PFT Statement on Revised Federal Plan for Threatened Owl Recovery
Revised Plan Hits the Mark with New Recognition of Role Private Lands Can Play in Northern Spotted Owl Recovery
SAN FRANCISCO (July 1, 2011) – The Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) has endorsed a final version of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) plan for promoting the recovery of the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. Released yesterday, the Service’s Revised Recovery Plan makes recommendations for conserving and improving the habitat necessary for recovery of the Northern Spotted Owl. The actions outlined also will improve conditions for many other species dependent on similar habitat to survive, especially in the face of climate change.
The Service’s revised plan contains new proposals for strengthening a range of measures, both regulatory and voluntary, intended to help the endangered species survive. PFT supports the Service’s emphasis on the need to take an “all lands” approach to owl recovery, which emphasizes the importance of habitat and actions taken across the landscape, on both federal and private lands. Private landowners have a key role in helping to restore and conserve habitat for the threatened owl as property boundaries cut across their natural range.
“Federal lands have been the focus of recovery efforts since the owl was listed in 1990, yet almost half the total forests in this region are privately owned,” said Laurie Wayburn, President of the Pacific Forest Trust, which manages the Van Eck Forest in Humboldt, one of two working forests in California that have obtained Safe Harbor Agreement for Spotted Owls. “For the plan to have a real chance of success, the Service needs to make private landowners part of the solution. This revised plan does just that with its new recommendations for an all-lands approach to coordinated, landscape-scale forest management, with an incentives-based approach to working with private landowners.”
PFT and other conservation groups have specifically called out the importance of the plan’s Recovery Actions 10 and 32, which call for the retention and restoration of habitat across all ownership types.
According to a FWS Q and A on the plan, “The Fish and Wildlife Service’s goal is to work with partners and citizens to evaluate the potential contributions of state and private lands to recovery in areas where federal lands are limited. In those areas, the FWS will work jointly to develop economic and other sensible incentives for voluntary habitat conservation measures such as Safe Harbor Agreements and Habitat Conservation Plans.”
The Service’s landscape-scale conservation objectives can be achieved with working forest conservation easements. These easements have the additional benefit of rewarding landowners for conserving and restoring their land to conditions that are needed for species dependent upon restoring older, more complex forests. PFT underpinned its Safe Harbor Agreement for owls with a working forest conservation easement, which guides the property’s management for sustainable timber harvest and habitat restoration, ensuring the forest is permanently dedicated to both habitat and sustainable forestry.
PFT and several other Pacific Northwest conservation groups, including Audubon California, Seattle Audubon, Audubon Society of Portland, Conservation Northwest, EPIC (Environmental Protection Information Center) and the Washington Environmental Council praised the draft plan in an earlier letter to Fish and Wildlife Officials that went out in May. You can read more in PFT’s earlier news release and link to stakeholder letters with additional support and comments on the plan.
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MEDIA: PFT President Laurie Wayburn and Paula Swedeen, Ph.D., PFT’s Director of Ecosystem Services, are available to comment on the FWS Recovery Plan for Spotted Owls. Tours of the Van Eck Forest are available, along with photos and additional information about the Van Eck Safe Harbor Agreement.
About the Pacific Forest Trust
Since 1993, the Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) has been dedicated to conserving and sustaining America’s vital, productive forest landscapes. Working with forest owners, communities and our partners, we advance innovative, incentive-based strategies to safeguard our nation’s forests and their wealth of public benefits, including clean water, sustainably harvested wood, green jobs, wildlife habitat and a livable climate. Recognized as a national leader in sustainable forestry and conservation, PFT has provided expert advice and other services to the owners and managers of more than 10 million acres of forestland from coast to coast. To date, PFT has directly conserved more than 50,000 acres of forestland in California, Oregon and Washington valued at more than $160 million. Learn more about PFT by visiting www.PacificForest.org.