A property owner is required by the statute to minimize or mitigate the impact of his or her activities on private property. A property owner is not required, nor should they be required, to mitigate against the past acts of untold numbers of parties, over untold numbers of years, which might have lead to the listing of a species on the Endangered Species List. To require this of an individual property owner shifts the burdens of societal mismanagement on to one party. Assuring Voluntary Participation In Idaho, and elsewhere in the West, there are people who are deeply suspicious of HCPs. There are many reasons for this distrust.
Some reasons are valid.
HCPs can be extremely expense and time consuming for small landowners. Without the technical expertise necessary to compete with federal negotiators, some people might feel that they would be overwhelmed at the bargaining table. For others, distrust of HCPs is not borne out of fact but of unreasoned fear. Many in the West feel abused by the Act and the administration of the Act by those responsible for its regulation. Many feel that any agreement with federal regulators is tantamount to federal interference and cannot be tolerated.