The Natural Community Conservation Plan is a process for reaching a broad consensus about the limits of development on remaining natural lands in a large area. Participants include private landowners, conservation organizations, builders' and developers' associations, and local, state and federal government agencies.

A well-drawn NCCP pact protects the most crucial portions of an ecosystem as nature preserves, links them with "wildlife corridors," and allows well-planned development on the remaining land. Landowners are assured that no future endangered species regulations beyond the NCCP agreement will be imposed on them.

Irvine Ranch Water District is involved in the NCCP process because we agree with the basic NCCP principle that the business community and local agencies need to work together with conservationists to protect wildlife habitat while allowing development to continue in areas that biologists consider less critical to the ecosystem. In July 1996 IRWD signed the NCCP Implementation Agreement, committing the District to contribute $1 million toward the endowment to manage the NCCP Habitat Reserve. This contribution is disbursed in four annual payments of $250,000.

The 1996 NCCP pact protects some 38,000 acres of critical habitats in central and coastal Orange County. Several land managers, including the Orange County Public Facilities and Resources Department, County Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department and The Nature Conservancy, are managing this preserve system, which includes the 20,000-acre Irvine Company Open Space Reserve.