TP&WD Withdraws Proposed
Habitat Protection Plan

AUSTIN — The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has withdrawn an embattled plan to encourage landowners to improve habitat for endangered species.

Some landowners had objected strongly to the proposal, which was aimed mostly at protecting two endangered bird species, the black-capped vireo and the golden-cheeked warbler. In the process, it was envisioned as a way to protect landowners themselves, but that message never quite got across.

The plan would have covered a wide swath of Texas, from the hill country to as far west as Brewster County in the Big Bend.

Andrew Sansom, director of the Parks and Wildlife Department, said he "discontinued" work on the plan, still in early draft form, because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could not promise to keep information about private property confidential.

Landowners were particularly concerned that information about endangered species on their land could be shared with other federal agencies or otherwise find its way into the hands of lawsuit-happy environmental activists.

Its developers saw the plan as a way to prevent landowners from being forced to maintain enhanced habitat that they might — deliberately or inadvertently — create through normal land management practices. The idea was to survey the land of voluntary participants and draw a "baseline" of conditions existing at the time of enrollment; landowners would not be held accountable for improvements beyond that baseline.

Gary Graham, director of the Texas endangered-resources program, explained that many landowners in Central Texas have improved their property to attract deer and the resulting revenue from deer hunters. The same habitat favored by deer also attracts vireos and warblers, he said.

The department was trying to write a "safe-harbor" plan under which landowners who improved habitat would not be held liable if they later returned their land to its previous condition, Graham said.

At one time the plan was supported by the Texas Farm Bureau, but that support is said to have weakened under pressure from some members. Graham said the erosion of Farm Bureau member support was a factor in the department's decision to drop the idea.

A variety of other producer and landowner groups had participated in efforts to create a viable "safe harbor" plan, but none of them wrote any blank checks.

Texas Wildlife Association executive vice president David K. Langford termed the negotiations "sitting at the grownups’ table," rather than waiting on the sidelines for a government agency to devise policy behind closed doors and then learning of the consequences only after the fact. Like his colleagues, Langford vowed to oppose any plan that "begins to smell just the littlest bit ‘off’."

A nagging concern, for participating industry representatives as well as non-participating opponents, was the viability of any federal government guarantee, given the record. Even assuming the unlikely — that a federal agency’s promises could be accepted as sincere — no guarantee could prevent an eco-activist group from filing suit, picking any one of a well-researched gaggle of friendly judges, and forcing bureaucrats to go back on their word.

The plan was not nearly far enough along at the time of its cancellation to have dealt with that crucial problem, so it may never have matured even under the best of circumstances, but F&WS’ inability to offer confidentiality was an omen of what lay ahead.

While groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund were unhappy with the agency's decision, some farmers and ranchers were happy about the outcome.

"I could be forced out of business because I'm in prime habitat," said Tony McClenny, who raises cattle on 400 acres in Coryell County.

McClenny said many Central Texas ranch families have worked the land for generations and are good stewards.

"We believe we can do a better job protecting the endangered species if they just tell us what their goals are," McClenny said. "Give us credit for what we do. We're painted as bad guys, and we don't like that."