Babbitt Praises State’s Approach Of Forest ‘Habitat Management’

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Tuesday praised a new approach to logging as “the best of both worlds” for the timber industry and regulators, and a way to save the Endangered Species Act.

But an industry spokesman said habitat conservation planning is a “necessary evil given the regulatory and legal climate today.”

Babbitt, who showed up at a state Board of Natural Resources meeting, was commenting on the panel’s draft proposal to manage 1.6 million acres of state-owned timber with a habitat-conservation plan.

Under such plans, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allows the industry “incidental” takings of spotted owls and other federally protected species in exchange for agreement to enhance and develop other habitat for the species.

The method would replace habitat-protection circles - within which logging is generally banned - with a “landscape management” approach. Plans custom-designed by biologists and foresters would seek to balance a decent timber yield with long-term ecosystem health.

Babbitt predicted the approach will help persuade the Republican Congress to keep the Endangered Species Act, which has come under fire for neglecting economic concerns while trying to ensure species survival.

Bob Dicks, a spokesman for the Northwest Forestry Association, said habitat-conservation planning probably offers a better timber yield than the current regulatory method, but nowhere near the amount available for cutting before logging was restricted in the late 1980s to protect the spotted owl.

The idea is sound, said Scott Merriman, a spokesman for the Washington Environmental Council.

But he worried it could turn out to be “another wrapping for the same package” if not properly written.

“As always, the devil is in the details,” Merriman said.

The Natural Resources Board, headed by Department of Natural Resources chief Jennifer Belcher, is expected to release a final draft of its plan in November.

If approved by the board and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it would protect more than 50 wildlife and fish species on 1.6 million acres of state forests “while giving DNR greater control and certainty in timber harvests that generate income for public schools, colleges and universities,” among other things, Belcher said.