Alternative site for Marpi ranchers still uncertain

It may be impossible for public lands officials to immediately identify an alternative site for Saipan’s mitigation bank that is being sought by lawmakers in a bid to avoid shutdown of cattle ranches in the Marpi forest area.

Division of Public Lands Director Bertha C. Leon Guerrero said the process will entail approval of a new site by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first and enactment into law by the Legislature.

“Identifying a mitigation site is going to be subject to their needs,” she told reporters in an interview yesterday.

The Legislature has chosen the Marpi forest area in northern Saipan as the mitigation site to comply with the federal requirements under a law passed years ago. But the cattle has to be removed to allow the trees and the wildlife, including endangered species, to grow in the area.

“We are just following that law and if there is any other site that is feasible, we will look into it and try to consider it,” Ms. Guerrero explained. “But at the same time, we will have to be careful and reasonable in setting out these requirements.”

She said DPL has to consider other factors before identifying another site since it is the division’s immediate responsibility to provide lands for homestead development.

The request for the alternative site for Saipan’s mitigation program came on the heels of the decision by the administration to begin its implementation in Marpi.

Cattle ranchers given notice to leave the area, however, have been granted grace period to relocate as a result of the move in the House of Representatives to appeal for a stay.

The order was supposed to take effect yesterday, two weeks following its issuance by the Attorney General’s Office last Aug. 2 as requested by DPL.

Amicable solution

According to Ms. Guerrero, the division had asked for a meeting with ranch owners in the past to try to find an amicable settlement to the issue.

“When we did not hear from them… we have since tried to make arrangements to relocate them somewhere else,” she said.

DPL has offered to set aside up to five hectares to each ranch that will be displaced from Marpi to encourage them to relocate — a move that lawmakers claimed has failed to weigh “tremendous financial burden” of removing present structures to transfer to a new farm.

“Space is very limited. [We are] trying to identify public lands for the homesteads so we cannot put them in a place where we know it’s going to be temporary,” said Ms. Guerrero.

“What we are trying to do is to be reasonable and realistic to accommodate them somewhere where it is longer than we would have anticipated them to stay,” she added.

The development of the Saipan Upland Mitigation Bank began in 1996 when the USFWS disclosed that it would begin enforcing the provisions of the Federal Endangered Species Act in the CNMI.

Mitigation or conservation banks are designed to enhance habitat protection for species that are threatened or at risk of extinction. These provide alternative to the standard practice of having each developer or development project create and manage individual mitigation areas.

The 393-hectare facility in Marpi will make it easier for developers to meet their mitigation obligations in exchange for a fee paid to the local government.