EDF Praises Innovative International Paper Plan for Endangered Woopecker

International Paper (IP) Company today unveiled a habitat conservation plan that will establish the first-of-its-kind conservation bank for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. The plan seeks to increase the number of red-cockaded woodpeckers on the company’s lands while giving IP greater flexibility in how it manages its lands. Under the plan, IP can bank “conservation credits” that it could sell to other private landowners. The plan was developed in coordination with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

IP will establish a red-cockaded woodpecker conservation area at its Southlands Experiment Forest in Bainbridge, Georgia. By creating a large, unfragmented population of woodpeckers at Southlands, IP will dramatically increase the chances that the woodpecker will remain and flourish on its lands. As IP establishes new breeding groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers at this site, it will be able to harvest timber in less desirable woodpecker habitat elsewhere on its other lands, or offer conservation credits to other private landowners seeking to mitigate for destruction of woodpecker habitat. Because it can potentially bank or sell these credits, the plan gives IP the opportunity to turn the presence of red-cockaded woodpeckers on its lands into an asset.

“It is rare to have the federal government, state government, a major forest products company and environmentalists agree on anything. This plan demonstrates that it is possible to find common ground where both endangered species and landowners can prosper,” said Michael Bean, chair of the EDF’s wildlife program.

“This plan provides long-term security for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker on International Paper’s lands while providing the company with the flexibility it needs to manage its lands for timber production,” said Robert Bonnie, an EDF economist. “International Paper should be commended for undertaking this effort and for its willingness to invite federal and state agencies and the Environmental Defense Fund to the table to help develop the conservation plan.”

Over the last several years, EDF has been strongly critical of many habitat conservation plans involving the red-cockaded woodpecker, faulting these plans for not requiring a real increase in woodpecker habitat area or in the numbers of endangered birds. The IP plan is intended to result in an increase in the numbers of woodpeckers, and breeding groups must increase before any habitat destruction can occur.

The red-cockaded woodpecker inhabits mature pine from southern Virginia south to Florida and west to east Texas. The woodpecker has declined over the last century due to loss of its old growth forest habitat and fire suppression. In 1970, the woodpecker was listed as an endangered species.