Today marks the 38th anniversary of the federal Endangered Species Act , which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973. The purpose of the ESA is to protect and recover imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend.
Section 10 of the ESA gives landowners, including states, a route to seek federal permission to use lands inhabited by endangered species. The landowner applying for a permit must develop a habitat conservation plan (HCP) for long-term protection of species listed as endangered or facing other threats to survival. HCP approvals are administered by the applicable federal service (generally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for land-based and freshwater species or the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service for marine species).
DNR’s state trust land HCP guides management of approximately 1.8 million acres of forested state trust lands within the range of the northern spotted owl.
There also is a Forest Practices HCP — a plan establishing that the state’s Forest Practices rules for private, state and other non-federal, non-tribal forestlands in Washington are a means of meeting federal Endangered Species Act requirements to maintain and restore aquatic and riparian (streamside) habitat.
DNR also is developing an HCP for state aquatic lands to help protect the sensitive, threatened and endangered species native to Washington State that depend on those lands.
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