Tough Marines and Fragile Fauna : Camp Pendleton agreement is a historic environmental development

With America’s wilderness and open space shrinking under suburban sprawl, the armed forces today are in many areas the stewards of some of the nation’s most ecologically sensitive lands. Marine and Army training bases, Navy stations and Air Force proving grounds are some of the last bastions of many endangered animals and plants.

In North Carolina, Ft. Bragg contains the largest remaining long-leaf pine ecosystem. And Camp Pendleton in San Diego County is home not only to 40,000 Marines and sailors but also to the largest tract of coastal scrub left in Southern California. It is an irony, for the armed forces have not always enjoyed good relations with environmentalists and have caused considerable toxic contamination and habitat destruction.

But all this has begun to change. Under pressure from the Bush and Clinton administrations, military leaders have been cooperating with federal agencies in enforcing the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws--even if only to protect their military missions from those charged with enforcing the laws.

In fact, according to studies by the RAND Corp., military activities today are generally far less environmentally destructive than timber harvesting or cattle grazing and the armed forces probably function better than any other federal landowner when it comes to protecting the environment. The Defense Department, for instance, has an agreement with the Nature Conservancy for that organization to evaluate military lands.

One of the most ecologically valuable of those lands is Camp Pendleton. The 125,000-acre Marine base is the last major redoubt against the development that threatens to make Southern California one big tract of suburban homes from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara. The base’s arid coastline and riverbeds provide essential breeding habitat for numerous endangered birds.

The agreement signed last week between the Marine Corps and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is historic. The corps agreed to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to enhance the special habitats and control predators in a comprehensive way on the sprawling base. So Marines on maneuver and at play will have to respect the rights of the creatures such as the least Bell’s vireo and the Southwestern willow flycatcher.

The military still has a long way to go, especially in cleaning up toxic wastes dumped carelessly during the years when it was almost immune from environmental laws. The Pendleton pact should be a national model. There is an inherent conflict between the military mission and environmental needs. It is comforting to know that such divergent interests can coexist today.