Steps Taken to Save Endangered Plants on Federal Lands : Environment: The U.S. Forest Service and a private conservation organization sign a bellwether agreement to protect thousands of species from extinction.

High in the San Gabriel Mountains, under towering yellow pines, blooms a red flowering plant known as the Mt. Gleason paintbrush. But because of extensive hiking, camping and development of ski areas where the plant once abounded, the Castilleja gleasonii now is rare, its existence threatened.

In a bellwether ecological pact, however, the U.S. Forest Service and a national conservation organization Monday took a first step to save the Mt. Gleason paintbrush--found in the Angeles National Forest--and other such “native plants.”

Meeting in Claremont, officials of the federal agency and the privately run Center for Plant Conservation signed an agreement aimed at preserving thousands of plants threatened with extinction in the country’s 156 national forests and 19 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages 191 million acres of public land.

“We will be working together on all levels to protect plant species throughout the United States,” Forest Service head F. Dale Robertson said of his agency’s agreement with the center, based at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

Although there is much discussion today about destruction of valuable plants in tropical rain forests, the native plants of the United States “are kind of the invisible problem,” said the center’s executive director, Donald Falk. “We hear so much about the baby seals, the condors, the whales or wolves. But we have to remember that without the plants, none of these others would exist.”

Twenty-three percent of native U.S. species--4,400 different plants--are listed, or proposed to be listed, under the nation’s Endangered Species Act, Falk said. Three-fourths of these are on Forest Service lands in California, Hawaii, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Within the next decade, Falk said, 800 species may be close to extinction if nothing is done.

Under the agreement, the Forest Service, which traditionally has focused on mining, grazing and timber interests, will contract with the center to make inventories of rare plants in the wild, propagate them in botanical gardens and reintroduce them into areas where they are vanishing.

In addition, the Forest Service and the center have pledged to develop public education programs to explain the plight of native plants.

Funding will come from the center, which is financed privately through endowments and other sources, and from the Forest Service. No specific projects, or a budget, have been developed.

Nonetheless, Falk said, the pact symbolizes “a profound sea change” in attitude within the Forest Service. Many of the national forests “don’t even have a botanist,” he said.

Federal agencies overall, Falk said, have given rare plants short shrift. Of all the federal funds spent annually on endangered species, only 2% is directed at saving plants, he said.

To make up for this, there has been a push to hire botanists in the last two years, said Christopher Topik, head of the Forest Service’s endangered plants program.

But the government still needs the scientific expertise of the center, which is made up of 25 botanic institutions. In California, there are three members: the botanical garden at UC Berkeley, the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden at the Claremont Colleges and the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Contra Costa County.

The goal, Falk said, is to develop “win-win situations” so that both economic and ecological interests can be protected. “Our whole economy and ecology are too tightly woven not to be sensitive to both,” he said.

As an example, Falk cited certain species of the agave common in the West but threatened by cattle grazing on Forest Service lands in Arizona. Extract of the agave supplies essential ingredients of tequila, Falk pointed out, making that plant very valuable to some people. With some minor changes in grazing policy, he said, the plant could be saved and cattle still allowed to graze on the lands with the endangered agave.

“The aim is not to stop all economic activity,” he said.

Within two years, Falk said, his organization hopes to complete a similar agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, another federal agency that oversees vast chunks of land in the country, especially in the West.