Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl - DRAFT

I. Introduction and SurnmaryA. Requirements of the Endangered Species ActB. The ProblemThe Endangered Species Act establishes a biological imperative that governsthe formulation of the recovery plan for the northern spotted owl, a speciesthat was placed on the list of threatened species on June 26, 1990. Thebiological imperative requires that the recovery plan provide for the managementof the owl and its habitat in a manner that will result in the conditionsnecessary for its long-term survival without the protections of the act. If this isachieved, the species can be removed from the list. Clearly, biological principlesand information will form the primary basis for designing and evaluating thelikely success of management actions for recovery of the spotted owl.Formulation of a recovery plan for the northern spotted owl encounters manyof the fundamental conflicts that generally arise between economic growth andproductivity, on one hand, and environmental quality, on the other. The rangeand habitat of the owl are extensive and largely coincide with the remainingold-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest and other valuable timberlands withsimilar characteristics. Many of the actions being suggested to protect the owlpopulation would substantially restrict the harvesting of timber from theseforests. They also would prevent harvest from some younger forestlands thatcould become owl habitat in future decades. Although the preservation of owlhabitat will yield a variety of benefits to wildlife and recreation, substantialsocial and economic costs will be caused by the reductions in timber harveststhat will result from implementing such measures during many decades.U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) estimates indicatethat planned timber sales in federal forests in the 1990s would have yieldedannual timber harvests between 3 and 4 billion board feet per year, generatingmore than $1 billion dollars annually in economic benefits and supportingnearly 70,000 jobs in the Pacific Northwest. Projections for some owl preservationplans show that they would cause a substantial decline in production andemployment in the timber and wood products industries in the Pacific Northwest.Timber harvests from federal lands would be cut nearly in half. Estimatesof the costs of such proposals have ranged as high as $25 billion over 50years (Mead et al. 1990) and 40,000 jobs (Beuter et al. 1990). The threat ofsuch economic effects has made the preservation of the owl very controversial.C. The Role of Economic ConsiderationsSecretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan, Jr., asked the Northern Spotted OwlRecovery Team to consider economic effects to the extent consistent with itslegal mandate in formulating a recovery plan for the owl. The decision toconsider economic effects in formulating a recovery plan represents a significantdeparture from past practice. Recovery plans prepared for other specieshave not formally used economic analysis, although the costs of managementactions such as acquisition of habitat have been considered.Several unique challenges confronted the Recovery Team because of theprecedent-setting nature of this effort. On one hand, advocates of forestpreservation and owl conservation expressed concerns that the considerationof economic effects would prevent the recovery plan from being based on531