Green Diamond Murrelet Habitat Conservation Plan in Need of Improvement

Green Diamond Resource Company, one of the largest industrial timber companies in California and one of the primary private owners of redwood forests, has applied for a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for marbled murrelets under the Endangered Species Act. Despite its name, a “Habitat Conservation Plan” actually allows the opposite. Through this HCP, Green Diamond would no longer be subject to the blanket prohibition against “taking” of marbled murrelets, allowing the company to more aggressively log than they would otherwise be able to. In return, Green Diamond would be required to retain certain murrelet habitat and engagement in other activities that lessen the harm to murrelets from their logging activities. While the HCP would protect known murrelet habitat, it undermines murrelet conservation by allowing for logging activities too close to this habitat and leaves “marginal” habitat with fewer protections.

Matt Muir, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Marbled murrelets are a seabird that nest in old-growth forests. Since Euro-American colonization, the murrelet has lost more than 95% of its habitat in California. Murrelets require big, heavy, moss-laden branches that only old-growth redwood forests can provide for their nesting. Unfortunately, these old forests are missing from much of Green Diamond’s property, as most were logged prior to the murrelet’s listing under the Endangered Species Act in 1992. Since then, Green Diamond has managed its remaining habitat under a “no-take” standard, meaning that they can’t log in such a way that would cause harm to any murrelet. This has meant both protecting existing habitat and “buffers” around this habitat to ensure.

Under the proposed HCP, Green Diamond would be allowed to log in these buffers. Green Diamond claims that this would be to the benefit of marbled murrelets: that through selective logging, Green Diamond would actually hasten the creation of old-growth characteristics that would benefit the murrelet. 

EPIC is skeptical. Read our full comments:

EPIC MaMu HCP Comments.pdf

Download PDF • 325KB

The murrelet experts at the Pacific Seabird Group recommend against just this: “[N]o studies have been conducted that show thinning buffers improves the effectiveness of the buffer or provides benefits to murrelets or their habitat.” First, selective logging cannot meaningfully hasten the development of old-growth characteristics in a time frame that would be of meaning to the species. While “competitive release” can cause redwood trees to get taller more quickly, the large branches that murrelets require take time. There are no shortcuts. Second, logging comes at a cost: by creating new canopy openings, Green Diamond could inadvertently improve habitat for Stellar’s jays, which in turn predate on murrelet nests. 

EPIC is very familiar with Habitat Conservation Plans, with two active lawsuits challenging the validity of northern spotted owl HCPs issued to Green Diamond Resource Company and Sierra Pacific Industries. We urge the Service to take the deficiencies in this HCP seriously so we don’t have to make it three.