No. 331, March 6, 2003

HELP CLEAN UP TRASH, CLOSE ROADS THIS SATURDAY IN IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT

   

APPEALS HALT PROPOSED TELESCOPES IN SANTA RITA MOUNTAINS

   

POST-FIRE "SALVAGE" TIMBER SALE ON NORTH RIM OF GRAND CANYON APPEALED

   

NEW ARIZONA GOVERNOR HOLDS STATE'S FIRST FOREST HEALTH SUMMIT

   

RELOCATED GRAY WOLF SHOT AND KILLED; $15,000 REWARD

   

U.S. GAME AND FISH DECISION TO KILL MOUNTAIN LIONS CHALLENGED

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HELP CLEAN UP TRASH, CLOSE ROADS THIS SATURDAY IN IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT

Join the Arizona Wilderness Coalition and the Bureau of Land Management for a day of service this Saturday 4-25-03 in Ironwood Forest National Monument. As a result of U.S. border policies that are increasing Border Patrol presence in urban areas such as San Diego and El Paso, more remote lands such as Ironwood Forest National Monument are experiencing a tremendous amount of immigrant, drug smuggling and law enforcement traffic. This activity is creating illegal wildcat roads and leaving literally tons of trash in the National Monument. BLM is not equipped to deal with this enormous problem, and needs our help!

The workday will begin at 8 am, and continue until dark. Participants should bring plenty of water, work gloves, and wear long sleeves and pants. Since bees are known to inhabit the area, please do not bring sodas or other sugary drinks. For more information and directions to the cleanup and restoration, contact Arizona Wilderness Coalition's Central Arizona/Sonoran Regional Coordinator Jason Williams at (928) 717-6076 or Brian Segee at (520) 623-5252, ext. 308.


APPEALS HALT PROPOSED TELESCOPES IN SANTA RITA MOUNTAINS

Native Americans, the Center for Biological Diversity and Sky Island Alliance (SIA) won appeals on 3-22-03 against construction of the proposed "Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope" (VERITAS). The U.S. Forest Service's SW Regional office overturned a January decision by Coronado NF Supervisor John McGee that had placed the telescopes near a sweat lodge and sacred site in Montosa Canyon on the Coronado National Forest, in southeast Arizona. Three separate challenges to the project were filed by the Center and SIA, the Tohono O'odham Nation, and To All Our Relations.

The project would have authorized the construction of seven 34-foot tall optical reflector telescopes with sides 265 feet in length, a 4,500 square foot control building, septic field, underground utility connections, and communication links within Montosa Canyon, a prominent and currently undeveloped drainage along the west side of the Santa Rita Mountains. The ten-acre array of telescopes would detect high-energy gamma rays emitted from sources in the universe, such as black holes and exploding stars.

The Native American non-profit organization "To All Our Relations" currently operates a sweat lodge within Montosa Canyon as a place where young American Indians and others, under the guidance of their elders, re-establish their self-identity through spiritual and cultural ceremonies, including the sweat lodge.


POST-FIRE "SALVAGE" TIMBER SALE ON NORTH RIM OF GRAND CANYON APPEALED

On 2-06-03 the Center for Biological Diversity and the Southwest Forest Alliance appealed the proposed "Hidden post-fire salvage timber sale," located on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon within the Kaibab National Forest. The sale, approved by North Kaibab District Ranger Jill Leonard in December, calls for logging 1.3 million board feet of trees from 336 acres. The sale would log 80% of the ponderosa pine habitat burned by the Hidden Fire, started by an abandoned campfire in the summer of 2001.

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon, particularly the Kaibab Plateau area where the sale is located, harbors some of the most extensive tracts of old growth ponderosa pine remaining in the Southwest, and has long been recognized as a paradise for wildlife, including the Northern goshawk, Kaibab squirrel and the famous Kaibab mule deer herd. President and sportsman Teddy Roosevelt was so impressed by the area that in 1906 that he designated it the "Grand Canyon Game Preserve." Within the Preserve, the Forest Service is required to make the protection of wildlife its highest management priority, yet the agency continues to ignore this mandate by planning timber sales which log old-growth and large trees.

Learn more at the Center's Ancient Forests web site.


NEW ARIZONA GOVERNOR HOLDS STATE'S FIRST FOREST HEALTH SUMMIT

On 3-10-03, Arizona's newly elected Governor Janet Napolitano convened the state's first ever "Forest Health Summit" in Prescott. Napolitano stressed the need to move beyond the fear and blame that has dominated Arizona's forest politics since last summer's Rodeo-Chediski wildfire. Several hundred participants, including federal, state and locally elected representatives, Forest Service and other agency personnel, academics, and representatives from environmental organizations including the Center for Biological Diversity attended the summit.

Participants agreed on thirty recommendations to forward to the Governor, the large majority of which conform to policy positions advocated for many years by environmental organizations. These recommendations include: the need for the State legislature to give local governments the authority to set and enforce rules on making personal property less vulnerable to fire, such as banning wood-shingle roofs and requiring the clearing of "defensible space" around private residences; the need to prioritize the thinning of small trees next to communities in the "wildland-urban interface"; advocating for greater allocations of federal money to pay for fuel-reduction projects in National Forests; and finding uses for and developing markets for small-diameter trees.

The Governor's office has issued a full report following the summit, available at www.governor.state.az.us, and will soon be appointing a Forest Health Advisory Committee.

Learn more at the Center's Ancient Forests web site, or the Center's Forest Fires and Forest Health web site.


RELOCATED GRAY WOLF SHOT AND KILLED; $15,000 REWARD

A two-year-old relocated male Mexican gray wolf that had recently paired up with a female was found dead on 3-09-03, near the Green Peaks area of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. The wolf had been trapped on the San Carlos Reservation in January, and relocated to an area near the town of Vernon, 20 miles east of Show Low.

It was captured from an area considered safe to wolves, and relocated to a place with greater road access, making wolves more vulnerable. Two wolves had previously been killed in the Vernon area. Neither the male nor its mate had ever been involved in livestock predation, and they formed just the third natural pairing since wolves were reintroduced five years ago.

There are now 11 wolf deaths under investigation in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will pay a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in this wolf shooting, and the Center for Biological Diversity is offering an additional $5,000 for information leading to an arrest in any of the 11 cases.

Individuals with information they believe may be helpful in solving these crimes should call: Arizona Department of Game and Fish Operation Game Thief at 1-800-352-0700.

Learn more about the Mexican Gray Wolf at the Center' wolf web site.


U.S. GAME AND FISH DECISION TO KILL MOUNTAIN LIONS CHALLENGED

The Center for Biological Diversity, Fund for Animals, Animal Defense League of Arizona, Humane Society of the United States, Mountain Lion Foundation, Forest Guardians, Animal Protection Institute and the Flagstaff Activist Network filed a suit 4-16-03 against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service countering an Arizona Game and Fish decision to kill mountain lions in order to boost bighorn sheep populations.

The plan sanctions the killing of 36 mountain lions by hounds, snares and firearms to reduce predation on bighorn sheep in the Tonto National Forest and Four Peaks Wilderness area, southwest of Roosevelt Lake. Bighorns once roamed the area in larger numbers but were nearly extirpated by hunting, habitat destruction, drought, and disease from livestock. Despite these factors, it is legal to hunt the bighorns, and the study area serves as a federally authorized domestic sheep driveway, through which thousands are herded to reach grazing allotments. Another factor not considered in the study is that livestock grazing in the Four Peaks Wilderness has contributed to a decline in the mule deer population, and resulted in higher predation levels on bighorns than other areas.


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