Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #75
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#75
5/18/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver
city, tucson, phoenix, san diego
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1.
EDITORIAL BLASTS DENIAL OF "UNLOGGING" PETITION
2. RUCKUS SOCIETY TO
PROTEST BRIDGER SALVAGE SALE- FOREST
SERVICE
CLOSES ROADS
3.
SOUTHWEST CENTER, UNITED STEEL WORKERS, SAN CARLOS APACHES
PROTEST
PHELPS DODGE SHAREHOLDERS
MEETING
*** ***
*** ***
EDITORIAL BLASTS DENIAL OF "UNLOGGING"
PETITION
The following editorial appeared after the Secretary of
Agriculture
rejected our petition to allow environmental groups to buy
timber
sales, but before Jim Lyons announced that the rejection was
a
mistake.
Arizona Daily Star
March 17, 1997
Editorial:
Keeping the forests shut
Not surprisingly, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture - parent of the
Forest Service - has rejected the
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity's smart request that it allow
conservation groups to buy
federal timber.
That is too
bad, for the Tucson-based Center proposed boldly and
well this year when it
asked to allow high-bidding environmental
groups to purchase trees in order
to leave them standing.
Currently the Forest Service
designates only logging outfits
"responsible bidders" on tree
sales.
As a result, a biased system has at once excluded
potentially less
destructive resource uses and generated less revenue for the
taxpayer
than it might.
However in February the Southwest
Center - along with the
Northwest Ecosystem Alliance of Washington state and
the Oregon
Natural Resources Council - formally asked the Secretary
of
Agriculture to change all that.
Then the Center suggests the
Forest Service award most sales -
except those offered for specific
ecological reasons - to the highest
bidder, "regardless of whether that
bidder has any intention of
harvesting" the trees.
In
doing so, the group floated a simple idea that nevertheless
felt
revolutionary given the extraction-oriented, market-averse
mechanisms
of the bureaucracy that for 60 years has managed the
West's trees. A "yes" to
the petition would have represented a
gratifying embrace of fairness, green
uses and free markets during the
centennial year of the forest
system
Only it was not to be. In a Monday letter, USDA
Undersecretary for
resources and the environment, Jim Lyons, pronounced the
plan
"interesting and novel" but not "feasible" before descending into
a
miasma of typically incomprehensible bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo.
The
upshot: Taxpayers will have to wait until another year to see the
federal
forests managed fairly, greenly, and for maximum profit
rather than solely
for timber cutters.
In the meantime, the Southwest Center
deserves credit for raising a
great idea that will not go away - either at
the federal level, or on
the huge grazing domains of the states. Such
imaginative free-market
thinking cannot in the long run fail to move land
uses in greener
directions.
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RUCKUS SOCIETY TO PROTEST BRIDGER
SALVAGE SALE- FOREST SERVICE CLOSES ROADS
In anticipation of further protests
against the Bridger Salvage Timber Sale
on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The Kaibab National Forest has
officially closed all roads into the sale area
to the public. Eight protesters
were arrested at the Grand Canyon National
Park several months ago.
The following article appeared in the Tucson
Citizen
Ruckus Society teaches to make a point peacefully
by Ronda
Bodfield
May 17, 1997
Ever wonder how to get arrested
peacefully to further an
environmental cause?
Today,
several environmental groups will converge on the North
Rim of the Grand
Canyon to learn about non-violent civil
disobedience in a four-day training
camp sponsored by the Montana-
based Ruckus Society.
The
organization trains people on direct action techniques geared at
saving
wilderness areas.
For example, one might climb a tree
threatened with being cut, and
bring sufficient water, food and other
necessities to stay there for as
long as it takes to make a
point.
Or one might learn "urban climbing techniques" to get
to the top of
buildings to drop huge banners.
There will
be a segment on blockade design to turn back
logging
trucks.
One might be chained to a gate, while
another technique may be to
cement oneself in a ditch so only the head and
shoulders are visible
above ground.
The students may even
get to put some of their new knowledge to
work.
Part of
the reason the North Rim site was selected was because of an
ongoing timber
salvage sale. The [Bridger Salvage] sale ultimately
will leave two or three
trees standing per acre on 3,500 acres within
200 feet of the Grand Canyon
National Park's boundary.
The Fores Service maintained it is
the only way to restore health to
the area after a June fire ravaged about
53,000 acres in 1996.
But some environmental groups contend
it will be ugly, could end
up destroying trees that have a chance of survival
and could reduce
habitat by taking down snags. Snags are dead but standing
trees.
Michael Robinson, a spokesperson for the Southwest
Center for Biological
Diversity, said the group will tour the salvage area
and
then determine whether to stage a peaceful protest.
Robinson and Ruckus members view the Grand Canyon area as
"one of the worst"
timber sale in the Southwest.
The Southwest Center, which
pursues its causes through litigation
and is considered one of the more
aggressive environmental
organizations, contributed money for the
cause.
A few hundred people are expected to attend, Robinson
said.
Other attending groups could include Earth First!,
Colorado-based
Ancient Forest Rescue and the California-based Action
Resource
Center.
Earth First! stage several such protests
in attempts to shut down the
University of Arizona's Mount Graham telescope
project. But it also
cast a radical hue on environmental protests after some
key members
were arrested for sabotaging ski lifts and powerlines around the
state.
Robinson said non-violence will be
stressed.
"Its all about protecting other living
beings, the forest and the
goshawks, and there's no point in trying to do
that while sending any
message that human beings aren't fully
valued."
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SOUTHWEST CENTER, UNITED
STEEL WORKERS, SAN CARLOS APACHES PROTEST
PHELPS DODGE SHAREHOLDERS
MEETING
The Southwest Center and the United Steel Workers protested
the
annual Phelps Dodge shareholder's meeting in Phoenix a the
Biltmore
Hotel. The Center, attending the meeting with 800 proxy
shares,
staged a vote to oppose the expansion of Phelps Dodge's
board
until the corporation stops polluting the Silver City
municipal
water supply with its Tyrone Mine. It was outvoted 200,000
to
53,800,000. Douglas Yearly, Chairman & CEO, threatened to
have
Southwest Center conservation biologist Peter Galvin removed from
the
meeting because of his frequent explanations of Phelps Dodge's
toxic
legacy.
The Steel Workers protested the lack of contracts for 500
employees
at the Chino Mine. The San Carlos Apaches protested Phelps Dodge
use
of a pipeline across their nation to supply the Morenci Mine.
Phelps
Dodge pays the tribe $20/month for the pipeline which is
estimated
to be worth $20,000 a month. The San Carlos Apaches have also
filed
a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commision,
charging
that Phelps Dodge decieved its shareholders by not revealing it
was
being sued by the tribe. Phelps Dodge also failed to inform its
share
holders of a lawsuit by the Southwest Center challenging the
origin
of the pipeline at Blue Ridge Dam.
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.733.1391 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.733.1404 fax
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
pob 17839, tucson, az
85731