25th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, April 21-24, 2000
Abstracts

The Red Cliffs Desert Reserve in Utah: Success and Lessons Learned

Bill Mader
HCP Administrator, Washington County, 197 E. Tabernacle, St. George, Utah 84770

The Washington County Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for the threatened desert tortoise in southwestern Utah, now managed under the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve (RCDC), has enjoyed early success for a multitude of reasons. The principle reason has been Washington County's ability to build a successful partnership with seven local cities, the BLM, Utah Division of Natural Resources, Utah State Parks Department, the USFWS, and Utah State Institutional Trust Lands Administration. This approach has also given the local community, which is paying for the Reserve by way of impact fees, the opportunity to actively participate and therefore take pride in the Reserve. The end result is a broadly supported initiative that enhances tortoise viability while also permitting restricted recreational uses. It has been our experience that initiatives such as ours to save endangered species are most successful when the impacted community is largely behind it. This is especially so when thousands of acres of private property are directly affected and the habitat in question is immediately adjacent to metropolitan areas.