28th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, February 21-23, 2003
Abstracts

Desert Tortoise Management issues: QuadState County Government Coalition

Gerald E. Hillier
Executive Director, QuadState County Government Coalition P.O. Box 480, San Bernardino, CA 92402

QuadState is a formal JPA of six counties in the Mojave. We were not and are not anti-tortoise. We advocate reasonableness in implementing tortoise programs.

Our primary concerns: 

• The agencies should attack the primary causes of tortoise decline, which appear to be disease and predation
• Maintaining economic viability of land uses in the region
• Establishing a reasonable recovery plan
• The lack of reflecting the institutional framework in critical habitat and land management
• Establishing population baselines and assuring regular monitoring
• Establish efficacy monitoring
• Focus must become outputs, not inputs
• The Clark County HCP model and take authorization are inappropriate elsewhere and lack fairness.

The GAO audit fell short of reflecting all expenditures to date, lacking State and private mitigation expenditures and business losses. We support its findings of a lack of efficacy monitoring.

We support partnerships and dialogue to solve issues, but to date have been rebuffed, with protests denied by the Bureau of Land Management in each State's new plans. Cooperating agency status should mean something-local elected officials are a key element in decision-making and implementation processes.

Agency emphasis seems directed to implementing a Recovery Plan that we believe flawed and dated. We counsel review of that plan and its efficacy. Decisions are not abstract-they cost real money to implement, they affect real people and their livelihoods, and they result in lost funding to local governments to carry out their functions that are often in support of Federal agencies.