SAN DIEGO ---- Where's the science?
That's the question researchers are asking after digesting the meat of more
than 20 West Coast habitat conservation plans, including some in San Diego and
Riverside counties.
The research team, led by Matt Rahn, director of San Diego State University field stations, concluded in a study earlier this month that in many cases sketchy scientific information was used to craft such plans, which aim to protect enough habitat of imperiled species to prevent extinction while opening other habitat to development.
The team's biggest beef with the plans is that, on average, 41 percent of
species they were designed to protect hadn't even been found on the ground.
Without knowing whether and where a particular species exists, Rahn said, the
federal regulatory agencies that approve such plans cannot be certain the
species will be rescued.
"We found it to be pretty startling to realize that, for many species,
there wasn't baseline information, and yet they were covered in a MSHCP
(multiple species habitat conservation plan)," he said, citing the rare
Quino checkerspot butterfly as an example. "Where is the science? We're
not seeing it in some of these plans."
Because of the lack of science, Rahn said, the research team maintains
agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have inflated prospects
for the survival of protected species.
Some environmental groups agree.
David Hogan, a San Diego County spokesman for the Arizona-based Center for
Biological Diversity, said, "the report pinpoints with scientific
accuracy the concerns that environmentalists have been raising for years, and
that is that many of these plans, including several in San Diego, reached too
far in their claims of conservation of endangered species."
Habitat plans are relatively new
However, Jane Hendron, spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in
Carlsbad, disagreed that her agency has overstated plans' potential for saving
endangered species.
"These habitat conservation plans do incorporate and are based on good
science," Hendron said.
Yes, she said, there are gaps in data. Still, the plans are grounded on thick
volumes of information. And where the agency isn't able to confirm the
existence of a particular type of animal or plant, it is careful to set aside
the type of habitat the species can use.
The problem, said Rahn, is that without knowing whether a rare butterfly or
bird actually lives in an area, a plan designer cannot know whether the
preserved habitat will in fact help the species' cause.
Rahn teamed up on the study with Holly Doremus, a UC Davis law professor, and
James Diffendorfer, a scientist with the Illinois Natural History Survey. In
the July issue of BioScience magazine, the trio published their findings in a
study of 22 habitat conservation plans in California, Oregon, Washington and
Nevada.
Habitat plans are a relatively recent phenomenon. They emerged after the 1982
passage of an amendment to the landmark 1973 Endangered Species Act.
Bulking up on endangered species
In the early years of the conservation plan, strategies tended to focus on one
species in isolation and on the activities of a single agency or developer. In
more recent years, property owners have elected to form regional partnerships
and craft plans that set aside land for the survival of multiple species and
clear the way for multiple land users to fire up the bulldozer.
"Developers figured out that these agencies in charge would let them bulk
up on the list of species that these plans would allow them to kill and
bulldoze habitat for," said Hogan, of the Center for Biological
Diversity.
San Diego was one of the first counties in the nation to embrace the idea of a
regional, multi-pronged strategy, and in 1996 completed a plan for 235,000
acres and 85 species. A number of other San Diego County plans are in the
works, including one covering seven North County cities. And in June 2004, the
Fish and Wildlife Service approved one of the nation's most sweeping
conservation plans in western Riverside County, one spanning 526,000 acres and
146 species.
Borre Winckel, executive director for the Riverside County Chapter of the
Building Industry Association of Southern California and one of the
negotiators on the western Riverside plan, said it only makes sense to work
with other stakeholders to develop plans that cover entire regions.
"The alternative is deplorable ---- standing in line in Carlsbad and
negotiating to get individual permits from the feds," Winckel said.
It also makes sense, said Fish and Wildlife's Hendron, to devise a regional
plan that weaves together the needs of many species and delivers a
comprehensive, connected system of reserves. That's better than the hodgepodge
of tiny islands of reserves that would have emerged, had the agency still been
dealing with each property owner one by one, she said.
One size doesn't fit all
What doesn't make sense, said Rahn, is how those are reserve systems are being
pieced together.
Rahn said regional plans tend to focus on popular flagship species, such as
the California coastal gnatcatcher bird, and tend to reflect the habitat needs
of that species. He said plans tend to assume that what is good for one
species is good for the others.
"You can't just focus on the California gnatcatcher or the spotted
owl," Rahn said.
Often, he said, other species require a unique habitat type.
Hendron countered that her agency does not blindly assume that saving coastal
sage scrub for the gnatcatcher, for example, will automatically cover other
birds' needs. She said the Fish and Wildlife Service requires oak woodlands,
wetlands, grasslands and other types of habitat to be preserved, too, to meet
the different needs of different animals and plants ---- including those that
might show later.
Those decisions are based on extensive research, she said. At the same time,
there are sometimes holes in the research that cannot be filled.
"There is always, ideally, the desire to know everything there is to know
about a species before you identify an action to take on its behalf. That is
the academic world," she said. "But in the real world of
on-the-ground conservation biology, that's not always doable."
Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.