Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508240023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: EMMETT THOMPSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This is hard to understand, considering that almost three-fourths of the nation's timberland and grasslands are privately owned. Most endangered species find suitable habitat on private land, so long-term planning to conserve biological diversity - the building blocks of the natural world - requires close cooperation between the federal government and landowners.
But, for too long now, the relationship has been seriously strained, and some people who have refused to cooperate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been threatened with heavy fines and jails.
Turning landowners - from family farmers to big timber companies - into pariahs certainly was not the intent of Congress or President Richard Nixon in 1973 when they created the Endangered Species Act. Although the act has led to only scattered arrests, its authority to dictate how land is used has outraged many property owners - especially in the heavily forested Southeastern states - and created a situation where some owners are purposely destroying timberland or demanding compensation for complying with the law.
The following example illustrates the problems. In testifying recently before a congressional panel on the Endangered Species Act, landowner Benjamin Cone Jr. described what happened when he decided to sell some timber in Pender County in eastern North Carolina.
The property, along the scenic Black River, had been in Cone's family since the '30s. Cone's father had purchased 8,000 acres, not as an investment but as a place where he could always hunt and fish. His purchase soon became known as ``Cone's Folly'' because most of the property had been ``clear-cut'' of trees shortly before he bought it and his friends thought he was a fool to buy timberless land in ``the middle of nowhere.'' In time, his father replanted the pine forest and periodically cut timber to provide income and maintain the property.
After his father died in 1982, Cone decided to cut some of the timber. That was before wildlife experts told him that he had 29 red cockaded woodpeckers, an endangered species native to the Southeast, living in 12 active colonies on his property. Cone then was informed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that more than 1,000 acres of his property was now designated an endangered species habitat and that no logging could be done in that area. Cone's financial loss was nearly $1.5 million, most of it the value of timber he couldn't cut.
Cone testified, ``By managing Cone's Folly in an environmentally correct way, my father and I created habitat for the red cockaded woodpecker. My reward has been the loss of about $1.5 million in value of timber I am not allowed to harvest under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act.''
Cone has informed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that he is clear-cutting the rest of his property to prevent the woodpeckers from expanding their numbers and causing even greater financial losses. And he says some adjoining landowners are doing the same.
Backlash against the law's ability to impose restrictions on the use of private land is a serious matter. There are hundreds of endangered species in the Southeast, and there are many property owners whose lives have been turned upside down by the statute's inflexibility.
Congress can surely help. The current law is viewed as punitive by most landowners. As Congress takes up proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act, the goal should be to encourage cooperation by landowners in achieving the act's goals. This might include promoting innovative land-use agreements to resolve conflicts, stressing ecosystems rather than individual species, and giving incentives to property owners to conserve habitat.
Beyond that, greater use could be made of easements. After all, easements on land sold or donated to a private organization like the Nature Conservancy are commonly used for preserving open space and farmlands. They also could be used more widely to encourage habitat protection.
Protecting species is a costly endeavor, and it is now being borne by private landowners, a fact ignored by many environmentalists and one that must be confronted by any meaningful reform.
The nature of these problems underscores that saving endangered species cannot be separated from economic issues. We need a strong commitment to habitat protection. But we also need a policy of recognizing and compensating landowners for the costs they incur for the general public's benefit. Otherwise, we run the high risk of experiencing the loss of forests, grasslands and other habitats critical to the survival of creatures on the verge of extinction, and a spate of political recrimination over why there was no conservation policy in place to prevent it.
Emmett Thompson is dean of the School of Forestry at Auburn University in Alabama.
by CNB