Habitat Conservation Plans

Habitat Conservation Plans (HCP) emerged out of the deadlock created by US Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection in areas of high resource or land value. HCPs create an alternate path to protection for federally endangered species by providing landowners some flexibility and predictability in meeting the provisions of the act.

(Read More: Federal HCP) (Read More: Endangered Species Act)

In the beginning HCPs were simple single species management plans on single landowner sites, like a forestry company or a housing development. Ultimately they blossomed into long term, multi-species and multiple landowner planning behemoths that have been both praised and reviled

(Read More: Endangered Species Act) (Read More: Threatened Species in HCP)

I believe that over the last fifteen years HCP’s have grown to become an exciting new vehicle for creating protection for all species while improving conditions for landowners to exercise their rights to use their land. The most important new developments have come from states engaging the process and no state has done better than California.

(Read More: California’s HCP)

At the state level, habitat conservation planning takes many forms. Some states, like NJ use various regulations such as wetlands protection and coastal area protection to force protection of wildlife habitat for rare species on mostly unwilling landowners. Ultimately the landowner must bear the cost of the protection, or pass them on to their clients. In California a statewide program called the Natural Communities Conservation Protection Act (NCCP) assumes some of the authority from the Federal government to allow communities to develop large scale protection efforts that embrace both state and federally listed species and like other federal HCP provides long term assurances on permitting. The NCCP plans are distinguished because they rest on one very important premise: NCCP plans do not take away the value of anyone’s land.

(Read More: NCCP)

As the head of the NJ Endangered Species Program I have created a number of HCP like plans based on state regulations. Now I have begun several projects attempting to start a new method of large scale planning similar to the NCCP process but with one critical difference. It is all voluntary. The benefit to the community is a HCP that will attempt to satisfy state and federal regulations while assuring all landowners receive a fair value. Recently, we have begun work on two main habitat planning projects.

• Development of a handbook for Communities and landowners to help create habitat conservation plans useful in obtaining permits from state and federal agencies.
• With a grant from the Penn Foundation develop a prototype HCP on the Delaware River.

(Read More: Penn Foundation)