Integrating Land Use Planning and Biodiversity - Defenders of Wildlife

INTRODUCTION
to protect species only after their numbers have dropped
to perilously low levels. Waiting until populations of the
species reach the brink of extinction reduces their
chances for successful recovery and such reactive, urgent
rescue operations usually require intensive management
and habitat restoration. This kind of last-minute
regulatory action is also often extremely expensive and
contentious.
natural resources. Conservation should be initiated to
prevent species from becoming endangered or threatened,
rather than begun only when their numbers have declined
to the point where emergency protection and recovery is
required. Ultimately, preserving entire ecosystems cost
less, give landowners, wildlife biologists, and land use
managers greater flexibility, and reduce conflicts between
conservation and economic interests.
Over the last decade, in an attempt to protect endangered
species and their habitats on non-federal lands, habitat
conservation plans have been adopted as a provision of
the Endangered Species Act. Under 1982 amendments to
the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service can approve habitat conservation plans that allow
the destruction or alteration of habitat for listed species
in one area in exchange for conservation measures that
protect those species and their habitat elsewhere. Habitat
conservation plans represent a pragmatic advance in
endangered species protection, but few plans are
designed to preserve a full range of species over an
extended area, let alone an entire region. Too many plans,
especially the early ones, deal only with one or two
endangered species, small parcels of land, and a limited
number of landowners.
Recently, a number of habitat conservation plans that
seek to protect many species and large areas of land have
been undertaken at the state and regional level. In southern
California, for example, multi-species conservation
plans have been adopted for large portions of San Diego
and Orange counties. Similar plans are underway in other
California counties, as well as in Arizona and Nevada.
While such multi-species plans represent progress in conservation,
they are often not integrated well with local
land use planning.
Experience suggests that a more comprehensive, refined,
and proactive approach is needed to protect large areas
that support whole communities of wildlife and other
Linking state or regional conservation planning with
local land use planning is one way to achieve a more
comprehensive approach to habitat and biodiversity
preservation. Some states and communities have already
begun to do so, but to secure the nation's biodiversity and
to make habitat conservation work comprehensively
across the landscape, more plans that integrate wildlife
conservation and local land use planning are needed.
Conservation planning offers a powerful way to address
the needs of wild animals and plants while incorporating
the goals of biodiversity and habitat preservation into
state, regional and/or local planning processes. With conservation
planning, the needs of wild animals and plants,
and the human community can be considered concurrently.
Such planning can help identify where to locate new
housing developments, transportation corridors, and business
sites so that natural habitats, aquatic resources, open
space, and wildlife will be protected and conserved. To
be effective, comprehensive conservation plans should be
designed on a landscape-scale as much as possible, and
include active community involvement.
PROMOTING COMPREHENSIVE CONSERVATION PLANNING
In a proactive effort to protect endangered species, a
number of state agencies, local and regional governments,
and conservation groups have initiated comprehensive
conservation planning processes. Five states —
Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and
Oregon — have undertaken large-scale conservation
assessments. Seven other states have begun to draft
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