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\ SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#126
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\
4-8-98
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\ SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
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1.
INJUNCTION SOUGHT TO STOP GRAZING ON 80 NATIONAL FOREST
ALLOTMENTS-
2.2 MILLION ACRES OF THE GILA AND LITTLE COLORADO
RIVER BASINS COULD
BE FREED OF CATTLE IMPACTS!
2. MILITARY
FORCED TO WEIGH ITS EFFECTS ON SAN PEDRO RIVER
3. FOREST SERVICE BIOLOGISTS:
AGENCY ENSLAVED TO TIMBER AND CATTLE
4. EDITORIAL: FOREST SERVICE
RESIGNATIONS A WARNING FOR WILDLIFE
**** **** ****
**** ****
INJUNCTION SOUGHT TO STOP GRAZING ON 80
NATIONAL FOREST ALLOTMENTS-
2.2 MILLION ACRES OF THE GILA AND LITTLE COLORADO
RIVER BASINS COULD
BE FREED OF CATTLE IMPACTS!
On 4-6-98, the
Southwest Center requested a preliminary injunction
against grazing on 80
allotments in the Gila and Little Colorado River
Basins which are harming
endangered species. The Southwestern willow
flycatcher, loach minnow,
spikedace, Little Colorado River spinedace,
Sonora Chub, Razorback Sucker,
Gila Trout, Apache trout, Bald eagle,
Hualapai Mountain vole are being driven
to extinction by overgrazing
on AZ and NM National Forests. The Forest
Service, however, has refused
to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service over the effects
grazing on these 80 allotments.
The Southwest
Center is represented by Jay Touchton of EarthLaw (Denver).
Forest Guardians
is also asking for an injunction in a similar suit.
Altogether, some 150
grazing allotments are under litigation in the
Gila Headwaters and Sky
Islands ecosystems.
___________________________
MILITARY FORCED TO WEIGH ITS EFFECTS ON SAN
PEDRO RIVER
The Army's Fort Huachuca has asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service
to review its effects on threatened and endangered species
dependent
upon the San Pedro River and its upland habitats. The Army
admitted
it may be harming the Mexican spotted owl, Sonora tiger
salamander,
the Huachuca water umbel, Lesser long-nosed bat, and the
American
peregrine falcon. It continues to deny, however, that it is drying
up
the San Pedro River, pushing the Southwestern willow flycatcher
closer
yet to extinction.
The request, following years of protest, is
designed to help the
Army escape an active lawsuit by the Southwest Center
charging that
Fort Huachuca is violating the Endangered Species Act. The
Center is
represented by Mark Hughes of EarthLaw (Denver, CO) in the case
and
in its NAFTA petition which has forced an international review of
the
drying up of the San Pedro. A final report on the river's status
is
due soon.
___________________________
FOREST SERVICE BIOLOGISTS: AGENCY ENSLAVED TO
TIMBER AND CATTLE
The following story appeared in the Albuquerque Tribune
on 3-6-98. Check
out our Forest Service whistle blowers page for more
articles and reports:
http://www.sw-center.org
Biologists resign, blast Forest Service practices
SANTA FE — Two
top Forest Service biologists have quit, charging
that the agency's Southwest
Region emphasizes logging and grazing at
the expense of wildlife.
Biologists Leon Fager and Jim Cooper — former heads of the
endangered species
and fisheries programs for the region, allege
senior managers are enslaved to
commercial interests.
Gilbert Vigil, acting Southwest regional
forester, said the region
does a good job of protecting resources.
"Considering our ecosystems, which includes our communities, we
don't just
move in there and make drastic changes overnight," he said.
"I think we're
making progress."
Fager, a 31-year agency veteran, has urged Forest
Service chief Mike
Dombeck to have an independent team of scientists and
economists study
the financial and ecological effects of grazing in the
Southwest.
"The region is now 'circling the wagons' and spending
millions of
taxpayer dollars to defend a livestock grazing program that
has
outlived its value and needs to be phased out as an inappropriate
use
of national forests in the 21st century," Fager wrote Dombeck
last
week.
"Livestock grazing on Southwestern National Forests is
the major
reason that ecosystems are deteriorating, species are near
extinction
and watersheds have lost much of their ability to yield high
quality
and quantities of water," he wrote.
Fager urged
Dombeck to fire Southwest line managers who show
"unwillingness to manage
resources for the public good instead of the
financial benefit of the
livestock industry."
Cooper, who took early retirement in January as
the region's fisheries
chief, said that after 28 years of government work, he
felt increasingly
frustrated at what he saw as the agency's habit of reacting
to, rather
than preventing, crises over wildlife and habitat.
"We
took all of our people out of the field and put tremendous
emphasis on
proving the Mexican spotted owl did not need to be listed
(as endangered).
And the reason we did that was because it was a
threat to the timber
program," Cooper said. "Congress is shrinking the
dollars down, and we are
putting all our effort into saving the timber
industry and the range
(grazing) program."
He said he was after defending a team of fisheries
biologists who
blasted grazing and its damage to riverside forests and
grasses last
year.
The so-called riparian habitat, corridors
of water and greenery
make up less than 1 percent of the Forest Service's 21
million acres
in New Mexico and Arizona.
Eighty-four percent of the
riparian areas fail the Forest Service's
grade for ecosystem health. The
statistic is critical considering that
about 70 percent of the Southwest's
rare plants and animals live in
riparian areas or rely on them for food,
shelter or breeding ground.
"There's a lot of rhetoric being tossed
around about recreation and
riparian areas being so valued. I hear a lot of
talk but I don't see
the walk," Cooper said. "While we're talking out of one
side of our
mouths, internally we're slam-dunking any biologist who speaks up
and
says, 'Hey, there's something wrong.'...And that's basically why
I
left. I spoke up a few times too often."
The Southwest Region has
been attacked by citizen lawsuits over
timber and grazing. Agency insiders
began joining the criticisms last
year.
Fager said he hopes Dombeck
or the agency's incoming Southwest
regional forester, Eleanor S. Towns, will
replace Jim Lloyd, the
region's director of Wildlife, Fish and Rare
Plants.
"He does not support the sensitive species
program, hinders those
working for him and seems to always support continued
livestock grazing
regardless of its faults," Fager wrote Dombeck. "He sees
himself as a
'team player' and a defender of the status quo,"
Lloyd
said Fager and Cooper were valued employees and agreed that
"timber and range
have taken a higher seat at the table" than protecting
natural
resources.
"We've been in litigation, we've been trying to change,"
Lloyd said.
"But the funding has decreased. We're grossly understaffed. It's
been a
tremendous workload, and things don't happen
overnight."
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EDITORIAL: FOREST SERVICE RESIGNATIONS A
WARNING FOR WILDLIFE
The following editorial appeared in the Albuquerque
Tribune on 3-7-98. Check
out our Forest Service whistle blowers page for more
articles and reports:
http://www.sw-center.org
Forest Service Resignations are a Call from the Wild
Perhaps
you were among the lucky New Mexicans who got a glimpse of our
visitors from
the North this winter — two gawky whooping cranes struggling
to overcome
their species' endangered status.
Perhaps you've lounged in a
mountain meadow and marveled at our sapphire
sky.
Perhaps
you've followed paths through the forest and dreamed of the
other creatures
that once nosed along the trail.
If so, perhaps you understand
the gravity of two resignations this
week from the National Forest
Service.
Biologists Leon Fager and Jim Cooper, former heads of
the endangered
species and fisheries programs for the agency's Southwest
Region,
abandoned careers that spanned three decades because they charged
senior
managers are enslaved to commercial interests.
"Livestock
grazing on Southwestern national forests is the major reason
that ecosystems
are deteriorating, species are near extinction and
watersheds have lost much
of their ability to yield high quality and
quantities of water," Fager
said.
Forest Service officials defended their management of the
public's land —
acreage that has become an unfortunate battleground between
those who seek a
living and those who seek a primeval paradise.
Fager and Cooper have sounded a sobering shot in that battle.
The
plight of small ranchers, miners and loggers dependent on the bounties
of
national forests presents a compelling case.
But the slow resurgence
of the whooping crane, the lazy hours in a meadow
and the now-and- future
status of the beasts of the woods should underscore
these resignations: We
are stewards of the land; we must take
care.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.sw-center.org
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710