Sec. 405—“. . . provide for substantial and meaningful public and private involvement and participation of the appropriate officials or representatives in the development, revision, and implementation of ...” TITLE V-ADMINISTRATION Sec. 501-(a) "There is established in the Executive Office of the President a Council on National Growth Policy (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the Council')." (c) (4) of standard and interstate agencies, and private interests, in the development (c) (6) “. . . and other eligible public and private entities in order to coordinate such programs;" Sec. 502---(a) (3) “consult with the Secretaries of Agriculture, Department of Defense Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, Commerce and Labor in order to develop procedures to utilize and coordinate existing land use expertise, resources and data in the development of State land use programs, and for educational purposes." Sec. 503-(a) "The Council on National Growth Policy shall... and representatives of State and local governments, and public and private interests . . ." (b) “. . ., representatives of local government, public and private interests, and upon the advice..." 66 Sec. 504-(a) the need for, and form of, national land use policies and their relationship to National Urban Growth Policies." (b) “... Such report shall be based upon the suggestions of representatives of States and local governments, public and private interests, and upon the consideration of the views and recommendations . . ." Sec. 505-"... and shall include an assessment of the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits imposed in each state . . . The report shall include a summary of public involvement and participation by officials or representatives of local government and public and private interests in all aspects of State and Federal activities pursuant to this Act." Sec. 506-(a) (2) The funds allocated seem insufficient, and ULI recommends a substantial increase in the authorization. Mr. UDALL. Thank you for a fine statement, and I appreciate the good work that your organization does and the approach you have taken. I particularly like the specific amendments that you have suggested, the idea that we have specific language, and we will certainly study those in full before we begin markup on the bill. Are there any questions? If not, thank you very much, Mr. Stahl. STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT E. JENKINS, VICE PRESIDENT FOR SCIENCE, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY Dr. JENKINS. Mr. Chairman and members of this Committee, the Nature Conservancy appreciates your invitation to testify on H.R. 3510, the Land Use and Resource Conservation Act of 1975. We have some very long testimony which we would like to introduce into the record. I would like to make my remarks quite brief. As the members of this Committee may know, the Nature Conservancy concentrates on problems of a particular type and our testimony is unlikely to duplicate others. The purpose of this bill is to help arrange for a more rationally patterned land use in order to accomplish a variety of purposes, especially to protect a variety of environmental and other values in intensive development. 52-052-75- -32 Our feeling is unplanned land use in this country has a negative effect of both quantitative and qualitative sources. From a land systems point of view, we need to worry about the effects of haphazard growth on the stability and environmental health of whole local, regional areas. That land use planning is unlikely to affect growth per se, and obviously its more significant effect would be on the qualitative side by providing a mechanism by which we could preserve some of the resources and values we wish to perpetuate. Many of these things which we hope to perpetuate are natural ecological resources and values that only exist under conditions of relative nondisturbances. These are things that we think particularly lend themselves to the protection through the provisions of this bill and should be one of its prime objectives. The best way to characterize this objective is to the perpetuation of natural ecology diversity. We believe that every species of plant and animal, every natural community in the ecosystem, every special feature and ecophenomenon deserves preservation. This is not a widely understood or articulated perspective, but it is of much greater importance to our present and future well-being than such neglect may suggest. The following are a few of our reasons. Each species is a unique biochemical factory. As such, it is an irreplaceable natural resource of indeterminate value for application in human affairs. A number of instances in which little regarded species have been catapulted from their position of no importance to great importance is very great. As the current widespread search for new resources in medicine, agricultural and industrial chemistry, and other fields, the collectivity of extant species in the population is a great storehouse of undiscovered resources that we would be ill-advised to ignore. Each species also plays a unique ecological role which is no instance do we currently understand. As such, natural species and communities of species represent a high degree of adaptiveness to local ecological circumstances which may be difficult or impossible to replace. As such, ecological stability, productivity, and restorative powers are all inherent in the integrated fabric of natural ecosystems. In the past we frequently have been very well served by these capacities and will be again. Integrated natural ecosystem areas represent a great library of ecological information that serve as base lines for comparison to manipulative systems and as a resource for basic and applied research in the natural sciences. As a baseline, such areas are critical for future land management. As research resources, these are the areas to which we must constantly turn to find the answers to important questions. Both communities and species are necessary for the value and ecological monitoring as early warning systems of environmental contamination or deterioration. We feel that ecological diversity is very important to our human psychologies and as a major determinant of environmental quality perception. It is our view that H.R. 3510 could be an excellent vehicle for seeing that these values are perpetuated, especially since the provisions of section 302 for inventory, identification, and protection of areas of critical State concern. However, as pre-existing language is broad enough to assume this objective, we feel it would not be accomplished without further specification in the bill. "Natural area" means different things to different people, and we feel without a clear articulation of intent to preserve natural ecological diversity, "eritical natural areas" will be defined on an inadequate basis for scenic qualtities, lack of recreational open space, or whatever, though these things might be important, we want to feel sure that natural diversity, the objective of preserving the fullest practical array of ecological elements and variables will not fall through the cracks in this bill. To give a concrete example, our own organization was once disparingly spoken of in some corners as the Gully and Hemlock Society. This is because the Northeast where we were initially active a few certain kinds of ecosystems were existing in a relatively natural condition. Since the flash and burn fires have devastated most forest heights hemlock gullies which tended to have been passed over because of high difficulty of exploitation and low economic return stood out as a natural area. Unfortunately, this led to a situation in which we were preserving a single ecological type redundantly and others more critically limited not at all. In order to avoid this trap, we are suggesting certain limited changes in the bill to make national diversity unequivacably a purpose of this Act, and I would simply refer the members and the staff to the expanded testimony which we have Submitted for reference to those intended changes. The prepared statement of Dr. Robert E. Jenkins follows:] STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT E. JENKINS, VICE PRESIDENT FOR SCIENCE, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY The Nature Conservancy appreciates this Committee's invitation to testify on the Land Use and Resources Conservation Act of 1975. We endorse the concepts embodied in H.R. 3510; America is badly in need of an overview and an efective planning process for land usage. Because the Conservancy is considered a specialist in land, and because our business is to conserve the diversity of our ecological resources, it seems appropriate for us to attempt to apply this perspective to the bill before you. First, we would like to briefly describe our organization, as this may establish our qualifications to speak on the subject at hand. The Nature Conservancy is probably best known for the actual preservation of endangered natural areas through outright acquisition. Over the last twenty years, we have saved over 750,000 acres of ecologically significant forests, marshes, prairies, mountains, beaches, and islands in over 1350 projects throughout the United States. Many of these acquisitions were made on behalf of government agencies, thus preserving lands which might have been lost while simultaneously saving the public money. As of December 1974, we had participated in 129 such projects in cooperation with government, placing over 200,000 acres in public trust at an appraised value of over 80 million dollars. Along with actual land preservation, the Conservancy has had considerable experience with certain aspects of planning, particulalry with ecological land inventorying. The organization's precursor group was a Special Committee of the Ecological Society of America which embarked on an inventory of the nation's remaining natural environments in 1917. Since the Conservancy assumed its present identity in 1950, its staff and membership have had major involve ments in every significant state, regional, or national ecological inventory undertaken in the United States. In the last several years, the intensity of these efforts has increased greatly. Our State Natural Heritage Program is particularly relevant to the subject of this Committee's present deliberations. Through this program, the Conservancy has been assisting units of State governments to create an integrated process for survey, identification, evaluation, and preservation of areas representing the full spectrum of natural ecological diversity. Though more confined in its scope, this program is so similar in nature aud so intimately related to the critical environmental areas aspect of land use planning that we believe our experience in this field has given the Conservancy a rather special appreciation of the proposal at hand. In commenting on H.R. 3510, we will largely confine ourselves to a consideration of our field of expertise-the preservation of natural ecological diversity. By this we mean that every species of plant and animal, every natural community and ecosystem type, every ecological phenomenon, every physicochemical environmental variable, and every unique or special natural feature of the landscape should be perpetuated somewhere for a variety of reasons which are of great significance in human affairs. There may be exceptions to this dictum, but we do not see where it is within our present power to identify any of them. The total elimination of even one of our worst pests could easily prove, over the long run, to be a terrible mistake. This is the basic rationale for all of the Conservancy's own activity but it is at once a matter of vital importance and a concept so little understood as to have scarcely penetrated the public consciousness. Although this concept subjectively lies behind most conservation activities, it is akin to what an ecologist would call an "ultimate" cause. The "proximal" causes for land preservation such as recreation, open space, scientific and educational field laboratories, etc., often obscure the fact that these are simply uses of a resource. The resource itself is the great variation and complex of interrelationships which exist in nature. Virtually the only present piece of U.S. legislation uniting the dual concepts of preserving our natural heritage and of preserving diversity is the Nationał Environmental Policy Act. The Congressional declaration of national policies and goals in that Act reads as follows: "In order to carry out the policy set forth in this chapter, it is the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means, consistent with other essential considerations of national policy, to improve and coordinate Federal plans, functions, programs, and resources to the end that the nation may-.. (4) preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage, and maintain, wherever possible, an environmental which supports diversity and variety of individual choice;" (emphasis added).1 At present, this is a goal without an adequate governmental mechanism for its accomplishment. Since the greatest threat to our remaining natural diversity is the pervasive destruction of natural landscapes, a process of land use planning which takes the protection of natural diversity into account would constitute a most efficacious mechanism. There is virtually no other purpose which can be so well served by land use planning at so little cost, but in our estimation, this will not be accomplished unless the Act before us today specifically mandates appropriate action. This opinion might be contested on the grounds that H.R. 3510 already contains language and declarations which can be interpreted to subsume this matter along with other important considerations. Most significantly, in Section 302 on Areas of Critical Concern, processes are called for to inventory land and water resources to designate areas of critical State concern and regulate development of such areas-including "natural or historic land with significant scientific, educational, recreational, or esthetic values . . ." This section is an improvement over past hills which used the more limited term "fragile." The present bill uses the better word "natural." It might be assumed that this seetion would lead to the accomplishment of exactly the sorts of inventorying, identification and protection of diverse natural areas which we have in mind. However, Conservancy staff have been widely involved over the past severat years with the planners and processes through which this bill would eventually be implemented and have encountered little to encourage the assumption that ecological diversity will be given much consideration. On the contrary, our participation in national conferences, workshops, and actual projects in the planning field has demonstrated that diversity considerations will be ignored 142 U.S.C. at 4321 (b) (4). and overwhelmed by concern for carrying capacity, development constraint, and resources of immediate utility. The partial protection of all flood plains for reasons of public safety, the protection of wetlands for their productivity and free works of nature such as pollution abatement, and the preservation of arable land for agricultural use, although important and meeting the prescriptions of the bill, will not accomplish our purposes. Important natural areas with their many components will continue to be destroyed, not through necessity, but only through inadvertence brought about by not affording them sufficient weight in the inventory and planning process. Without additional specification in the bill, we are certain that natural diversity will again fall through the cracks. We are not so naive that we will rely totally on a land use planning process. The ecological conservation community, spearheaded by the Conservancy's natural heritage efforts, has been working hard on inventorying, data banking, and actual preservation, primarily at the State level. Many states already have natural areas programs which, although underfunded and undersupported, are making strides toward improving the status of natural lands under their jurisdiction. In the inventory field, it is unreasonable to expect non-specialists to have the capability to carry them out without great assistance. Ecologists and conservations have been volunteering magnanimously of their expertise, but they also need and deserve assistance. We believe H.R. 3510 to be a critically important means of providing this assistance. So far, there have been large gaps in Federal Government efforts on behalf of preserving our ecological resources. Although much land has been saved in National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and other protected lands, most of it was not carefully selected to represent the full array of ecological resources. No process had existed to facilitate such selection; one of the biggest deficiencies has been in the area of inventorying. Perhaps because our ecological resources have not been so directly identified with immediate economic benefits there has been no “ecological service created to parallel the inventory efforts of the U.S. Geological Survey, the Soil Conservation Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, or the Forest Service. Now that an effort is to be made, through land use planning, to draw many such lines of information together, let us not allow the deficiency of past support for ecological matters to further imperil our ecological resources. Instead, let us attempt to rectify past oversights by very clearly enunciating a proper concern for these resources in the present bill. Why are we so concerned about including an ecological perspective in land use planning? And why preserve natural areas? Because it is imperative that mankind attempt to maintain natural diversity on the landscape. The importance of the diversity is an issue we addressed in a study we recently completed for the Department of the Interior,' in which we recommended creation of a Federal system of natural areas. As an appendix to this testimony, we are submitting the pertinent chapter. Following is a summary of its main arguments: Every species has a purpose and a role to play. Each species is unique and impacts upon other species in some way that has a bearing upon the total ecosystem, and ultimately the integrity of life support systems. The more diverse an ecosystem, the less subject it is to great fluctuations in any of its parts, and the better it is buffered aaginst external disruption. Diversity itself ensures that overall adaptive and restorative mechanisms will perform in a healthy way despite occasional ecological abuses. Consider the plight of regions ravaged by abusive forestry practices; when the damage has been done, what elements of the web of life are going to naturally rejuvenate the land if a large part of the adapted biota has been destroyed? Species or varieties we may not currently think are important may become vital for the solution of system management problems. We have lost our potential for doing this, however, if we have caused the elimination of species diversity. For example, a good deal of effort is spent on controlling pests, which in turn are often created by an ecosystem disruption that frees a species from existing biotic control forces such as a predator .As long as the predator species exists somewhere, re-establishment of its control is a possibility. but if it should become extinct, then what? And what about the frightening susceptibility of agricultural monocultures to pests and disease, while the genetic diversity of the crop plant species is being constantly narrowed to the point that ' Entitled The Preservation of Natural Diversity: A Survey and Recommendations. |