Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALTERT #45
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT #45
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SOUTWHEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
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ksuckling@sw-center.org
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http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
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1.
NAFTA COMMISSION ORDERS U.S. TO RESPOND TO CHARGES OF
VIOLATING
AMERICAN LAWS PROTECTING SAN PEDRO
RIVER
2. TWO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BUTTERFLIES LISTED AS
ENDANGERED-
IMPERILED FAIRY SHRIMP STILL IN
LIMBO.
3. COURT MOTION FILED TO LIST GOSHAWK AS ENDANGERED IN
WESTERN U.S.
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1. NAFTA
COMMISSION ORDERS U.S. TO RESPOND TO CHARGES OF VIOLATING
AMERICAN LAWS PROTECTING SAN PEDRO RIVER
NAFTA's Secretariat of the
Commission for Environmental
Cooperation has ordered the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
to respond to a petition filed by the Southwest Center for
Biological
Diversity charging that the U.S. Government has refused to
enforce
its own environmental laws. Though six environmental
petitions
have been filed under NAFTA, this is the first time the
Secretariat
has ordered the U.S. to respond to charges. The petition was
filed by
Earthlaw on behalf of the Southwest Center.
The San Pedro
River flows northward from Sonora Mexico into
southern Arizona where it is
being sucked dry by the massive
expansion of the Army's Fort Huachuca and
associated development.
In 1996, a Federal Court found that the expansion
violates of NEPA
because the Army refused to analyze its impacts on the
dwindling
river. The Court also ruled, however, that the Southwest Center
was
not permitted to sue the military because it was too late. The
Army,
the U.S. Attorney General, the Presidential Base Realignment
and
Closure Commission, and the U.S. Department of Interior have
since
failed to force compliance with NEPA.
The San Pedro River has
been designated as one of America's most
Threatened rivers by American
Rivers, one the World's Eight Last
Great Places by the Nature Conservancy,
one the World's Birding
Hot Spots by Birding Magazine, and a Globally
Important Birding
Area by the American Bird Conservancy. It is
Arizona's last
undammed river, and the largest remaining riparian forest in
the
Southwest. Hydrologists predict it will be dry within 10 years
if
current level of water withdrawal continue.
The full text of the
petition can be found at: www.earthlaw.org
2. TWO
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BUTTERFLIES LISTED AS ENDANGERED-
IMPERILED FAIRY SHRIMP STILL IN LIMBO.
In response to a petition and a
lawsuit by the Southwest Center, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has
listed the Quino Checkerspot
Butterfly and Laguna Mountains Skipper as
Endangered Species.
Laguna Mountains skipper numbers have been reduced to
around
250 individuals primarily as a result of grazing in delicate San
Diego
County mountain meadow habitat. Eight checkerspot
populations
are known to remain in Riverside and San Diego counties,
and Baja
California. All are threatened by development, grazing,
and
predacious earwigs. The checkerspot was also the subject of
a
recent study which for the first time proved the range of an
entire
species has shifted as a result of global warming.
A
Federal Court has given the Fish and Wildlife Service has until
February 1,
1997 to decide whether it will list the San Diego Fairy
Shrimp as Endangered.
Found only in San Diego County and Baja
California vernal pools on flat
(highly developable) coastal mesas,
the fairy shrimp occupies some of
the most valuable acreage in the
U.S. 97% of all vernal pool habitat has been
lost and today the
shrimp is threatened by additional pool losses and
habitat
fragmentation.
3. COURT MOTION FILED TO LIST GOSHAWK
AS ENDANGERED IN WESTERN U.S.
On behalf of a coalition of environmental
groups from every western
state, the Southwest Center has filed a summary
judgement motion
seeking to overturn the Fish and Wildlife Services' refusal
to even
consider listing the Northern Goshawk as Endangered in the
western
United States. The Center filed a petition to list the
western
population in 1992. In 1996, a Federal Court ruled that the
Fish and
Wildlife Service had concocted an arbitrary listing hurdle
in
requiring absolute proof of genetic distinction between western
goshawk
and eastern goshawks. He threw out the Agency's negative
finding and ordered
it produce a new one. It then produced a new
negative finding, based on the
exact opposite argument. Where
before, the western population was not
isolated enough, now it is
too isolated: it does not qualify as a
"population" the agency claims,
because there are several isolated subspecies
in the West. Though
they admit the species is declining in the West, they
have refused to even consider listing.
This case has been argued by Dan
Rolf (Portland) and Matt Kenna and
Associates
(Durango).