and animal species. In return, government regulators granted landowners assurances for projects outside the preserve’s boundaries.

The resources council’s report focuses specifically on those plans and others being designed in Southern California, warning that more work is needed before they can serve as a true model.

“We think that the potential benefits are worth the risk, but we can’t ignore the fact there are significant flaws, and there are solutions we believe should be put into place,” said Joel Reynolds, a Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney and a key figure in Southern California’s gnatcatcher wars.

Similar concerns have been raised about other conservation plans across the country. Many of the nation’s most prominent biologists have complained in recent months that federal officials are relying too much on political expediency and too little on legitimate science.

In a March 31 statement, nine scientists, led by Stanford University’s Dennis Murphy, said many plans “lack scientific validity” and “remain largely untested.” The Interior Department, they said, should create an independent panel of scientists to develop minimum standards to ensure that the preserves created actually protect the animals involved.