U.S. Department of the Interior
Office of the Secretary

Stephanie Hanna (O) 202/208-6416
Diana Hawkins (O) 404/679-7293


For Release: Immediate

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt today joined some of the nation's top women golfers at the Pine Needles Golf Course near Pinehurst/Southern Pines, North Carolina, to announce another participant in an innovative new program to encourage habitat conservation for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. The Pine Needles Lodges & County Club becomes the 14th golf course signing an agreement with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service since the program was developed last year.

The Safe Harbor program is also known as the North Carolina Sandhills Habitat Conservation Plan. It is a first-of-its-kind program, designed to encourage private landowners to undertake actions that will benefit the red-cockaded woodpecker. Safe Harbors is one of the many new approaches taken by the Clinton Administration to work cooperatively with private landowners on habitat conservation for threatened and endangered species. The plan removes a regulatory impediment that has, in the past, caused some landowners concern that conserving an attractive habitat for an endangered species might restrict the use of their property in the future. The plan was developed by the Service and representatives from the Environmental Defense Fund, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, the North Carolina State University's Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Research Program, and the Sandhills Area Land Trust.

"This is a great example of some of the exciting innovative approaches this Administration has taken to make the Endangered Species Act work better," Secretary Babbitt said. "We took a look at the fact that the red-cockaded woodpecker has been in a long-term decline both in the Sandhills and throughout its range in the Southeastern states, particularly on private land. That's because few landowners had an incentive to take any actions that would help the bird. Encouraging voluntary beneficial action by private landowners may slow, stop, or reverse its decline."

In addition to Safe Harbors, the Clinton Administration has worked continuously to respond to the concerns of private landowners in making the Endangered Species Act more flexible. Other examples include the 5-acre exemption for threatened species, that exempts 95 percent of American property owners in most circumstances from regulation.. For larger landowners and others affected by the Act, there has been increasing reliance on cooperative Habitat Conservation Plans, and reliance on federal and state land as much as possible. Safe Harbor provides an assurance to private landowners that if voluntary or incidental land management activities result in an increase in endangered species numbers or their habitat, they will not suffer undue restrictions in the future. Through a cooperative agreement between participating landowners and the Service, the amount of habitat and existing numbers of endangered species numbers is agreed upon, and anything above that level is considered a voluntary enhancement by the landowner. The landowner is, at anytime in the future, free to halt his habitat management actions, or to remove newly created habitat, as long as the overall level does not fall below the agreed upon baseline.

The plan is entirely voluntary. Only those landowners who wish to participate in the plan need do so. Thirteen golf courses in the area already participate in the Safe Harbor Program, including the famous Pinehurst courses Numbers 1-8, TALAMORE, Forest Creek Golf Club, Country Club of North Carolina courses 1 & 2, and Pinehurst Plantation. The longleaf pine forest type in the North Carolina Sandhills area has been identified by the red-cockaded woodpecker recovery plan as prime woodpecker habitat and as one of the 15 required locations to establish a viable woodpecker recovery population.

If a landowner decides not to continue participating in the program, the favorable habitat conditions created will not necessarily go away. They may persist for many years unless a landowner decides to eliminate them. A participating landowner is also free to sell his land and the buyer has exactly the same protective Safe Harbor as the previous landowner. Any landowner within the plan boundaries (parts of the six counties that comprise the North Carolina Sandhills) whose land exhibits potential nesting or foraging habitat is potentially eligible to participate in a cooperative agreement. The Fish and Wildlife Service is particularly interested in entering into cooperative agreements with landowners whose lands contain red-cockaded woodpecker clusters that are now abandoned.

There are 38 golf courses in the immediate Pinehurst/Southern Pines resort area, which celebrated its centennial anniversary this past year. At present, there are 49 breeding groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers on the golf courses, residential areas, and horse farms in this area.

Red-cockaded woodpeckers need older, open, pine forests for establishing their nest cavities and foraging. Many sites formerly contained nesting red-cockaded woodpeckers that are now abandoned. The woodpeckers may have left because oaks and other hardwoods have grown up, transforming an open pine forest into a dense, mixed pine and hardwood forest, unsuitable for these birds. Landowners can "rehabilitate" these now-abandoned sites by controlling hardwood midstory, drilling new artificial cavities for the birds, and placing artificial restrictors over cavity entrances that have been enlarged by other species.

The land management practices encouraged for participants in the Safe Harbors program also will help to maintain a whole array of unusual and significant plant and animal life associated with longleaf pine forests, including bobwhite quail and southeastern fox squirrel. Additionally,. , hardwood control will make it possible for landowners to realize the very substantial revenue from harvesting pinestraw, a multi-million dollar industry in North Carolina.

Under the Safe Harbor Cooperative Agreement signed by Secretary Babbitt today, Pine Needles is agreeing to enhance habitat in the area that is presently occupied by red-cockaded woodpeckers. They have also agreed to restore an unused 500-acre tract of land which has a problem with hardwood encroachment in the midstory of the pine forest. Pine Needles provides habitat for 5 breeding groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers on its Pine Needles and Mid Pines golf courses and resort area.

"In my search for new approaches to help these marvelous symbols of the rich biological history of the Southern states make their comeback, I have seen red-cockaded woodpeckers actually flourishing amidst the combat missions of some of the military's toughest troops at Fort Stewart and Camp Lajeune," Babbitt said. "It is a great pleasure to kick off another Safe Harbor agreement among some of America's toughest and most seasoned golfers. There is no reason why woodpeckers and activities that benefit local economies, military readiness, or professional golf cannot thrive side-by-side. I hope to be able to stand here sometime during my tenure as Secretary of the Interior and be able to proclaim the red-cockaded woodpecker as one of the greatest Endangered Species Act success stories of this Administration." -DOI-