8011

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8011
• Author: Hood, L. C., et al.
• Title: Frayed Safety Nets, Conservation Planning Under the Endangered Species Act 1998.
• USFW Year: 1998.
• USFW - Doc Type: Washington D.C.
• Copyright Material: YES

...................................................................................................................... F RAY E 0 SA F E T Y NET S

feet will be established for fish-bearing streams,
to improve the contribution of large woody
debris. In addition, these plans include other
measures to improve stream conditions, such as a
commitment to conduct watershed analysis and
road management plans.
All of these measures, from watershed analy-
sis to reducing harvest along streams, are quite
costly compared to state regulations in the
absence of HCPs. Harvest along hundreds to
thousands of miles of streams within planning
areas are affected. It will be important, however,
to ensure that adaptive management of riparian
areas is implemented throughout these HCPs, as
more information becomes available about what

is required to recover these decimated salmon
runs.

e

In terms of preserve design and setting aside
habitat, one of the best examples among our
reviewed plans is the San Bruno Mountain HCP
in San Mateo County, California. The planning
area for San Bruno Mountain is 3,500 acres,
nearly 2,000 acres of which was in county own-
ership. Under the plan, private landowners are
allowed to develop on 368 acres of open space
land while agreeing to convey 800 acres of land
to the county government for conservation and
to fund management of butterfly habitat. This
results in 81 percent of the mountain being in
public ownership, protecting 87 percent of mis-
sion blue butterfly habitat and 93 percent of cal-
lippe silverspot butterfly habitat through public
ownership or Section 9 prohibitions for private
landowners not part of the HCP.
The San Bruno Mountain plan, however, did
not explicitly incorporate preserve design princi-

pIes per se or elaborately justified preserve areas.
Minimization of development in outlying areas
was largely because of topographic constraints -
that is, developers wished to build only on areas
at the base of the mountain, leaving a large tract
of public land in the middle of the planning
area. The final plan resulted in the augmenta-
tion of a large area of protected land, some of
which was suitable butterfly habitat, some of
which was invaded by exotic vegetation. The
plan does result in incidental take of butterflies.
In fact, some habitat developed under the- plan
was part of designated essential habitat under a
draft butterfly recovery plan (Bean et al. 1991).
Nevertheless, in addition to increased protection
for acreage conveyed from private to sounty
ownership, the plan generates funds for habitat
management, without which habitat would not
remain suitable for butterflies. Implementation
of this management continues to be challenging
(see box on San Bruno Implementation).
Of the plans reviewed here that include
establishment of preserves according to principles
of preserve design, the most disappointing exam-
ple was the Balcones Ca~yonlands Conservation
Plan. The Balcones plan went through a long
and contentious pl~ning process, spanning
eight years. The plan began with the establish-
ment of a biological advisory team to make bio-
logical recommendations about what would be
required to preserve viable populations of the
endangered species in the area, including the
golden-cheeked warbler, black-capped vireo and
cave invertebrates. The most contentious part of
the plan was the biological advisory team's rec-
ommendations for preserves for the two endan-