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should they be treated as not yet incidentally taken, and thus subject to those <br />requirements? <br />Who should administer this approach and how? The essence of the approach <br />outlined here is to create positive incentives for landowners to rehabilitate aban- <br />doned RCW colonies on their lands. This would be achieved by allowing them to <br />sell the mitigation credits they earn through colony rehabilitation to other land- <br />owners who need such credits to take incidentally other RCW colonies. <br />For this approach to work, someone must be responsible for determining when a <br />colony has been rehabilitated, determining the mitigation requirements applicable <br />to any given incidental taking, monitoring the number of active RCW colonies <br />within the Sandhills population, recording transactions between landowners <br />carrying out mitigation and landowners carrying out incidental takings, monitor- <br />ingcompliance with agreements regarding management of rehabilitated colonies, <br />and evaluating regularly the success of the overall effort. The state, a local <br />governmental agency, a special interagency body of some sort, or an altogether <br />new entity acceptable both to local landowners and the FWS, might perform these <br />functions satisfactorily. <br />What happens if, despite best efforts, the program is not succeeding? This could <br />occur if there is insufficient interest in rehabilitating colonies to meet the "de- <br />mand" for mitigation of activities expected to result in incidental taking or if the <br />rehabilitated colonies do not persist for long. Some mechanism needs to be in <br />place for such contingencies, including the possibilities of adjusting mitigation <br />ratios prospectively (or perhaps even retrospectively), changing management <br />requirements with respect to rehabilitated colonies, or even scrapping the ap- <br />proach altogether as awell-intentioned, but failed, experiment. <br />Finally, is the approach outlined here permissible within existing legal authorities <br />and how can it be integrated with the mechanisms already in place (e.g., the <br />biological opinions applicable to Fort Bragg)? The approach essentially combines <br />the habitat conservation planning mechanism of Section 10 for non-federal lands <br />with the consultation mechanism of Section 7 for federal lands. Nothing in it <br />would appear to conflict with any requirements of the Endangered Species Act, <br />and insofar as it may warrant reopening Section 7 consultations with the Army, <br />the authority for that clearly exists. <br />A VOLUNTARY LAND ENROLLMENT APPROACH <br />The tradeable credit approach described above requires a biologically defensible <br />basis for "valuing" land management practices that individual landowners in the <br />Sandhills can take. At least two problems with that approach are potential stum- <br />bling blocks. First, most economists familiar with similar schemes strenuously <br />urge that things be kept simple. That advice may be difficult to apply because a <br />23 <br />