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

colonies must be rehabilitated for each colony allowed to be taken) will be re-
quired initially until the total number of active colonies exceeds some specified
goal. After reaching that goal, mitigation requirements will be on aone-for-one
basis. A novel feature is that the mitigation need not be accomplished on land
owned by the same landowner who is responsible for the taking; rather, a land-
owner seeking permission to take a colony on his land can pay another landowner
to carry out the required mitigation on that other owner's land. Moreover, land-
owners can "bank" mitigation credits for later use or sale to others (i.e., the
mitigation can begin now, before any request for permission to take active colo-
nies is made or even contemplated).
To encourage rehabilitation efforts where they will be of most value to the bird,
the initial two-for-one mitigation requirement might be relaxed to aone-for-one
requirement where the rehabilitated colony (or colonies) serves to link together
currently fragmented subpopulations. For example, the incidental taking of two
colonies could be mitigated either by the rehabilitation of four colonies anywhere
within the Sandhills population, or by the rehabilitation of two strategically
located colonies that link together currently unconnected subpopulations.
Conversely, it may be quite important to discourage the incidental taking of
colonies where the effect of that taking is to produce further fragmentation of the
Sandhills population. In such circumstances, greater than normal mitigation
requirements could be imposed. One possible approach in such circumstances is
to require mitigation for both the incidentally taken colony and all the colonies
that become isolated as a result of that taking. To illustrate with another example,
suppose a single colony is to be taken that effectively isolates four other colonies
from the rest of the population. In the initial period, the required two-for-one
mitigation would result in a requirement that ten colonies be rehabilitated else-
where, two for the colony actually taken, and two each for the four colonies
isolated by that taking.
The approach outlined does not assure that any rehabilitation of RCW colonies
will actually occur. If no activities likely to result in further incidental taking
occur, there will be no mitigation requirements to create the incentive for rehabili-
tation. However, it seems likely that the same private development pressures and
the Army mission pressures that have caused so much incidental taking in the past
will continue in the future. What this approach offers is a way of aiding the
conservation of the RCW at least cost and with least social disruption. Rehabilita-
tion of RCW colonies on private lands will occur where it is least likely to con-
flictwith long-term intentions of the landowner with respect to future land use
and where the compensation for doing so (in the form of payment by another
needing mitigation credit) exceeds the value to the landowner of other uses of the
land. Similarly, incidental taking will be limited to those situations where the
need for the activity causing the taking is sufficiently great that it outweighs the
cost of providing for compensatory mitigation.
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