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Habitat conservation plans ( HCPs) allow incidental take of threatened or endangered species in exchange for conservation measures that minimize and mitigate such taking. Habitat conservation plans entail a compromise between regulatory certainty and scientific uncertainty. This compromise is controversial because many HCPs are thought to inadequately address scientific uncertainty. Adaptive management is the systematic acquisition and application of reliable information to improve natural resource management over time. Ideally, under adaptive management, conservation strategies are implemented as a deliberate experiment. This approach can establish cause-and-effect relationships and point the way toward optimal strategies. Adaptive management has been promoted as essential to management under uncertainty, but few HCPs incorporate genuine adaptive management. Habitat conservation plans will continue to lack adaptive management until certain conditions are met, such as acknowledgment that an HCP is a management hypothesis, landowner interest in improving biological outcomes, and sufficient financial resources. Economic incentives would encourage adaptive management in HCPs. Habitat conservation plan permittees might receive direct payments or tax deductions for reliable information that benefits a species. "Mitigation credits" could be awarded for information produced through adaptive management. In effect, habitat would be exchanged for information that benefits a species. Successful use of mitigation credits would depend on correctly valuing information and enforcement of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Under a "precautionary polluter pays principle," an HCP permittee would put up an environmental assurance bond. Portions of the bond are returned with interest as adaptive management demonstrates that environmental damages are unlikely to occur. Funds spent on adaptive management are funds unavailable for habitat protection, so limited financial resources may force a compromise between protecting habitat and acquiring knowledge.Los planes de conservación de hábitat ( PCH ) permiten la captura incidental de especies amenazadas o en peligro a cambio de medidas de conservación que minimicen y mitiguen tales capturas. Los planes de conservación de hábitat conllevan un compromiso entre certidumbre en los reglamentos e incertidumbre científica. El compromiso es controversial porque se piensa que muchos PCH enfrentan la incertidumbre científica inadecuadamente. El manejo adaptivo es la obtención sistemática y aplicación de información confiable para mejorar el manejo de recursos en el tiempo. Idealmente, bajo el manejo adaptivo, las estrategias de conservación se instrumentan como un experimento deliberado. Este enfoque puede establecer relaciones de causa - efecto y señalar el camino para estrategias óptimas. El manejo adaptivo se ha considerado esencial para el manejo bajo incertidumbre, sin embargo, pocos PCH incorporan el manejo adaptivo genuino. Los planes de conservación de hábitat seguirán careciendo de manejo adaptivo hasta que se cumplan ciertas condiciones, tales como reconocer que un PCH es una hipótesis de manejo, el interés de los propietarios de tierras en mejorar los resultados biológicos y suficientes recursos financieros. Los incentivos económicos fomentarían el manejo adaptivo en los PCH. Los permisionarios de los PCH podrían recibir pagos directos o deducciones de impuestos por información confiable que beneficie a una especie. Se podrían otorgar “créditos de mitigación” por información producida a través del manejo adaptivo. En efecto, se canjearía hábitat por información benéfica para una especie. El exitoso uso de los créditos de mitigación depende de la correcta evaluación de la información y aplicación del Acta de Especies en Peligro de E.U.A. Bajo una aproximación de que “el contaminador precautorio paga el principal” de los PCH, un permisionario podría fijar un bono de seguro ambiental. Porciones del bono se devuelven con intereses a medida que el manejo adaptivo demuestra que es poco probable que ocurran daños ambientales. Los fondos utilizados en manejo adaptivo son fondos no disponibles para la protección del hábitat. Por lo tanto, los recursos financieros limitados pueden forzar un compromiso entre la protección del hábitat y la adquisición de conocimiento.

Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) commonly facilitate habitat conservation on private land in the United States, yet the effectiveness of individual HCPs is rarely evaluated. Here, we assess the effectiveness of a high-profile HCP created by a lumber company to protect old-growth forests used for breeding by Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) on private land. We used 17 years of HCP-monitoring data to compare trends in murrelet occupancy and inland counts between private HCP areas and public reference areas over time. Based on occupancy models applied to audio-visual survey data, average occupancy was higher in public reference areas (0.85; 85% confidence intervals [CI]: 0.79–0.90) than in private HCP areas (0.46; 85% CI: 0.38–0.54). Numerically, trends in occupancy were slightly positive in public areas (= 1.01; 85% CI: 0.94–1.08) and slightly negative in private areas (= 0.97; 85% CI: 0.87–1.06), but CI did not preclude stable occupancy on both ownerships. Based on generalized linear mixed models applied to inland radar survey data, murrelet counts in private HCP areas (least-squares [LS] mean = 8.7; 85% CI: 6.2–12.2) were lower than those in public reference areas (LS mean = 14.8; 85% CI: 10.1–21.7), but CI overlapped. Murrelet counts declined by 12–17% annually on both ownerships over the study period based on the top model, but a closely competing interactive model suggested more rapid declines in public reference (14–20%) than in private HCP (10–15%) areas. Both models indicated that murrelet counts were negatively related to sea surface temperature, suggesting that warm ocean conditions negatively affect murrelet breeding effort. Collectively, these results suggest that while HCP habitat may be lower quality than public reference areas, the HCP has likely not exacerbated ongoing declines of murrelets in the region. This work highlights the importance of including reference areas when evaluating conservation policies. LAY SUMMARY Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) are a common conservation tool used to protect habitat on private land in the United States, but the effectiveness of individual HCPs is rarely evaluated. We assessed the ability of 1 high-profile HCP to protect breeding habitat for a threatened seabird, the Marbled Murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus), on land owned by a lumber company. To do this, we compared trends in murrelet occupancy and abundance between private HCP conservation areas and public reference areas. We found that habitat protected within public reference areas was higher quality, but lack of differences in trends between ownerships indicated that the HCP did not exacerbate ongoing declines of murrelet populations in our study area. Additionally, habitat in private HCP areas is likely to improve as forests continue to mature. We also found that the abundance of murrelets on both landownerships was declining rapidly over time, likely due to reduced breeding effort because of broad-scale environmental factors. Rigorous assessments of conservation policies are imperative for guiding future conservation initiatives and investments, especially on private land where species are most vulnerable to habitat loss.

This chapter analyzes a case in which modeling becomes “too real” for participating scientists, to the point that modeling goes on, it seems, without end. It describes the history of conservation planning in the Valley, leading into the multiple-species habitat conservation plan (MSHCP) planning effort. The chapter aims to interrupt that historical narrative to present two scenes from a scientific advisory committee (SAC) meeting convened to identify lizard habitat that should be included in the multiple species plan. It examines the planning history, describing the fate of this effort to contain disagreement, of the SAC as an organizational entity, and of the MSHCP itself. The chapter identifies aspects of model construction and negotiation that cross organizational boundaries and may be particularly relevant for cognitive studies of educational practice. It looks at conversational exchanges between scientists, land managers, and plan consultants in a meeting called to review additions/deletions to an existing model of occupiable habitat for an endangered lizard species.

Over half of the endangered species in the United States depend on private lands for habitat. In 1982, Congress amended the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to address the conservation of endangered species on private lands through the introduction of Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs). HCPs enable landowners to comply with the ESA and can foster creative partnerships between the federal government and local stakeholders. Researchers have investigated the scientifically biological merits of HCPs, but comparatively little attention has been given to social aspects despite an emphasis on stakeholder involvement in HCPs. We explore stakeholder perceptions of HCP development through 19 semi-structured key informant interviews. Findings include the influence of interpersonal themes, shared understanding and capacity on process outcomes, and the importance of the external context in which HCP development occurs. Our research highlights the central role of understanding social dimensions to achieve the desire...

Urban development in Southern California over the past few decades has largely concentrated on the coastal areas. In contrast, Riverside County, California's fourth largest county, which sits inland from the coast and is about the size of New Jersey, has until recently retained much of its rural and agricultural acreage with a significant percentage of its land undeveloped. With so much open space, western Riverside County was among the inland areas of Southern California left with a majority of the remaining intact habitat areas for species, sometimes making it “ground zero” for a battle between saving habitat for endangered species and building new homes and infrastructure in a fast‐growing area. That tug‐of‐;war eventually led to the formation of one of the nation's largest Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) covering nearly 150 plants and animals protected by endangered species laws or potentially in danger of becoming listed as endangered or threatened.

Safe fish passage through hydroprojects is of paramount importance in the Pacific Northwest of the United States where anadromous runs of salmon smolts pass through as many as nine dams on the Columbia River on their way to the ocean. Minimum survival standards through the dams or hydroprojects (i.e., reservoir and dam) have been established by the 2008 Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) Biological Opinion or by Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) in order to protect salmon stocks. These federal requirements have prompted the need to conduct scientifically and statistically rigorous and precise smolt survival studies at federally and publicly operated hydroprojects throughout the Snake-Columbia River Basin. Successful studies have been the cooperative results of regulators, hydro managers, fish biologists, engineers, and biometricians working together to conduct these high value investigations. Rock Island Dam, Washington, is used as a case study where a total of 17 release-recapture studies were conducted over a nine-year period on three salmonid species to assess compliance with HCP survival standards.

Habitat Conservation Plans are a widely used strategy to balance development and preservation of species of concern and have been used in southern California, USA, to protect the coastal California gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica). Few data exist on gnatcatcher abundance and distribution, and existing data have problems with issues of closure (i.e., sampling occurs in a short enough time period such that abundance or distribution are not changing), detectability, and proper attention to probability-based sampling schemes. Thus, a habitat model has been relied upon in reserve design. California gnatcatchers are the flagship and umbrella species of many plans and we provide the first estimates that incorporate probabilistic sampling and test predictions from the habitat model. Probability of occurrence was 26% (SE = 0.06); however, occupancy varied by modeled habitat quality with slopes

This article describes the history of the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan (CVMSHCP), in the Riverside County region of Southern California. When this collaborative biodiversity conservation planning process began, in 1994, local participants and supporters had numerous factors working in their favor. Yet, as of April 2007, nearly 13 years had passed without an approved plan. This is a common problem. Many multiple species habitat conservation plans now take more than a decade to complete, and the long duration of these processes often results in negative consequences. The CVMSHCP process became bogged down-despite strong scientific input and many political advantages-due to problematic relationships between the Plan's local supporters, its municipal signatory parties, and officials from the state and federal wildlife agencies, particularly the regional office of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This case study demonstrates the crucial importance of institutional structures and relationships, process management, and timeliness in habitat conservation planning. We conclude by offering several related recommendations for future HCP processes.

Ecological data are lacking for many species covered in multi-species habitat conservation plans and other regional conservation plans. Erodium macrophyllum (Geraniaceae) is a rare native annual forb found throughout California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California (Mexico) for which very little ecology is known. I report on the habitat characteristics and current and historical distribution of E. macrophyllum by collecting data on populations in Riverside and San Louis Obispo Counties and by conducting an herbaria search and electronic-mail survey. Erodium macrophyllum population sizes range from a few individuals to over 1000 and are restricted to heavy clay soils. Most populations are found on the eastern side of the coast ranges in California. The clay soils on which it is found typically have low cover of native and exotic species but often have other rare species. They are also generally low in nitrogen and phosphorus, but there is considerable variation. Based on herbaria records ...

Worldwide human population expansion and rising standards of living place increasing pressure on wildlife populations and their habitats. Conflict regarding conservation and preservation of endangered species is among the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Endangered species management on private lands magnifies the problems encountered by natural resource policy-makers and managers. Given that conservation of endangered species increasingly depends on securing cooperation of private property owners in local communities, understanding how to secure that cooperation is important. We used an ethnographic approach to critically review the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) processes used in attempts to develop regional HCPs to benefit the Houston toad (Bufo houstonensis) and the Florida Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus clavium; hereafter, Key deer). In both cases, the process was framed as a search for the optimum solution through collaboration and consensus building, and in neither case was the ...

Objective. Satellite-based remote-sensing analysis is a beneficial, yet underused, tool for environmental policy, planning, and evaluation. We identify its benefits and costs to encourage social scientists to consider the use of remote sensing as a tool for planning and evaluating environmental institutions. Methods. We analyze two multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite images to evaluate a habitat conservation plan (HCP) implemented pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. Results. Image analysis provides useful broad spatial scale information on HCP performance that is not discernible to the naked eye or through other methodologies. Conclusions. Satellite image analysis should be considered as a tool for planning and evaluating environmental institutional designs—despite the financial costs and requisite technical training. These images provide ecological and land cover change information that may not be available elsewhere. We provide lessons learned to help make analysts cognizant of some important issues surrounding the use of satellite-based imagery for environmental institutional analysis.

During the last decade, the concept of ecosystem management has increasingly influenced forestry practice, but in different ways on federal and private forests. In western Oregon, about two thirds of federal land is reserved for non-commodity use and federal forest managers follow a strict path of ecosystem management. Stands are managed to retain or develop structural complexity and species diversity while landscapes are managed to mimic natural disturbance patterns. On private lands, state and federal regulations and incentives such as Habitat Conservation Plans (HCP) and green certification influence how private forestlands are managed. Large industrial owners continue to focus on timber production within the limits of state and federal laws, with some adopting HCP's that increase landscape planning and landscape diversity. Small private forest managers are more likely to define sustainable forestry in terms of balancing ecological requirements defined in state and federal laws against their a...

Extensive acreage loss of coastal sage scrub (CSS), isolation of surviving stands, and the federal listing of several animal species with obligate relationships to this plant community, particularly the threatened California gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica), have led to attempts to create CSS to mitigate habitat lost to urban development and other causes. Many of these creations lie within habitat conservation plan (HCP) sites, and they could play a more prominent role by being repositories for plants taken from a single site having site-specific genetics. Among others, one technique that increases initial resemblance to natural stands uses digitized, to-scale photography, which has been ground-truthed to verify vascular plant associations, which appear as mosaics on a landscape. A combination of placing patches of salvaged, mature canopy plants within larger matrices of imprinted or container plant plots appears to significantly enhance immediate use by CSS obligate bird species, accelerate "spread" or expansion of CSS, and can also introduce many epiphytic taxa that otherwise would be slow or unable to occupy developing CSS creations. Reptile, amphibian, butterfly, and rodent diversity in a salvaged canopy restoration case study at the University of California, Irvine, showed CSS species foraging and inhabiting transplanted canopy patches. Using restoration techniques to expand existing CSS stands has more promise than creating isolated patches, and the creation of canopies resembling CSS mid-fire cycle stands is now common. Gnatcatchers and other birds use restorations for foraging and occasional nesting, and in some cases created stands along "biological corridors" appear to be useful to bird movement. Patches of transplanted sage scrub shrubs along habitat edges appear to break up linear edge effects. There are no data on which long-term survival, succession, or postfire behavior can be predicted for CSS restoration sites, and postfire community changes are not part of either mitigation or restoration planning at present. Long-term planning including burning is needed so that a fire-adapted habitat will develop. Restoration is important in retaining genetic resources, for ameliorating edge effects, as habitat extenders in buffer zones around HCP sites, and by providing areas into which natural stands can expand.

/ The City of Austin, Texas, is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States. It is also in one of the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems in the world: the Balcones Canyonlands. Five cave invertebrates and two species of birds that inhabit the area are listed as threatened or endangered, two species of plants are candidates for listing, several others are considered rare and of concern, and a species of the salamander has also been proposed for listing. A habitat conservation plan, of "national significance . . ." according to Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbit (Haurwitz 1996), has been under development for the last several years to conserve those endangered species through a 2400-ha system of preserves and to allow development to continue in more than 162,000 ha of surrounding area. The preserve system, comprising several units ranging in size from less than a hundred to several thousand hectares, would be bordered in many instances by developed areas. Development and maintenance of the infrastructure necessary for new and existing development, both commercial and residential, could have negated the biological value of the preserves (e.g., power-line corridors, water-treatment pipelines and facilities). The challenge of bringing this plan to fruition illustrates the complex biological, technical, and sociological context within which habitat conservation planning may occur. Resolving resource use conflicts of this nature have several commonalities that overarch these contexts. If recognized and addressed, one may move easily and foster positive results. These commonalities can be expressed as principles such as: relying on scientists to recognize, but not solve problems; acting before a scientific consensus is achieved; including human motivation and responses as part of the system to be studied and managed; and confronting uncertainty.KEY WORDS: Endangered species; Habitat conservation plan; Resource conflicts; Biologists; Engineers

A once common inhabitant of a 500-km2 sand dune system near Palm Springs, California (U.S.A.), the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard (Uma inornata), is restricted to the loose, aeolian sand habitat of that region (Stebbins 1944). Human development that began in the 1950s and accelerated through the next three decades created barriers to sand movement that have altered the habitat. As a result, the lizard was listed as threatened by the federal government in 1980. The lizard's listing as a threatened species set in motion a series of actions that resulted in the creation of the Coachella Valley Preserve System in 1986. One of those actions was the development of an ecological model to guide the design of the preserve system. The ecological model, which became the basis of the Coachella Valley Habitat Conservation Plan, was used to delineate which lands would be preserved and which would be available for development. The focus was on protecting the natural processes that create and maintain the dune ecosystem, not on the lizard alone. Although not oblivious to ownership and political patterns, designers of the preserve system emphasized the dynamic nature of the sand dune ecosystem and developed a protection plan to incorporate large-scale patterns. Protected lands were designed to encompass ecosystem processes, including wind and sand corridors, as well as the sand dune habitat. The Coachella Valley Preserve system was among the first habitat conservation plans (HCP) created under the Endangered Species Act. HCPs have been heralded as a means to reconcile the disparate interests of human development and the habitat needs of endangered species (Bean et al., 1991). The Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard HCP has been held up as a model for resolving con

Habitat conservation plans (HCPs) permitted under Section 10(A) of the federal Endangered Species Act, have been increasingly used to overcome conflicts between urban development and species conservation. This article profiles one such HCP, the Coachella Valley (CA) Fringe-Toed Lizard Habitat Conservation Plan. The second HCP officially approved by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Coachella Valley case is frequently cited as a model for resolving conservation and development conflicts. The article begins with a discussion of the use of HCPs, and then provides a detailed discussion of Coachella Valley experience, its history, specific provisions, and success to date. A final section examines whether Coachella Valley does in fact represent a positive model. It is argued that the HCP has been less than fully successful and leaves unresolved a series of fundamental ethical and policy questions concerning the protection of endangered species.

In nature reserves and habitat conservation areas, monitoring is required to determine if reserves are meeting their goals for preserving species, ecological communities, and ecosystems. Increasingly, reserves are established to protect multiple species and communities, each with their own conservation goals and objectives. As resources are always inadequate to monitor all components, criteria must be applied to prioritize both species and communities for monitoring and management. While methods for prioritizing species based on endangerment or risk have been established, approaches to prioritizing ecological communities for monitoring are not well developed, despite a long-standing emphasis on communities as target elements in reserve design. We established guidelines based on four criteria derived from basic principles of conservation and landscape ecology--extent, representativeness, fragmentation, and endangerment--to prioritize communities in the San Diego Multiple Species Conservation Plan (MSCP). The MSCP was one of the first multiple-species habitat conservation areas established in California, USA, and it has a complex spatial configuration because of the patterns of surrounding land use, which are largely urbanized. In this case study, high priority communities for monitoring include coastal sage scrub (high endangerment, underrepresented within the reserve relative to the region, and moderately fragmented), freshwater wetlands, and coastal habitats (both have high fragmentation, moderate endangerment and representativeness, and low areal extent). This framework may be useful to other conservation planners and land managers for prioritizing the most significant and at-risk communities for monitoring.

[1] Groundwater management in the Edwards Aquifer in Texas is in the process of moving away from a traditional right of capture economic regime toward a more environmentally sensitive scheme designed to preserve endangered species habitats. This study explores economic and environmental implications of proposed groundwater management and water development strategies under a proposed regional Habitat Conservation Plan. Results show that enhancing the habitat by augmenting water flow costs $109–1427 per acre-foot and that regional water development would be accelerated by the more extreme possibilities under the Habitat Conservation Plan. The findings also indicate that a water market would improve regional welfare and lower water development but worsen environmental attributes.

The purpose of this paper is to outline briefly the process that workshop participants undertook to first identify and then resolve major issues hindering the development and implementation of MS-HCPs. In addition, a brief outline of

/ Whereas habitat conservation plans (HCPs) have been intended to provide comprehensive environmental mitigation for multiple species, they often narrow in focus to one species and either one mitigation site or unspecified sites. We developed an indicators framework from which to rate land units for their ecological integrity, collateral values (nonbiological qualities that can improve conservation), and restoration and conservation opportunities. The ratings of land units were guided by the tenets of conservation biology and principles of landscape and ecosystem ecology, and they were made using existing physical and floral information managed on a GIS. As an example of how the indicators approach can be used for HCPs, the 29 legally rare species targeted by the Yolo County HCP were each associated with vegetation complexes and agricultural crops, the maps of which were used for rating some of the landscape indices. The ratings were mapped so that mitigation can be directed to the places on the landscape where the legally rare species should benefit most from conservation practices. The most highly rated land units for conservation opportunity occurred along streams and sloughs, especially where they emerged from the foothills and entered the Central Valley and where the two largest creeks intersected the Sacramento River flood basin. We recommend that priority be given to mitigation or conservation at the most highly rated land units. The indices were easy to measure and can be used with other tools to monitor the mitigation success. The indicators framework can be applied to other large-area planning efforts with some modifications.KEY WORDS: Ecosystem; Indicators; Landscape; Mitigation; Planning; Yolo County; California