From: Kieran Suckling [ksuckling@sw-center.org]
Sent:
Thursday, December 02, 1999 6:43 PM
To: Recipient list
suppressed
Subject: BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#215
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><>><<>
CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
<www.sw-center.org>
12-299
#215
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><>><<>
§
GOOD NEWS FOR HAWAIIAN SPECIES- LAWSUIT MOVES MOTH,
SNAIL,
SPIDER AND AMPHIPOD MOVE TOWARD RECOVERY
§ ENVIRONMENTAL/CHRISTIAN
ALLIANCE PREVAILS AGAIN
RARE TEXAS PLANT LISTED AS ENDANGERED
SPECIES
§ TUCSON ACTIVISTS ARRESTED IN PROTEST AGAINST
W.T.O.
LABOR/ENVIRONMENT/HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS
STAND
TOGETHER AGAINST CORPORATE DOMINANCE
§ BABBITT
DENOUNCES KILLING OF SAN PEDRO RIVER,
INACTION BY LOCAL
GOVERNMENTS
GOOD NEWS FOR HAWAIIAN SPEICIES- LAWSUIT MOVES
MOTH,
SNAIL, SPIDER AND AMPHIPOD MOVE TOWARD RECOVERY
In response to a 8-31-99
lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity,
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service has agreed to review four Hawaiian
invertebrates for Endangered
Species Act protection. Blackburn’s sphinx
moth, Newcomb’s snail, and the
Kaua`i cave wolf spider and amphipod
have all been proposed for listing as
endangered species. The terms of the
settlement require the Fish &
Wildlife Service to make a final listing
determination by
1-26-00.
Hawai`i’s largest native insect, Blackburn’s sphinx moth was
believed
extinct until a single population was discovered on Maui in 1984.
Habitat
degradation by goats and Hawai`i National Guard training activities
severely threaten it with complete extinction. The two Kaua`i cave species
are limited to a four square mile area. At least 75% of their historic
habitat
has been rendered uninhabitable by uncontrolled development. The
Newcomb’s snail is restricted to six streams on Kaua`i, each stream
supports a single snail population. It has declined by up to 60%
since
1925.
The Center was represented by Kapua Sproat and David Henkin of the
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (Honolulu).
_____________________
ENVIRONMENTAL & CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE PREVAILS
ONCE AGAIN
RARE TEXAS PLANT LISTED AS ENDANGERED SPECIES
In response to a
6-16-99 lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity
and Christians Caring
for Creation, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service listed
the Zapata
bladderpod as an endangered species on 11-22-99. A
member of the mustard
family, the bladderpod is known to occur in only
four locations in Starr and
Zapata Counties, Texas. It was proposed for
ESA protection 1976 due to
habitat loss from urban sprawl, road
construction, overgrazing, and oil and
gas drilling. Because of political
pressure, however, the Fish & Wildlife
Service took no further action,
allowing the rare plant to decline for
another 23 years- until it was
sued.
Three other species involved in
the lawsuit- the Pecos sunflower,
Devil's River minnow and Deseret
milk-vetch- were listed as endangered
on 10-20-99. The case was argued by
Geoff Hickcox of Kenna &
Hickcox (Durango, Colorado).
______________________
TUCSON ACTIVISTS
ARRESTED IN PROTEST AGAINST W.T.O.
LABOR/ENVIRONMENT/HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS
STAND
TOGETHER
Five Tucson activists, including staff members of the
Center for
Biological Diversity, were among hundreds of peaceful
protesters
arrested on Wednesday for speaking out at the meeting of the
World
Trade Organization in Seattle. In an outrageous and futile
attempt
to squelch opposition to the WTO, the city has established a
7pm
curfew and banned public gathering and free speech. 50,000
labor,
environment and human rights activists have gathered from
around the world
to denounce the WTO's disastrous effects on the
environment and workers
rights. They shut down the first day of the
meeting and have catapulted the
secretive WTO onto televisions and
newspapers across the world.
The
World Trade Organization was created in 1995 to deregulate
trade across
national borders. Comprised of representatives from
money and power-glutted
transnational corporations, the WTO has
given itself de facto power to
supersede federal regulations if they are
deemed to be a barriers to "free
trade". Regulations protecting the
environment, endangered species, worker's
rights and communities
from industrial abuse are prime targets. In one recent
case, the WTO
ruled that the U.S. regulations under the Marine Mammal
Protection
Act forbidding importation of shrimp caught in a manner that
kills
endangered sea turtles is an unfair barrier to trade. The U.S. was
forced to rescind the regulations, thereby turning over its national
autonomy to a global business syndicate.
The Center has joined the
Sonoran Justice Alliance, a group of 22
Arizona/Mexico labor, human rights,
and environmental organizations
in the following statement against the
WTO:
- We stand united in support of people, who struggle
for the basics of a
dignified human existence: education, a
clean environment, a fair wage,
safe working conditions, health
care, and political freedom.
- We celebrate the power of citizen
activism and organized labor to achieve
these basic
dignities.
- We acknowledge that increasing corporate control of
government and
public institutions often leaves labor and
community groups as the last
defense against exploitation of
workers, communities, and natural resources.
- We are alarmed
that through the World Trade Organization (WTO) powerful
corporations in the new global economy ignore borders, laws, and human
rights in pursuit of profit, as the masters of capital turn
neighbor against
neighbor in a global "race to the
bottom".
- We believe that we must organize to transcend
political, geographic, and
cultural barriers in order to
challenge corporate power and protect our
communities, no matter
what city, country, or continent they inhabit.
- We therefore
declare an alliance between the forces of labor, environment,
community, and religious, in support of the global struggle against the
WTO.
- We act in order to take responsibility for
corporations that are a part of our
community. We call
attention to WTO's destructive policies around the world--
such
as unethically pushing governments to waive and weaken health,
environmental, and labor laws.
- We demand justice for workers
and the planet. We demand responsibility
from the corporations
represented by WTO that would exploit them.
- We demand that the
new global economy be shaped to put the needs of
people before
profit, and sustainable development before exploitation and
environmental destruction.
_________________________
BABBITT DENOUNCES KILLING OF SAN PEDRO
RIVER,
INACTION BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
In an interview with the Arizona
Daily Star, Secretary of Interior Bruce
Babbitt denounced the lack of action
by local and state governments
in the face of the drying up of the San Pedro
River. Arizona's largest
undammed river, the San Pedro supports the largest
riparian forest left
in the Southwest. It is being sucked dry by uncontrolled
urban sprawl,
the U.S. Army's Fort Huachuca, the Cananae Mine, and cattle
grazing
which has compacted soil throughout the basin. Despite
repeated
warnings by scientists and lawsuits by the Center for Biological
Diversity, development dominated public officials have refused to take
any significant action to curb water withdrawals. The water table
is
currently dropping 7,000 acre feet/year.
Arizona has ``abdicated
its responsibility to lead in the management of
this resource," Babbitt told
about 100 scientists, resource managers
and local leaders attending a
binational conference on the river. He warned
that if something isn't done
soon the federal government will be forced to
step in to save the river. We
have to "make certain that we don't repeat the
mistakes of the past and that
we do protect this extraordinary piece of
God's creation'' said Babbitt.
_____________________________________________________________
Kierán
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Center for Biological Diversity
520.623.9797 fax
<http://www.sw-center.org>
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-0710