No. 338, July 11, 2003

57 RIVERS PROTECTED IN ARIZONA

   

PACIFIC FISHER MOVES TOWARD ENDANGERED STATUS IN CA, OR, WA

   

BUSH REVERSAL OF PROTECTION FOR ALGODONES DUNES CHALLENGED

   

GROUPS CHALLENGE INDUSTRY EFFORT TO STRIKE DOWN OLD GROWTH PROTECTION ON 30 MILLION ACRES

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57 RIVERS PROTECTED IN ARIZONA

On 7-7-01, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Central Arizona Paddlers Club to force the U.S. Forest Service to protect 57 Arizona rivers totaling 750 miles. The rivers occur on all six of Arizona’s National Forests and flow through an incredible diversity of habitats, from mountaintop spruce-fir forests to Sonoran desert cottonwood-willow riparian forests. Among them are Tonto and Pinto creeks (Tonto National Forest), the Black River and Blue River (Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest), Oak Creek and West Clear Creek (Coconino National Forest), and Sabino Creek, Grant Creek, and Sycamore Creek (Coronado National Forest).

The Forest Service identified the 57 rivers as being eligible for congressional designation as Wild or Scenic in 1993. This requires them to protect the rivers from dams, roads, powerline, livestock grazing, and logging until congressional action is completed. The Forest Service ignored the requirement for nine years until sued by the Center, then argued in court that the 1993 study was not a real eligibility determination. Reading the plain language of the report, the Appeals Court disagreed.

The case was argued by Matt Bishop of the Western Environmental Law Center.

For more information on the Center’s Wild & Scenic Rivers Campaign.


PACIFIC FISHER MOVES TOWARD ENDANGERED STATUS IN CA, OR, WA

On 7-10-03, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued an initial positive decision that the Pacific fisher qualifies as an endangered species in the forests for California, Oregon, and Washington. The decision came in response to a scientific petition authored by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection campaign and 16 other environmental groups.

The pacific fisher is a mink-like predator dependent upon mature and old growth forests. Logging has extirpated it from most of its historic habitat on the west coast. Only three small, isolated populations remain, including native populations in northern California and the southern Sierra Nevada and a reintroduced population in the southern Oregon Cascades.

To learn more about the Center’s campaign to save the fisher and other old growth dependant species click here.


BUSH REVERSAL OF PROTECTION FOR ALGODONES DUNES CHALLENGED

On 6-30-03, the Center for Biological Diversity led a coalition of 12 groups including the California Native Plant Society, Defenders of Wildlife and The Wilderness Society in a legal challenge to the Bush Administration’s plans to open 49,300 acres of endangered species habitat on the Algodones Dunes to intensive off-road vehicle use. The Bush plans overturns a historic Clinton era decision to protect the dunes.

Located in the Sonoran desert of southeastern California’s Imperial County, the Algodones Dunes are the largest dune ecosystem in the U.S. They harbor at least 160 different animal and plant species, many of which are found nowhere else on earth. The dunes also are heavily impacted by as many as 240,000 off-roaders on some weekends. This intensive use destroys vegetation and wildlife habitat, pollutes the air, and creates criminal problems that stress law enforcement. BLM closed 49,300 acres to ORVs in Nov. 2000 to protect endangered species, but 68,000 acres have always remained open to ORVs -- an huge area twice the size of the city of San Francisco.

For more information on the Center's Algodones Dunes Campaign.


GROUPS CHALLENGE INDUSTRY EFFORT TO STRIKE DOWN OLD GROWTH PROTECTION ON 30 MILLION ACRES

On 6-24-03, the Center for Biological Diversity and environmental groups from across the west filed an opposition to a backdoor timber industry challenge to old growth forest protection guidelines instituted by the Clinton administration. In response to the Center’s efforts to list the northern goshawk as endangered species, the Forest Service developed landscape level forest protection guidelines for the goshawk on over on over 30 million acres of forest in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, South Dakota, and Alaska. The timber industry is asking its friends in the Bush administration to strike down those protections under a little know law called the Quality of Information Act. The law was written by industry lobbyists, is overseen by a former industry lobbyist, and is being aggressively used to bog down human safety and environmental protection regulations.

While ostensibly designed to ensure that information distributed by the U.S. Government is accurate, the Quality of Information Act is being used by the timber industry to demand that the Bush administration withdraw forest protection decisions and the scientific reports underpinning the protection of mature and old growth forests from Alaska to New Mexico. The Bush administration routinely gives into legal challenges from its industry supporters and thus can not be trusted to defend these decisions made by the Forest Service under the Clinton administration.

Joining the Center in opposing the industry challenge are the Sitka Conservation Society, Alaska Center for the Environment, Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Southwest Forest Alliance, Forest Guardians, Center for Native Ecosystems, Maricopa Audubon Society, and White Mountain Conservation League.

For more information on the Center's Goshawk Campaigns.


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