In an interview yesterday, Dela Cruz said the San Juan farm northeast of Saipan was reserved for agriculture.
But DLNR’s Agriculture Division has to give up the land and designate it as a conservation area for the protection of reed warbler an endangered bird species.
The CNMI government was required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to address the impact of the proposed $12 million Route 36 or Winward/Chalan Kalabera Road project funded by the Federal Highway Administration.
Department of Public Works’ Technical Service Division Director Joe Inos said the Federal Highway Administrator offered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife mitigating measure to minimize the impact of the project on the 16 territories of the reed warbler.
These include the establishment of 50-foot buffer that eventually required the DLNR to designate the San Juan farm plots as conservation area.
Dela Cruz said nobody can now enter the area and the government can no longer use its economic potentials.
He noted that in Kagman, a single plot produces between $5,000 to $10,000 worth of farm produce that helps feed over 50,000 people on Saipan.
The San Juan farm has potentials for growing a variety of fruits, herbs, nonie plants, nut trees and other agricultural products, e said.
The San Juan farm area is equivalent to 225 house lots, he added.
Turning the farm into a conservation area is basically giving each bird up to 7.5 hectares of land, Dela Cruz said.
He said he opposes the idea which he believes will eventually cause hardship in the CNMI.
The federal Endangered Species Act, he added, is designed for the vast U.S. mainland and not for Saipan which is “already too small for its own human population to be taken away for the birds.”
In the Northern Islands, he said, Endangered Species Act can be implemented since there are not too many people living there.
