Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #37

       ____________________________________________________
      \       SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT #137          /
       \                    6-18-98                     /
        \                                              /
         \ SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY  /
          \__________________________________________/
         
1. FOREST SERVICE AGREES TO KEEP CATTLE OFF ANOTHER 100 MILES OF
   STREAMS- SOUTHWEST CENTER TO DROP INJUNCTION REQUEST.

2. SUIT FILED AGAINST FOUR SO. CAL. NATIONAL FORESTS- ENTIRE FOREST
   PLANS MUST BE CHANGED TO PROTECT ENDANGERED SPECIES.

3. MEDIA: GLOVES ARE OFF IN CATTLE WARS, LEOPOLD'S WARNING AGAINST
   OVERGRAZING FINALLY BEING HEARD.

   ****     *****     *****     *****

FOREST SERVICE AGREES TO KEEP CATTLE OFF ANOTHER 100 MILES OF
STREAMS- SOUTHWEST CENTER TO DROP INJUNCTION REQUEST.
In a contract signed 6-18-98, the Southwest Center agreed drop its
request for preliminary injunction against 29 grazing allotments in
return for the Forest Service agreeing to keep cattle off about 100
miles of streams until it concludes a study of the impacts of cattle
grazing on a suite of endangered fish, birds, mammals, reptiles,
and plants.

Cattle are already off some allotments, others will need to be fenced
or rested. In October, 1997, the Southwest Center filed suit against
92 grazing allotments in the Gila River Basin. In April, 1998, the
Forest Service agreed to temporarily keep cattle off 230 miles of
river on 54 allotments in this and a similar suit by Forest Guardians.
Combined with today's agreemt, some 330 miles of river are protected
from cattle. While the agreements are only set to last through the
Endangered Species Act consultation, it is likely that the
consultation will require the permanent cessation of grazing on these
rivers.

The Southwest Center is represented by Jay Touchton of Earthlaw.
     ____________________________

SUIT FILED AGAINST FOUR SO. CAL. NATIONAL FORESTS- ENTIRE FOREST
PLANS MUST BE CHANGED TO PROTECT ENDANGERED SPECIES.
On 6-18-8, the Southwest Center filed suit against the San Bernardino,
Cleveland, Angeles, and Los Padres National Forest for harming 39
endangered species including the Peninsular big horn sheep, red legged
frog, California condor, San Diego thornmint, blunt-nosed leopard
lizard, Pacific pocket mouse, and California gnatcatcher. Despite the
incredible number and diversity of enangered species in southern
California forests, the U.S. Forest Service has not consulted with
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and has not developed comprehensive
species management plans.

The Center is represented by Jay Touchton of Earthlaw and
Brendan Cummings (Berkely).
     _______________________________

MEDIA: GLOVES ARE OFF IN CATTLE WARS, LEOPOLD'S WARNING AGAINST
OVERGRAZING FINALLY BEING HEARD
The following exerpt is from a 6-13-98 front page story in the
Arizona Republic entitled "Cattle War on the Range" by Steve
Yozwiak

   "Punching cattle is taking on a whole new meaning. The
gloves are off and, absent even the pretense of compromise,
environmentalists are calling for the removal of all cattle from
all rivers and streams in the Southwest...
   Not satisfied by recent moves by federal agencies to fence off
cattle from hundreds of miles of Arizona waterways, two
Tucson-based environmental groups say that cattle must be
eliminated from thousands of miles of additional river and
streams to allow ecosystems to return to their natural
conditions.
   Environmentalists contend that continued cattle grazing in
the arid Southwest is unsustainable and, if allowed to continue
could cause the decline and eventual extinction of up to 100
kinds of plants and animals.
   "We've been looking at this grazing problem from every
possible angle to find a compromise solution, and there isn't
one," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Southwest
Center for Biological Diversity. "Everywhere you look, there
are species dying in these polluted rivers," said Sucking, whose
Tucson group seeks the restoration of the entire Gila River
basin of western New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.
   Already there are 51 kinds of Arizona plants and animals on
the federal Endangered Species List, and dozens more could
become candidates for protection if additional changes in
public lands management are not made, Suckling said.
   With new proposals last week to protect frogs and fish,
ranchers say there is greater pressure than ever to sell out their
family homesteads to developers, who chop them up into rural
ranchettes.
   "We have done such a good job of taking care of the land that
a lot of other people want to go there and buy a piece of it,"
said Bas Aja of the Arizona Cattlemen's Association."
   Wheeler contends that removing cattle from riparian areas
could cause vegetation to choke itself, leaving the riparian
areas vulnerable to erosion and flooding. However, too many
cattle can overgraze riparian areas, leading to the same kinds of
problems, he said.
   A delicate compromise between too many and too few cattle
needs to be established, Wheeler said. "That's what
management is all about," he said.
   In recent months, both the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management have ordered cattle to be
removed from hundreds of miles of rivers and streams, mostly
in east-central Arizona, because excessive grazing had degraded
waterways. Fences are being erected to keep cattle out.
   Environmentalists say their proposal to remove cattle from
all rivers would be a comprehensive response to the damage
done by cattle grazing, a problem first identified more than 70
years ago by a U.S. Forest Service ecologist.
   Aldo Leopold, considered by many to be the father of the
modern conservation ethic in the Southwest, wrote an essay in
1923 that said the climate of Arizona and New Mexico was too
dry to run cattle without substantially damaging the natural
landscape.
   "The lesson is that, under our peculiar Southwestern
conditions, any grazing at all, no matter how moderate, is liable
to overgraze and ruin the watercourse," wrote Leopold, whose
1949 A Sand County Almanac is considered a seminal piece of
American biological study.
   "What's happening today is people are finally listening to the
70-year-old advice of Aldo Leopold," Suckling said.
   Last week, the Southwest Center and another Tucson group,
Sky Island Watch, petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service to put two new animals on the federal list of
endangered species.
   One is the Chiricahua leopard frog, which has vanished from
the Santa Cruz and San Pedro rivers in southern Arizona, and
now is found in isolated pools of the Chiricahua Mountains and
along the Mogollon Rim and White Mountains...
   The other is the Gila chub, a 10-inch fish found in deep,
slow-moving pools of water. It is one of 25 kinds of native
Arizona fish that are in decline. The chub is one of only four
native Arizona fish not already protected under the Endangered
Species Act. It already is extinct in New Mexico, and no longer
is found in the north Valley's Cave Creek, nor in Fish Creek
east of Phoenix in the Superstition Mountains...
   As more species are listed, more restrictions are put on
ranchers...But rather than act in piecemeal fashion,
environmentalists contend that state and federal agencies
should work to devise a comprehensive protection plan for
Arizona wildlife, and that means removing the cattle from
rivers.
   "I think that's the only way we're going to stop having to list
more and more species, and the only way we are going to get
true recovery (of wildlife populations)," said Noah Greenwald,
rivers specialist for the Southwest Center.
   Environmental groups in recent years have used lawsuits in
the federal courts to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to grant
protections to the Mexican spotted owl, the Southwestern
willow flycatcher, the jaguar, and other rare plants and animals.
   Aja, director of feeding affairs for the 2,000-member
Cattlemen's Association, said at the rate things are going,
federal authorities could soon be listing tumble bugs, insects
that live in cow dung. He says this only half jokingly, noting
that the number of cattle on public lands is in decline because
of increased regulation pushed by environmental groups."

_____________________________________________________________________________

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