State Official Defends Voluntary Gnatcatcher Program

While acknowledging that the process has been riddled with deficiencies and delays, a top Wilson Administration official on Friday defended the state’s voluntary campaign to protect the California gnatcatcher as the “best hope for a new generation of wildlife conservation.”

The comments from California Undersecretary of Resources Michael Mantell came in a lengthy report to the state Fish and Game Commission, which met Friday in Bishop. It is the first time a Wilson official has appeared before the board to report on the progress of the 10-month-old program.

The gnatcatcher program “has not been, nor will be, easy or without its problems,” Mantell said. “Nevertheless, we believe we have made important advances and are on the way toward achieving the objectives of protecting an entire habitat.”

The songbird, along with more than 50 other rare animals and plants, relies on coastal sage scrub, a declining mix of shrubs found only in Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

The concept of Wilson’s program is to persuade Southland landowners to set aside land voluntarily to create a network of preserves. Its goal is to protect wildlife without invoking the endangered-species law, which Gov. Pete Wilson and developers say would harm economic growth.

Mantell on Friday commended the county’s largest developers for consenting to an 18-month moratorium on much of their property, but he said his staff is still having difficulty signing up local governments and developers in other counties, especially Riverside.

As a result of such reluctance, Mantell urged the commissioners to adopt a regulation that might persuade more developers to join the program. Developers who have not signed up would have to seek the advice of state or federal wildlife officials if they intend to build on the gnatcatcher’s habitat during the next 18 months.

In Orange County, 90% of gnatcatcher habitat has already been enrolled in the state’s program. But several thousand acres--including property in the proposed path of the San Joaquin Hills toll road and South County land owned by Hon Development Co.--has not.

“At present, the most significant area of unenrolled habitat--and thus the area most impacted by these proposed regulations--is that under the jurisdiction of the county of Riverside and its cities,” Mantell said.

The commissioners debated Mantell’s proposed regulation and will continue their discussion at a July 15 meeting in Sacramento.

Dan Silver, who heads a coalition of 30 Southland environmental groups, said Friday that the new proposal, as well as the entire program, is “ineffectual by design. . . . It has absolutely no teeth.”

The new rule would require developers only to seek the advice of the wildlife agencies, not follow it, he said.

“We need some reasonable interim controls on development exerted by the wildlife agencies, or the program is a sham,” he said.

Mantell said about 1,100 acres of coastal sage scrub has been lost in Southern California since the program’s inception. Federal officials have estimated the loss to be about 2,000 acres.

The state’s major conservation groups started out endorsing the program but have since accused Wilson’s staff of using it as a delaying tactic to avoid endangered-species protection for the gnatcatcher.

They dropped their support because they said the Administration weakened the program and halted efforts to put temporary controls on building after opposition from developers.

“We only want them to stick to their original ideas, which we liked very much,” Silver said. “They raised unrealistic expectations for both sides. This is a precedent-setting program, and we must make sure we are doing it right.”