U.S. expands protection of Big Sur
$4.5 million for endangered wildlife habitat
September 24, 2000
Web posted at: 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT)
From staff and wire reports
LOS ANGELES, California -- The White House said on Sunday that 784 acres of forest, meadow and rugged cliffs on the southern edge of Big Sur in central California have been purchased for $4.5 million as part of President Clinton's drive to conserve areas of natural beauty.
The U.S. Forest Service bought the parcel around San Carpoforo Creek. It will be added to the 1.75-million-acre Los Padres National Forest.
The acquisition of the former ranchland protects a habitat for the endangered steelhead trout and the Smith's blue butterfly. It also ensures protection of a rare public access to the Big Sur coastline.
The acquisition is tiny compared with the acreage already under federal protection around Big Sur, but it carries significant symbolic value.
The purchase represents one of Clinton's last chances to expand his environmental legacy and an opportunity to confer further environmental and conservation credentials on Vice President Al Gore.
Clinton seeking permanent conservation funding
Funding for the latest acquisition comes from the president's 2000 land conservation budget, a total of $650 million that was the subject of a protracted struggle in Congress.
Clinton, who was in California for a fund-raiser, has asked Congress to pass permanent conservation funding to protect such lands as part of his environmental legacy.
"Permanent funding ... would mean that citizens could enjoy more open spaces -- from Los Padres National Forest to their own neighborhoods -- and that future generations of Americans could appreciate the natural treasures that are among this nation's greatest riches," said a White House fact sheet on the Big Sur purchase.
Through two presidential terms Clinton has achieved stronger protection for tens of millions of acres of scenic and threatened land and frequently angered Republicans in the process.
In April, Clinton set aside 355,000 acres to protect groves of giant sequoias. He made the trees a protected monument under the 1906 Antiquities Act, which allows presidents to safeguard, without congressional approval, objects of historic and scientific interest. |
