"I'm... hopeful that this effort will equip our entire nation to deal more effectively and sensibly with two conflicting goals, species preservation and economic development." This is from Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Company, the development leviathan which owns a full 20 percent of Orange County's land base. The occasion of this grandiose statement was the July 17 signing ceremony of the first reserve system under the Natural Communities Conservation Planning Act (NCCP).
Few people outside of southern California are familiar with the NCCP program, yet, as Bren indicates, NCCP is being touted by both industry and the Clinton Administration as the future of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Regrettably, a few mainstream environmental groups are also endorsing the program, over the strenuous objections of grassroots activists.
Under the ESA, two basic provisions allow exemptions from its regulations. If the project in question includes federal involvement, one can obtain an exemption under Section 7 of the act. Private landholders, however, are largely excluded from such rulings. Instead, they apply for exemptions under Section 10(a) of the act, by creating what is known as a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). The NCCP program, law in California since 1991, is an extension of the HCP process that is supposed to focus on preserving entire ecosystems, rather than individual species as HCPs do. NCCP is a "cooperative" venture; private landowners voluntarily dedicate their land to a reserve system, in exchange for carte blanche development rights elsewhere.
High-level government officials, including Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, signed the agreement with the Irvine Co., creating a 37,000-acre reserve in central and coastal Orange County, California. This is the first of 12 such reserves currently being planned╤the largest conservation planning venture ever undertaken in the US. Irvine Co. lands make up 21,000 acres of this total; the rest of the reserve is comprised mostly of national forest and state and county parks.
Although the plan sounds good on the surface, even a cursory look at its inner components reveals that it will severely threaten southern California's endangered habitats. The final reserve plan "preserves" only 55 percent of the area's coastal sage scrub ecosystem, habitat for the threatened California gnatcatcher. Even this habitat is not sacrosanct under the plan; the reserve allows roadbuilding, golf course construction, building of hiking and equestrian trails, mining, landfill operations and, on 10,000 acres of Irvine Co. land, cattle grazing for the next 25 years.
A third of the reserve is on public lands. In effect, the reserve is a public lands mitigation bank for private developers. Over 8,300 acres of these public lands are in county parks, which Orange County recently mortgaged to pay off its bankruptcy debts; their future as viable habitat reserves is tenuous at best.
The Irvine Co. holdings which make up most of the rest of the reserve consist largely of undevelopable cliff faces and lands previously set aside as mitigation for previous developments. In fact, 85 percent of the Irvine Co. lands in the reserve system were already designated "open space" at the time of the NCCP program's inception. It is a sad testimony that conservationists were only able to wheedle 3,000 acres from the Irvine Co., which gained unfettered development rights to over 60,000 acres of land in exchange╤ less than one acre preserved for every 20 developed. It is even more disgusting that these same conservationists are now claiming victory, and promoting the program as a solution to the attack on the ESA by property rights fanatics.
Experienced Endangered Species Act (ESA) litigators, such as Jasper Carlton of the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, condemn the plan. "The Clinton Administration [a key backer of the NCCP program] is systematically pulling the teeth of the ESA tiger," Carlton said. He is dismayed at the large-scale habitat destruction the NCCP plan and other HCP plans permit, destruction that undermines the recovery of threatened and endangered species. "Recovery is the crux of the Endangered Species Act," Carlton said. "These plans are nothing more than a license for industrial landowners to drive species to extinction."
One of the nastiest provisions of the NCCP plan is the "No Surprises" clause. Under this policy, once a landowner signs a conservation agreement s/he is exempt from ESA regulations. This exemption holds even if future research determines that the plan is wholly inadequate to protect the intended species. Research could find that a hundred species would go extinct because of the plan and yet the only recourse the Fish and Wildlife Service has under "No Surprises" is to offer a buyout or ask the landowner to amend the plan. The odds of either happening are extremely slim.
"No Surprises" is not unique to the NCCP process. Babbitt initiated it last year, along with a raft of other policy changes designed to make the ESA "user friendly" (that is, toothless). All new HCPs are incorporating the policy, which has been roundly condemned by the scientific community. Conservationists, led by the Spirit of the Sage Council and the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, have filed notice of intent to sue over the "No Surprises" policy.
Babbitt has touted the NCCP program for the last few years as a "model" for the future of the ESA. He emphasized this theme at the opening ceremony. "I think it did take a miracle to get us all here," Babbitt told the gathering. "This really does amount to an entirely new chapter in conservation history."
Babbitt is not alone in this view. National environmental groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund, World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy (which as the appointed manager of the Irvine Co. reserve lands has a monetary interest in the plan) have praised NCCP, and support ESA reauthorization legislation modelled after it. This legislation, sponsored by Congressman James Saxton (R-NJ), prompted a letter from internationally known conservation biologist Dr Michael SoulÄ excoriating both HCPs and NCCP.
In the letter SoulÄ said, "[T]he credibility of... Habitat Conservation Plans and.... NCCP is rapidly slipping, particularly among biologists... [NCCPs] are developer driven, not science driven. Independent scientific review has been dismissed, there is a lack of monitoring and enforcement of agreements, developers end up (effectively) being in charge of zoning changes, and they dictate the prices to be paid by jurisdictions for the proposed protected areas... In summary, NCCPs are being recognized as a mixed blessing at best, and as harmful to biodiversity at worst, and probably as a rule. If the existence of these new land-use mechanisms helps to justify a weakening of the ESA, then we will have a disaster for biodiversity, indeed."
Particularly nauseating is the role of local conservationists in propping up the NCCP plan. The excruciatingly moderate Endangered Habitats League (EHL), propped up by large grants from the World Wildlife Fund, and the Laguna Greenbelt have been the most visible environmental collaborators in the plan. Dan Silver, head of the EHL, was at the opening ceremony. He stated, "The main message is that the Endangered Species Act works. It was flexible. It allowed people to reach consensus."
The immediate question that comes to mind is, "It allowed whom to reach consensus?" Certainly not Leeona Klippstein of the Spirit of the Sage Council, or Gordon Ruser of the Sierra Club or Jean Jenks of the Audubon Society or any number of other local conservationists who oppose the plan.
The Endangered Habitats League's involvement in the NCCP process is strangely reminiscent of the advice of Ronald Duchin, senior vice-president of the public relations firm Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin. As quoted in Toxic Sludge is Good for You! Lies Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Duchin explained how his firm works to divide and conquer activist movements. "[There is] a three-step strategy: (1) isolate the radicals; (2) 'cultivate' the idealists and 'educate' them into becoming realists; then (3) co-opt the realists into agreeing with industry."
As Stauber and Rampton explain, "Since at least the days of Aristotle, practitioners of the art of rhetoric have understood that an endorsement from their opponent carries more persuasive power than anything they can say themselves." And so it is that the EHL, with the help of some of the nation's largest environmental groups, is approving industry's destruction of the Endangered Species Act, and marginalizing those groups and individuals who have the forthrightness to honor the biological bottom line of our imperiled native wildlife.
For more information, to get involved or to send copious amounts of much needed cash, contact the Spirit of the Sage Council at POB 77027-102, Pasadena, CA 91107; (310) 946-9463.