The NCCP programs have allowed local governments to understand the many benefits of natural open space to their communities, and to act. Furthermore, fiscal analyses have demonstrated positive economic effects, not only in terms of regulatory efficiency but also in furthering more compact patterns of development. State delegation is unwise. Authority should not be delegated from federal to state wildlife agencies. Further removed from special interests and representing the national interest, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a singular role to play.
Scientific accountability is still insufficient.
Since the dissolution of the early NCCP scientific panel which prepared a general set of Conservation Guidelines, the program has suffered from a serious deficiency of independent scientific input and review. While it should not be inferred that the plans are necessarily unsound, neither are they as yet fully credible. The biggest obstacle to independent scientific input has been the wildlife agencies themselves. As time goes on, this deficiency is being partially remedied, as the individual NCCPs are putting in place their own advisory panels. A dilemma regarding the role of science in the NCCP has been the overarching biological imperative to protect large blocks of habitat quickly, before they disappear, even in the absence of detailed species-level data.