Type: report

Article abstract: INTRODUCTION A. Purpose of Inclusion of the Preserve in Carlsbad Habitat Management Plan The City of Carlsbad has an obligation to protect and enhance wildlife values under their sub-area Habitat Management Plan (HMP) and implementing agreement (City of Carlsbad, 2004). As part of the development permits of the Kelly Ranch Development in Carlsbad, California, Kelly Land Company was required to secure and endow a natural land management organization to manage the site's natural open space in perpetuity. Kelly Land Company received development permits from various governmental organizations, including the California Coastal Commission (CCC, 2001), City of Carlsbad (Planning Commission, 2001), and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS, 2000), which stipulate conservation requirements and any future alterations to the natural open space areas. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), and other organizations, maintain that merely setting lands aside and preventing development is not sufficient to preserve and protect biological integrity. Identifying the critical ecological processes and elements that need protection, then planning, budgeting and funding for sustaining these processes and elements in perpetuity, is the essence of long-term land protection. The Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM or Center) accepted management responsibility for the Kelly Ranch Habitat Conservation Area (HCA or Preserve) through a Management and Funding Agreement dated November 15, 2001. To further protect the conservation values on the Preserve, and to provide for third-party beneficiaries, a conservation easement (CE) in favor of CNLM was also conveyed. On February 1, 2002, both roles—that of Preserve management and CE compliance monitoring—were funded through an endowment. B. Kelly Ranch Habitat Conservation Area Background The Preserve was set aside to protect some of the last remaining stands of habitat left in Carlsbad, and to create additional open space to connect adjacent dedicated open space in the vicinity, such as Macario Canyon to the south and Batiquitos Lagoon to the west. The limits of the HCA (Figures 1 and 2) have been approved by the USFWS and the CDFG with the primary goal of protecting habitat of the federally listed coastal California gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica californica), as well as other sensitive plant and wildlife species, and sensitive veget