The Golden State's new preservation program

Excerpt

In the heart of Southern California's Orange County lies more than 17,000 acres of pristine canyons, coastal land, riparian habitat, and woodland. Reaching from the Pacific Ocean at Newport Beach to the mountains of Cleveland National Forest this land is home to orange-throated whip-tails, California gnatcatch-ers, cactus wrens, and San Diego horned-lizards. Abundant coastal sage scrub, the predominant vegetative type, and stands of oak and sycamore trees dominate the vegetative cover.

Situated near the Los An-gelos area, the land is protected from further urbanization and development by a preservation program designed to “protect and enhance its natural resources” including its “regionally important wildlife communities and target species,” and to “provide for appropriate recreation opportunities.”

What is unexpected about Orange County's open space reserve is that California's largest private corporate landowner and developer, the Irvine Company of Newport Beach, owns it and is the driving force behind the natural resource management program. Such fragile habitat and sensitive animal species usually are looked upon by real estate developers as obstacles to social and economic progress. However, in what is being called a first-of …