Subject: FW: BIODIVERSITY ACTIVIST #248

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              CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

            <www.biologicaldiversity.org>      9-1-00      #248
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§ ENVIROS DEFEND OWL PROTECTIONS AGAINST DEVELOPERS
§ SUIT TO CHALLENGE GRAZING IN SOUTHWEST FISH HABITAT
§ MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT SHUT DOWN TO SAVE BIGHORN
§ LIVESTOCK GRAZING IMPLICATED IN FOREST FIRES
§ FEDS: LACK OF LOGGING DID NOT CAUSE FOREST FIRES
§ PROTECTED SAGUAROS RECOVERING FROM OVERGRAZING,
    WOODCUTTING

ENVIROS DEFEND OWL PROTECTIONS AGAINST DEVELOPERS
A federal judge has allowed Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for
Biological Diversity and Friends of the Owls to intervene on behalf of the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in a lawsuit brought by developers to delist
the Cactus ferruginous pygmy owl as an endangered species. The suit
also seeks to strike down the protection of 731,000 acres for its official
"critical habitat." Despite a record housing boom in Tucson, developers
claim habitat protections for the endangered owl are putting them out of
business. They argue that if the pygmy owl were to go extinct in the state
it would not matter.

Environmentalists and the Fish & Wildlife Service filed simultaneous
motions to transfer the case from a Phoenix judge to a Tucson judge who
has previously heard many pygmy owl cases. The case is being argued
by Mike Senator (Defenders of Wildlife) and Matt Kenna (Kenna &
Hickcox).
      ___________________

SUIT TO CHALLENGE GRAZING IN SOUTHWESTERN FISH HABITAT
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a formal of notice of intent to
sue the U.S. Forest Service for allowing livestock grazing within
designated "critical habitat" for two southwestern fish: loach minnow and
spikedace. In response to an Endangered Species Act petition and four
lawsuits by the Center, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has
acknowledged that both fish quality for listing as endangered species and
in April designated 898 miles of streams and rivers in the southern
Arizona and New Mexico as "critical habitat".

Due to a series of lawsuits by the Center and Forest Guardians, the
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management agreed to remove
livestock from over 300 miles of rivers within critical habitat for the
Southwestern willow flycatcher, and occupied habitat for the loach
minnow and spikedace. Though the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has
since identified 898 miles of streams as being "essential to the
conservation" of both fish, the Forest Service has refused to remove
cattle or even consult with the wildlife agency overt their impact.
      _____________

MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT SHUT DOWN TO SAVE BIGHORN
The city of Rancho Mirage has refused to approve a huge development
in Peninsular bighorn sheep habitat. The Mirada residential and golf
course development would have destroyed 226 acres of sheep habitat
and resulted in the death of at least one bighorn. A total of 406 acres
would have been lost with development of both Mirada and the adjacent
Ritz Carlton resort (owned by a subsidiary of Maxxam).

The city first attempted to approve the development with little
environmental analysis. The Center forced the city to complete a full
Environmental Impact Report, but the planning commission still tried to
push the project through. Following the Center's appeal of the decision
and comments to the city council, the council voted to prohibit the
development permits.

Both the Mirada and Ritz Carlton projects are located in prime sheep
habitat in the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains. Bighorn populations
in this range have plummeted by 60% since the early eighties as
exclusive gated community developments have chewed up important
habitat. In an effort to counter these losses, the Center has also sued the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seeking designation of critical habitat. In
June, the agency proposed the designation of 875,615 acres.

The Center was represented by attorney Wayne Brechtel of Worden,
Williams, Richmond, Brechtel and Gibbs.
      _______________

LIVESTOCK GRAZING IMPLICATED IN FOREST FIRES
In an 8/25/00 editorial in the Tucson Citizen, the Center's grazing reform
coordinator Martin Taylor, calls for grazing cut reductions in western
national forests to improved forest health and reduce the risk of high
intensity forest fire. The editorial explains that native grasses are
ecologically critical to ponderosa pine and open Douglas-fir forests. The
grasses are the primary carriers of cool-burning ground fires that thin out
small trees before they develop into thickets. Native grasses also
compete vigorously with trees, often preventing them establishing,
thereby keeping forests relatively open. When cattle strip off the grass,
they prevent ground fires from thinning forests and they remove the main
competition limiting tree regeneration. The result is millions of acres of
western forests becoming overly dense with small trees and susceptible
to very intense stand replacing fires.
      __________

FEDS: LACK OF LOGGING DID NOT CAUSE FOREST FIRES
Undercutting rhetoric by the timber industry and its political allies, the
Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report on 9-1-00
concluding that lower logging levels on National Forests over the last
decade did not contribute to intense forest fires this summer. While the
timber industry has blamed lack of logging for the fires, the CRS,
Congress's research arm, found that there was no correlation between
declines in logging and fire intensity or extent.
      ___________

PROTECTED SAGUAROS RECOVERING FROM OVERGRAZING,
WOODCUTTING
A U.S. National Park study released 8/30/00 shows the recovery of
saguaro populations following prohibition of livestock grazing and
woodcutting. For nearly a hundred years saguaros have been dying
faster than they are being replaced, creating widespread fear that they
would eventually disappear from areas such as the eastern portion of
Saguaro National Park. With the prohibition of cattle which trample cacti
seedlings, and woodcutters who remove the shade producing palo verde
and mesquite nurse trees, the number of plants has increased by 125%
in the last decade. If park protections continue for another century, dense
stands of giant cacti should once again people the foothills of the Rincon
Mountains.

Overgrazing on vast swaths of the Sonoran Desert outside the park,
however, continue to suppress saguaro reproduction on state, private
and federal lands.
_____________________________________________________________

ENDANGERED TOTEMS. Eleven of the twelve western states have adopted
imperiled species as their state fish: New Mexico (Rio Grande cutthroat
trout), Arizona (Apache trout), Colorado (Greenback cutthroat trout), Utah
(Bonneville cutthroat trout), Nevada (Lahontan cutthroat trout), California
(Golden trout), Oregon (Chinook salmon), Washington (Steelhead trout),
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (Cutthroat trout).

Kierán Suckling                           ksuckling@biologicaldiversity.org
Science and Policy Director          520.623.5252 phone
Center for Biological Diversity        520.623.9797 fax
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>        POB 710, Tucson, AZ 85702-0710

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