08/19/05 Habitat Conservation Plan model

Douglas County Washington sits in dryland wheat, orchard, and ranching country. But it also sits in the middle of some of the more noted listed and potentially listed endangered species habitat & such as for salmon, sage grouse, and pygmy rabbits. Needless to say, that has affected the livelihood of several ag and natural resources producers. But it has also led to a grass roots effort to protect Douglas County's primarily rural economy while protecting habitat. Britt Dudik heads the Foster Creek Conservation District in Douglas County. He says the effort has been on going for several years to bring ag interests together with government and environmental interests to get everyone on the same page. DUDIK: We work with people that are in the wildlife community and so forth and they tend to say, well, that was the way it was one-hundred years ago. We find that when we talk to the locals or the descendants of families that settled here a hundred plus years ago, their recollection is versus what some of the wildlife community thinks aren't necessarily one and the same. So if we're trying to resolve something, sometimes it's useful to figure out a common starting point. That has led to annual tours and conferences on conservation issues between the stakeholders. But Dudik says the next step goes further. The development of a federally approved Habitat Conservation Plan for Douglas County. DUDIK: We hope to have one of the first approved Habitat Conservation Plans for agriculture in the country. And we're exploring to see how we can use that as a value added side to this to be an incentive because we pretty much believe that there is going to be a cost for somebody to participate in this. They can't do things exactly the way they want them, but on the other side of that, we want to be able to give them a positive out of this, doing something that nobody else in the country has done to date. And that something is granting Douglas County and those producers involved in the H.C.P. an incidental take permit once the government approves the plan. What that means is the permit gives a producer legal protection from Endangered Species Act violations if there is an accidental taking of an endangered or threatened species. That is in return for H.C.P. participants' involvement in various federal conservation programs, and following guidelines as set in programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program. Dudik says a draft H.C.P. for Douglas County should be submitted to the federal government by November. Then Douglas County would have to wait for up to two years, give or take negotiations on points of the plan, before knowing if the plan is accepted.