Environmental Planning: WILDERNESS & WILDLIFE

Wilderness

• settling in america was about conquering wilderness
• Mckibben: The End of Nature
• Legislated Wilderness: ADKs

Conservation vs. Preservation

• Pinchot vs. Muir
• Sustainable use vs. no productive use
• 1897 Forest Conservation Act vs Sierra Club
• Leopold
• Thoreau: rode the middle

Federal Government and Wilderness

• Fed owns 600 million of 2.2 acres
• Main agencies: Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Federal GOv owns more than half of Alsaska, Arizona....
• Started as a utilitarian view: landscapes are aluable if properly managed
• national forest act 1905
• national parks 1916
• now government takes a stewardship role more often

Wilderness and National Forests

Wildlife Habitat

• The united States has more than 200000 native species of plants and animals about ten percent of the world's known species, and contains 21 of the worlds 28 different types of ecosystems.
• About 7 percent of America's native species are in critical condition, 8 percent endangered, and 16 percent vulnerable.
• Most of the nation's ecosystems have suffered a loss of three-quarters of their original system.

9 causes of wildlife loss

1. land conversion to suburbia
2. land degradation: soil erosion, overgrazing
3. freshwater shortages
4. dams, diversions, and water withdrawals
5. invasive species
6. over-harvesting and poaching
7. climate change global warming
8. ozone depletion
   
9. pollution

Strengths

• There still is considerable intact land out there
• funding for land preservation
• support from public, sports groups, private land trusts
• landowners who love their land

Weaknesses

• lack of cooperation among local governments
• lack of watershed planning (boundary issues)
• impaired waters (over 40% are impaired)
  
• the rush to the ex-urbs, beyond the suburbs
• pressure on wildlife

Opportunities

• Public-private partnerships
• funding/incentives
• infrastructure investment for more compact development
• regulation
• design

Continued Threats

• fragmentation of land holdings, eurban development
• run up in land values
• loss of wildlife habitat
• water pollution from on-site septics, urban stormwater runoff, suburban lawns, and agricultural run-off
• economic downturn

Landscape Ecology

• How multiple ecosystems fit together in a regional landscape of human and natural systems.
• the patch size and shape are important for dtermining what kinds of species are able to live there
• a critical mass is the minimum land or water area needed to support a healthy number of species and species types
• resilience is likely to be greater where there is a critical mass of plant and animal species.
• mammal species need a population of about 500 to remain genetically healthy (CRITICAL MASS)

Biodiversity

• A measure combining the variety of plant and animal species, the populations of each species, the interaction among those species, and the overall health of an ecosystem.
• High biodiversity creates very productive environments that generate substantial environemtnal services: climate moderation, nutrient recycling, water purification, and recharge, oxygen production, and assimilation of waste and pollutants.
• Example: Dutch Lime Disease

Loss of Biodiversity

• Habitat destruction (filling wetlands, plowing, overgrazing, or paving grasslands, fragmenting habitat and migration routes with roads, and siting sprawled and scattered development
• hunting
• qualitative changes that degrade habitat such as the transition from a forest to a tree farm
• the innovation of non-native plants, insects diseases and animals.

Planning for wildlife

• make a core wildlife area
• create buffer zones around it (with distance and allowable use)

Habitat Loss

• The larger the size of undeveloped tracts, the less human intrusion is likely to conflict with wildlife
• The development of roads, houses, and commercial areas fragments wildlife habitat into smaller and often unsustainable areas
• roadkill.

Bioregionalism

• a bioregion is a distinct collection of plant and animal ecosystems that function in certain ways and have particular needs for survival. A bioregion may consist of up to several local ecosystems with differing types and amounts of plants and animals.
• the concept of bioregionalism is the protection of native plant and animal species from non-native species, and maintaining native habitat in the face of development pressures.
• like an eco system but at a larger scale (based on temp, percipitation, watersheds, microclimates and something else).

Exotics and Invaders

• the Kudzu vine in the south arrived in the 1940s and has igorously proliferated
• In the 1990s, the zebra mussels in the great lakes
• There are 7,000 invasive species already here. COST 130BILLION a year.

Habitat Protection Strategies

• Concentrate habitat and species protection efforts on "hot sports" where there are large numbers of plant and animal species
• California and Hawaii have the greatest diversity of plants and animals of all the states, and the largest number of threatened and endangered species.

The SLOSS Debate

• Preserve a single large habitat area or,
  
• preserve several small areas
• pros: large is good
• cons: how do you get everywhere?

Endangered Species Act

• Habitat Conservation Plans WILL BE ON THE EXAM

The Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973

• endangered: endanger of extinction throughout all or significant portion of its habitat range
• Plant and animal species worldwide are becoming extinct at the fasts rate since the dinosaurs of 65 million years ago. Over the last 100 years, some 70 vertebrate and 200 plant species have become extinct in North America
• Threatened and endangered species "are of esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational and scientificvalue to the Nation and its people."
• Soecies such as frogs and salamanders act as "indicator species" of the health of local and regional ecosystems not just for wildlife, but for humans as well.

ESA II

• The ESA applies to all land in the US and an estimate 70% of threatened and endangered species live on private land
• The ESA prohibits any willful "taking" of threatened or killing endangered species: i.e. killing, hunting, harming, capturing, collecting, or destroying its habitat.
• For violations of the ESA, fines and up to 12 months in jail. Any citizen may file suit against any person, business, or agency for violations of the ESA.

ESA III

• USFWS and the National Marine Fisheries Services administer the ESA
• identify plants and animals that are threatened or endangered with extinction, and ensure that private and government actions do not harm these species.
• The agencies draft and implement "RECOVERY PLANS" to enable a threatened or endangered species to recover to a sustainable population. The Fisha nd Wildlife Service may also re-introduce spcies into former habitat e.g. wolves into Yellowstone National Park in 1990s.
• The secretary of Interior may declare a plant or animal species as endangered if the species "is in danger of extinction throughout all of a significant portion of its range." A threatened species "is likely to become and endangered species within the foreseeable future". A species must be at risk for one of the following reasons

1. the destruction or threatened destruction of habitat
2. oversuse of the species for commercial, scientific, educational, or recreation purposes
3. disease or predation
4. lack of regulations to prevent a decline in population and
5. other natural or man made factors threatening survival.

• As of 2008, there were 1238 animals and 747 plants listed as threated or endangered. The number of threatened and endangered species has more than tripled since 1980
• Hawaii has the most listed species at 308, followed by California and Florida
• From 1973 to 2004 108 species in the US became extinct
• the normal rate of extinction would have had 4 species become extinct over that time
• but 68% of the species on the list stabilized or are increasing in numbers

Shortcomings

• REACTIVE
• NOT COMPREHENSIVE: the targeting of specific species and their habitats tends to overlook the need to protect entire ecosystems and biodiversity in general
• landowners fear they will lose the abiloity to use or sell their land
  
• shoot shovel and shut up

Critical Habitat v. Development Rights

• No direct federal govt control but federal agencies can take steps to make development difficult (e.g. NEPA process)

HABITAT CONSERVATION PLANS

• a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) is a contract for large scale ecosystem management usually between the federal government and private land owners. State and local governments may be included as well.
• Provisions for Habitat Conservation Plans were added to the Endangered Species Act in 1982 to clarify where development would be allowed and where habitats should be protected
• HCPs designate critical habitats that are essential to the survival and recovery of threatened and endangered species and hence are off-limits to development
• HCPs also identify lands where development is allowed. An HCP may apply to a single species or several species. A plan may cover a small amount of territory or up to thousands of acres, and can influence forestry, ranching, farming, and urban and suburban development patterns
• HCPS for large areas can run to more than 1000 pages. HCPS are typically set up for 30-50-100 years.

PROCESS OF HCP

• In an HCP the applicant/developer agrees to minimize the "take" of listed and as yet unlisted endangered species to the maximum extent possible
• The applicant in turn receives an "incidental take permit" and "mo surprises" treatment, which absolve the applicant of responsibility for habitat and species conservation on land designated for development so long as a recovery plan for the species is in place
• A further incentive is the "safe harbor agreement." This allows a private landowner, who voluntarily "creates, restores, or improves," threatened or endangered spceies habitat to a certain biological standard, freedom from future ESA regulations if a new threatened or endangered species is attracted to the property.

HCP Cont.

• The HCP approach was remarkably popular under the clinton administration as a way to try to strike a balance between property development and the protection of wildlife habitats
• From 1982 to 1993 only 14 HCPs were implemented. But as of 2002, there were more than 400 HCPs covering 16 million acres, including one-tenth of the commercial forestland in the Pacific Northwest.

Biolgoical Principles for Local Habitat Protection

• Maintain large intact areas of native vegetation needed to support animal wildlife by preventing fragmentation through development
• set priorities for species and habitats to support and improve the numbers and diverse locations of those species
• protect critical landscapes and regulate the use of vegetation in new developments to minimize the invasion of exotic plants.
• identify and protect wildlife corridors to connect habitats and provide uninterrupted movements
• protect are species and habitats ecological processes in those habitats
• balance the opportunity for recreation by the public with the habitat needs of wildlife.

Check book for financial shiiiit.