From: Kieran Suckling
[ksuckling@biologicaldiversity.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001
10:35 PM
To: Recipient list suppressed
Subject: BIODIVERSITY
ACTIVIST
#268
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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
3-8-01
#268
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§
4.1 MILLION ACRES PROTECTED FOR RED-LEGGED FROG
§ SUIT FILED TO SAVE NEW
MEXICO BUTTERFLY
§ APPEAL CHALLENGES COWS AND CONDOS
WILDERNESS
INVASION
§
LETTERS, PUBLIC TESTIMONY NEEDED FOR HISTORIC
RE-PLANNING OF 6
MILLION ACRES OF CA NATIONAL FORESTS
§ LETTERS NEEDED TO PROTECT 12,000
ACRES FOR
ENDANGERED RIVERSIDE FAIRY SHRIMP
§ LETTERS
NEEDED TO SAVE PINTO CREEK
4.1 MILLION ACRES PROTECTED FOR RED-LEGGED
FROG
In a hard fought victory involving over a thousand supporting letters
from
the public and a federal lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity
won the
designation of 4,138,064 acres of "critical habitat" for the
endangered
California red-legged frog on March 6, 2001. The designation
includes 29
separate areas spanning 28 counties and over 500 miles of streams
and
rivers.
The designation is the largest in the state of California
and one of the
largest in the nation. It was brought about by a lawsuit by
the Center, the
Jumping Frog Research Institute, Pacific Rivers Council, and
the Center
for Sierra Nevada Conservation. The case was argued by the
EarthJustice
Legal Defense Fund.
Made famous by Mark Twain as the
“celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras
County,” the California red-legged frog
was listed under the Endangered
Species Act in 1996. Once common from
Point Reyes National Seashore,
inland to Redding and southward to
northwestern Baja California, Mexico,
it has been extirpated from 70% of its
range and its population has
declined by at least 90%. It currently occupies
coastal drainages in central
California and scattered streams in the Sierra
Nevada. A single population
remains in Southern California. Range-wide, only
four populations contain
more than 350 adults.
In the past six years,
the Center was won 39 million acres of critical habitat
in AK, OR, CO, UT,
CA, NM, AZ, and TX. It has ongoing federal proposals
to designate another
600,000 acres of critical habitat in MT, CA, NM, and
OK.
To learn more
about the red-legged frog and its habitat:
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/rlfrog/rlfrog.html>
To
learn more about the Center’s Golden State Biodiversity Initiative:
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/goldenstate/goldenstate.html>
__________________
SUIT FILED TO PROTECT SACRAMENTO
MOUNTAINS
CHECKERSPOT BUTTERFLY
On 3-6-2001, the Center for Biological
Diversity filed suit against the U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service for
refusing to issue a proposed rule listing the
Sacramento Mountains
checkerspot butterfly as an endangered species.
The Center petitioned to list
the species on 1/28/99 because sprawl, road
construction, livestock grazing,
invasive plants, climate change, and
pesticide spraying are driving it to
extinction.
The Fish & Wildlife Service issued an initial finding
that endangered status
may be warranted, but has issued a moratorium on
addition of new
species to the federal list during 2001. Research conducted
by the Center
shows that the only reason the agency does not have enough
money for
listing is because it purposefully did not request enough funding
from
Congress. See our report at
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/activist/ESA/moratorium.html>
The
case is being argued by Matt Kenna of Kenna & Hickcox
(Durango).
___________________
APPEAL
CHALLENGES COWS AND CONDOS WILDERNESS
INVASION
Putting to rest the myth
that westerners have to choose between cows and
condos, a real estate company
has convinced the Coronado National
Forest Service to issue it a grazing
permit so that it can sell high priced
home lots next to the forest with the
gimmick that the homeowners will be
partners in the ranching operation. We
can have cows and condos! Even
worse, the allotment has not been grazed since
1994 and includes 3,900
acres of the Rincon Wilderness. The permit include a
plan to put two new
stock tanks in the wilderness, one of which would be
placed in an agave
rich area which provides nectar for the endangered lesser
long-nosed bat.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Sky Islands Alliance
and the Sierra
Club have appealed this monstrosity. The “choice” between cows
and
condos is a false and dangerous distortion of what is actually
driving
sprawl in the west. The answer should not be to encourage
both
overgrazing and condos, but to say “no” to
both.
___________________
LETTERS, PUBLIC
TESTIMONY NEEDED FOR HISTORIC REVISION
OF SIX MILLION ACRES OF SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA NATIONAL
FORESTS
Your input is urgently needed to shape
upcoming southern California
National Forest Management Plan revisions to
favor maximum ecosystem
protection over harmful exploitation. Workshops are
scheduled for a
southern California town near you over the next four weeks
and the Forest
Service needs to hear from you! Write a letter. Go to the
public hearings.
Due to a legal settlement with the Center for Biological
Diversity over
endangered species, all four of southern California’s national
forests
(Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres, and San Bernardino) are rewriting
their
forest plans. We have initiated the process- now its your turn to speak
out
for protection of oak woodlands, pine forests, grasslands and
chaparral.
Please attend as many of the Forest Service workshops as
possible and
speak out in favor of biological diversity and low-impact
recreation, and
against new off-road vehicle playgrounds, mining, grazing and
other
abuses. Please also consider sending a letter to the editor of your
local paper.
To find where, when and how:
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/activist/forestwkshops.html>
____________________
LETTERS NEEDED TO PROTECT 12,000 ACRES FOR
RIVERSIDE
FAIRY SHRIMP
Your letters are needed to support and expand a
proposal by the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service to protect over 12,060 acres
of critical habitat for the
endangered Riverside fairy shrimp.
The
fairy shrimp was listed as an endangered species 1993 due to urban
sprawl,
agribusiness, off-road vehicles, livestock grazing, and wetland
draining. Its
habitat has been reduced to just 25 vernal pool complexes in
coastal southern
California.
Please send a letter to the Service no later than March 30,
2001:
- Support designation of critical habitat for the Riverside fairy
shrimp.
- Expand the proposal to include all Riverside shrimp vernal pool
habitat
included in the Service’s "Recovery Plan for Vernal
Pools of Southern
California."
- Expand the proposal to
include all Riverside shrimp vernal pool habitat
located within
the boundaries of existing so called “Habitat Conservation
Plans.”
- Support designation of Riverside shrimp critical habitat on Marine
Corps
bases Camp Pendleton and Miramar.
Please send your
letter to:
Mr. Ken Berg, Field Supervisor
Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office
U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service
2730 Loker Avenue West
Carlsbad, CA
92008
To see a sample letter
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/fshrimp/index.html>
__________________
LETTERS NEEDED TO SAVE PINTO CREEK
Please send a
letter today to Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck
supporting a federal buyout
of the proposed Carlota copper mine on the
Tonto National Forest. A
buyout would keep a massively destructive mine
out of Pinto Creek, a
beautiful public lands stream 70 miles east of
Phoenix. It would mean
no 450-foot high ore-rock heaps, no 17
truckloads of sulfuric acid daily for
20 years filling two miles of a valley, no
airborne dust or sulfur deposition
impacting the nearby Superstition
Wilderness Area, no toxic one-mile pit lake
evaporating 300 gallons of
precious high desert water per minute in
perpetuity, and no “accidental”
leaks or massive spills
Please write
or email Dombeck today!
Mike Dombeck, Forest Service
Chief
201 14th St., SW,
Washington, D.C.
20250
mdombeck@fs.fed.us
To find out more <http://aspin.asu.edu/pintocreek/>