Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP): The Origins of an Ambitious Experiment to Protect Ecosystems

The first report in a series. The Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) Act of 1991 was supposed to foster a new approach to conservation, one focused on preserving intact ecosystems across an entire region. The NCCP program was intended to provide development interests with a more predictable, streamlined regulatory process, while providing species with a more effective, ecosystem-based conservation strategy. This report reviews the legislative history of the NCCP program and its formative years of implementation, and notes several questions about the program's nature and purpose that remain unresolved. See also the second part of the series (CRB-01-009, June 2001).