'SAFE HARBOR' OFFERS LANDOWNERS A CHANCE TO AID RARE SPECIES

(9 May, 2002— Washington) Turning farmers and forest landowners from adversaries into allies for conserving rare species is the object of a unique conservation effort by Environmental Defense. Key to the effort is the Conservation Incentives Library, a virtual library of information about incentives for private conservation now available on-line.

The library includes the most extensive collection anywhere of information on one of the most effective tools for enlisting landowner cooperation — Safe Harbor agreements — which allow landowners to create or improve habitat for endangered species without fear of new restrictions on land use.

The Robert Mondavi wine company is the first in its industry to pursue a Safe Harbor agreement. This week the prominent vintner’s efforts to improve habitat at its vineyard in San Luis Obispo County moved forward with publication in the Federal Register of a proposed Safe Harbor agreement. Mondavi plans to improve habitat for two rare bird species and for the California red-legged frog, the subject of Mark Twain’s famous short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

“This Safe Harbor agreement will uncork Mondavi’s ability to improve wildlife habitat at its vineyard, benefiting the California red-legged frog, which was immortalized by Mark Twain, and two important endangered bird species,” said Michael Bean, chair of the Environmental Defense Wildlife program and a leading authority on the Endangered Species Act.

Safe Harbor agreements have already been struck with several hundred landowners on approximately two million acres of land nationwide. The Mondavi agreement marks the first for a wine producer and is only the third developed in California. The agreement, which Environmental Defense helped to prepare, entails riparian restoration along a seasonal stream on the property to benefit the California red-legged frog and the least Bell’s vireo and Southwestern willow flycatcher — two local bird species.

Nationally, the Safe Harbor concept is responsible for the reintroduction of the Hawaiian goose (the state’s official bird) to the island of Molokai, after an absence of more than two centuries, and the return of the northern aplomado falcon, North America’s rarest falcon, as a breeding bird in Texas after an absence of several decades.