Thoughtful editorial about how habitat plans are working in Southern California.
The editorial.
Wildlife habitat plans are working reasonably well
Perfect protection for every species is impossible and will thwart reasonable, necessary development.
Daily Breeze editorial: Published Wednesday, August 02, 2006
In an ideal world, a new study on conservation plans to protect declining wildlife might make sense. But not in this world.
Environmental law requires a permit for property development that will disturb the habitat of wildlife threatened by dwindling numbers. The permit often requires the landowner to preserve such habitats in a conservation area. To facilitate wildlife conservation without continually impeding human activity, localities and individual landowners draw up regional multispecies habitat conservation plans.
Among those in existence is the 428-acre Ocean Trails conservation plan on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
These plans cover protected species present in the area or likely to take up residence there, and species potentially on a protected list. Though amended as needed, the plans provide federal regulators, local governments, developers and landowners reasonable certainty in their planning and permitting processes.
In "Species Coverage in Multispecies Habitat Conservation Plans: Where's the Science?" two Southern California researchers and an Illinois colleague assert the conservation plans lack adequate scientific data on species that aren't yet present in the area or aren't yet on a protected list. They do not, the study concludes, "account for the individual conservation needs" of every species they cover.
Of the 22 plans studied, only Ocean Trails confirmed the existence of all the protected species the plan is intended to cover.
But requiring every plan to meet every possible need of every possible species simply isn't workable. It would not only bust public and private budgets but stall residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural development. Current multispecies habitat conservation plans offer scientists labs of wildlife and humans a necessary degree of certainty. Ideal, no. Reasonable, yes.
