7887

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7887
• Author: Fischer, H., ‎(Wendy E. Hudson, ed.)‎.
• Title: Building Economic Incentives Into The Endangered Species Act, Third Edition.
• USFW Year: 1994.
• USFW - Doc Type: Washington, D.C.
• Copyright Material: NO

2 INCENTIVE-BASED APPROACHES TO CONSERVING
RED-COCKADED WOODPECKERS IN THE SANDHILLS
OF NORTH CAROLINA
Michael J. Bean
Chairman, Wildlife Program
Environmental Defense Fund
The Sandhills population of red-cockaded woodpeckers ("RCWs") in North
Carolina is one of the largest remaining populations of this endangered species
anywhere. Its conservation is likely to be essential to the conservation of the
species as a whole. Although much of the population occurs on federal land (Ft.
Bragg Army Base), the strategies pursued to date have not assured the long-term
survival of the population or even arrested its decline. Several factors account for
this.
On Ft. Bragg itself, many of the activities essential to the Army's mission there
conflict with efforts to preserve active colonies and may discourage efforts to
rehabilitate abandoned colonies where similar conflicts are likely. The Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS) has repeatedly been pressed to revise upward permissible
incidental take limits associated with particular Army activities when those
activities reach originally established incidental take limits.
Off Ft. Bragg, development pressures on private land threaten remaining RCW
colonies there, as well. Private landowners with abandoned colonies on their
lands have no incentive to rehabilitate those colonies and may have a disincentive
to do so, stemming from the land use restrictions that may accompany the pres-
ence of endangered birds. A perception exists that the requirements of the Endan-
gered Species Act are being differentially applied, depending on whether the
lands in question are public or private. Finally, no comprehensive strategy exists
to secure the long-term survival of the Sandhills population of RCWs and to
integrate into that strategy the federal, state, and private lands on which the
population occurs.
This paper outlines possible new approaches to conserving the Sandhills popula-
tion of RCWs. They rely upon creating incentives to rehabilitate currently aban-
doned RCW colonies and thus achieve net growth in the population. The follow-
ing sections briefly describe fora "tradeable credit" approach the following: (a)
the objectives of the approach, (b) the key assumptions that appear necessary to
make it workable, (c) how the approach might work in practice, and (d) some of
the practical problems that may make implementation of this approach challeng-
ing. A concluding section outlines more briefly a second possible approach, one
that relies upon voluntary landowner enrollment in an area-wide land manage-
ment program.
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