Buying Parklands Tops Wilson’s Ecology List : Environment: He will unveil his program today. Forests, wetlands, rivers and wildlife would be included.

Gov. Pete Wilson, who campaigned for office on a pledge to protect the environment, will unveil a comprehensive 14-point program today designed to help preserve the state’s forests, wetlands, rivers and wildlife.

Choosing Earth Day to announce his environmental agenda, Wilson will propose a $628-million bond measure to acquire and develop parkland along the coast, in the Santa Monica Mountains and in the redwood forests of Northern California.

The Republican governor also will call for strengthening the Coastal Commission, reducing the state’s timber harvest and allowing local voters to approve park bond measures by a simple majority vote, according to a draft of the plan obtained by The Times.

In addition, Wilson will offer several new programs, including the creation of a “Riparian Habitat Conservancy” to preserve sensitive river areas and a plan to protect wildlife in Southern California by setting aside land that is threatened with development.

“This is perhaps the most far-reaching conservation agenda ever undertaken by a governor of California,” said Douglas Wheeler, Wilson’s resources secretary. “It bespeaks a firm and expansive commitment on the part of this governor to deal in a timely way with the most pressing conservation issues of the state and to redeem the very important commitments he made during the campaign.”

Underlying the governor’s program, Wheeler said, is the philosophy that government must be the steward of California’s resources and that the state should work in partnership with local governments, business interests and environmentalists.

Furthermore, he said, the state’s program to sustain its resources must be closely intertwined with its effort to maintain a healthy economy.

“The quality of life here is equally dependent on a viable economy and a sound environment,” Wheeler said.

Many of the specific proposals in Wilson’s package will require approval by the Legislature and the voters. The Wilson Administration is optimistic that it will find support for the plan, particularly among Democratic legislators who have long favored environmental causes.

The most expensive element of the governor’s plan is the proposed $628-million bond measure, which would be put before the voters in June, 1992. It would include:

* $300 million for the acquisition of forests, including the 3,000 acres of old-growth redwood trees near Eureka known as the Headwaters Forest. A portion of the money also would go to preserve oaks, pines and firs in Southern California and other parts of the state.

* $125 million for the purchase and development of state parkland, including such facilities as Chino Hills State Park, San Simeon State Beach, Salt Point State Park and Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area.

* $138 million to be divided among the Coastal Conservancy, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Tahoe Conservancy for land acquisition, restoration and public access projects.

* $65 million for the preservation of inland and coastal wetlands, including lagoons in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties; sensitive riparian habitat, including rivers in coastal Southern California; and endangered species habitat, including the Chuckwalla Bench Desert Tortoise Preserve in Riverside County.

Apart from the bond measure, Wilson is proposing a constitutional amendment that would allow cities and counties to approve their own park bond measures with a simple majority vote.

Under current law, local park bond measures require a two-thirds majority for passage. For example, Los Angeles County’s Proposition B, an $817-million park measure, was rejected last year despite winning 57% of the vote.

One of the biggest environmental problems facing the governor is the rapid rate of harvests by the timber industry in privately owned forests.

Wilson’s environmental package endorses the spirit of a compromise negotiated by the Sierra Club and Sierra Pacific Industries, a major logging firm, that calls for restrictions on clear-cutting and a harvest rate that does not exceed the forests’ rate of growth. Most of the timber industry has rejected the proposal, although Democratic legislators are seeking to win passage of the plan.

Wilson’s proposal calls for further negotiations between environmentalists and the industry to try to work out a compromise acceptable to all sides. “We seek to have comprehensive forest practices reform legislation enacted this year,” the governor’s draft proposal said.

The governor also calls on the state Board of Forestry, which has long been criticized for serving the interests of the timber industry, to adopt policies to limit clear-cutting, protect watersheds and force the industry to harvest no more than it grows.

One source close to the governor said one of his goals will be to appoint more public service and environmentally oriented members to key policy boards and commissions, such as the Board of Forestry and the Coastal Commission.

The governor’s primary coastal initiative will be to strengthen the Coastal Commission, which has long suffered under the budget cuts of former Gov. George Deukmejian. In particular, Wilson hopes to bolster the agency’s program of enforcing restrictions on shoreline development and speed up the completion of local coastal land-use plans.

In addition to Wilson’s proposed $10-million acquisition of endangered species habitat, his plan calls for a pilot project to preserve land in areas where species are not yet threatened by development but soon may be.

This project, slated for Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, has the backing of the Irvine Co. and the Nature Conservancy, among others. It would provide for the preservation of representative habitat areas and then permit development of other land with similar plant and animal species. One aim of the project, the draft proposal says, is to “allow for compatible, environmentally sensitive land development.”

Another pilot project is designed to convert marginal farm land into part-time marshes to preserve water supplies and provide habitat for waterfowl. Under the governor’s plan, the state would acquire a farm where the land would be flooded part of the year and the water diverted later for other purposes.

The part-time marshes and other new programs not financed by the bond measure would be paid for by $23 million in special fees and transfers of funds from other programs.

With 90% of California’s wetlands already drained and developed, the proposal calls on the state Resources Agency to prepare a comprehensive plan by the end of this year for “improved conservation of these critical resources.”

In an attempt to preserve the state’s history and culture, Wilson’s plan also calls for the creation of a state register of historic places--a program that California has never had.

Sources familiar with the governor’s 14-point plan acknowledge that it does not address every matter of environmental importance. The controversial issue of water, for example, is noticeably absent and will be addressed in a later proposal.

Last Wednesday, Wilson unveiled his proposal for the creation of a California Environmental Protection Agency to take over a variety of functions now performed by other state agencies, including pesticide regulation and toxic waste cleanup. The day before, the chief executive also embraced the development of alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas to replace gasoline in automobiles.

“Though we face a serious budget crisis, California will not cut back state environmental protection,” Wilson said in his Saturday radio address. “Just the opposite. Our quality of life is too important. We will strengthen our protection of California’s natural heritage.”