Southern California NCCP Program. The statutory framework for the Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) Program was established by the California Legislature through its enactment of the NCCP Act (California Fish and Game Code Section 2800 et seq.). Major amendments to the NCCP Act have been subsequently enacted; however, ongoing NCCP programs undertaken pursuant to previously signed planning agreements are subject to the NCCP Act of 1991. The Southern Subregion NCCP is being prepared and reviewed consistent with the requirements of the NCCP Act as it read on December 31, 2001, pursuant to the “grandfather” provisions contained in Section 2830(b)(1) of the amended NCCP Act that became effective on January 1, 2002. By their terms, the substantive provisions of the 2001 amendments to the NCCP Act do not apply to the Southern NCCP and, as a result, the applicable substantive provisions of the NCCP Act are those that went into effect with the enactment of the NCCP Act of 1991. Consequently, all references to the requirements of the NCCP Act will be to the 1991 NCCP Act. As will be reviewed later, FESA and NCCP Act requirements were integrated through the special 4(d) rule for the coastal California gnatcatcher. The NCCP Program was designed to be a voluntary, collaborative planning program involving landowners, local governments, state and federal agencies, environmental organizations and interested members of the public in the formulation and approval of the NCCPs. The purpose of the NCCP Program is to provide long-term, large scale protection of natural vegetation communities and wildlife diversity while allowing compatible land uses and appropriate development and growth as discussed in Section 2.1.1 of this document (see Section 1 of the Legislative Findings for AB 2172). The NCCP process was initiated to provide an alternative to “single species” conservation efforts. The shift in focus from single species, project-by-project conservation efforts to large scale conservation planning at the natural community level was intended to facilitate regional and subregional protection of a range of species that inhabit a designated natural community or communities. The evolution and focus of the NCCP Program was described by the State of California as follows
