Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #76
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#76
5/21/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver
city, tucson, phoenix, san diego
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1. SUIT
FILED TO DESIGNATE WILD & SCENIC RIVERS IN NEW MEXICO
2. SEVEN
ARRESTED AT GRAND CANYON SALVAGE TIMBER SALE
3. MEDIA: CLINTON
ADMINISTRATION TO BLAME FOR USFWS FAILURE TO
PROTECT 95
SPECIES
*** *** *** ***
SUIT
FILED TO DESIGNATE WILD & SCENIC RIVERS IN NEW MEXICO
The Southwest
Center for Biological Diversity filed suit today against
three New Mexico
National Forests (Cibola, Lincoln, and Gila) for
failing to inventory and
evaluate rivers for eligibility under the Wild
& Scenic Rivers Act. The
Act requires that each Forest's Land
Management Plan identify and protect
those rivers which are eligible
for designation as Wild, Scenic, or
Recreational. Such rivers would be
protected from dam building, road
encroachment, mining, and
logging. A recent court ruling in Oregon removed
cattle from a river
designated under the Act because the cattle were
degrading the values
for which the river was designated.
Enacted by
Congress in 1968, the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act is
America's most sweeping
river protection law. In creating the Act,
Congress announced that it was
time to balance dam building and
construction projects with recreational and
conservation needs. To
insure a proper balance, Congress mandated that rivers
be inventoried
and evaluated for possible designation. Since 1968, over
10,500
miles, on 150 river segments throughout the country, have
been
protected.
Though most western states have designated rivers, no
New Mexico
rivers have yet been protected. The Southwest Center expects
about
300 miles river to be eligible for protection: 75 miles on each of
the
Cibola and Lincoln National Forest, and 150 miles on the Gila
National
Forest. Some of the likely candidates include:
Lincoln National
Forest- Sacramento River, Rio Penasco, Agua
Chiquita Creek, Blue Water
Creek;
Gila National Forest- Gila River (West, East and Middle
Forks),
Sapillo Creek, Mogollon Creek, White Water Creek, Trout
Creek;
Cibola National Forest- Las Huertas Creek, Juan Tabo Creek,
Caņon
Media, Water Canyon, Indian Creek, Lobo
Creek.
___________
_____________ __________
SEVEN ARRESTED
AT GRAND CANYON SALVAGE TIMBER SALE
Seven protestors were arrested today
at the North Kaibab Ranger
District office. Five protestors locked
their neck together with
kryptonite bicycle locks inside the office, while
two others scale the
building and hung a "Stop Clearcutting!" banner from the
roof. Forty
others protested outside the building.
The protesters
opposed the Bridger Salvage Timber Sale on the
Kaibab National Forest which
is scheduled to log 11 million board
feet of ponderosa pine on 2,700 acres.
The sale is within the Grand
Canyon Game Reserve and within 200 of the
National Park
boundary. The sale was appealed by the Southwest Center
with
interventions by the Grand Canyon Sierra Club and Los Angeles
Sierra
Club.
Though the protesters were peaceful and non-violent, police
used
"pain compliance" tactics to remove one of the roof protestors
and
sprayed lysol in the face of one of the building occupiers, causing
an
allergic reaction.
________
__________ __________
MEDIA:
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION TO BLAME FOR USFWS FAILURE TO PROTECT
95
SPECIES
>From an article in the Albuquerque Journal, May
17,1997:
Group May Sue Over Endangered List
Protection Sought For
Species in West
TUCSON - Environmentalists plan to sue a federal agency
unless it
decides to list 95 species of plants and animals as endangered in
the
West.
The Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, a
Tucson-based
organization, notified Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and
John
Rogers, acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, of
its
intent to sue if the Service does not act on its own proposals within
60
days.
The Endangered Species Act gives the agency 12 months to
withdraw
or finalize its listing once it has been proposed, said Peter
Galvin,
conservation biologist for the Southwest Center.
"In these 95
instances, neither has occurred; for up to five years in
the case of the
Peninsular Ranges' bighorn sheep," a species found
in
California.
Three of the species are found in Arizona - the
flat-tailed horned
lizard, the Parish's Alkali grass, and the San Xavier
Talussnail.
Another 86 are found in California, most of them flowering
plants,
including the Laguna Beach liveforever.
The rest of the
species are scattered in Texas, New Mexico, Utah,
Oregon, Washington,
Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas.
They do not include the jaguar, which
already has been the subject of
separate litigation the Center filed against
the Fish and Wildlife
earlier this year. The group wants the government to
decide whether
to list jaguars as an endangered species.
On March 20 a
federal judge in Phoenix gave Fish and Wildlife
officials 120 days to make
final the endangered species listing for the
jaguar and critical habitat
designation for four other species already
listed as
endangered....
Jeff Humphrey, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman
in
Phoenix...acknowledged that a number of backlogged species
await
listing.
"But there was a one-year moratorium on listing of
endangered
species of and designating critical habitats. We came out of that
a
year ago and have never been fully funded by Congress to catch up
to
address that backlog."
Galvin said that response won't wash. "How
much money does it take
to print something in the Federal Register?" he
asked. "They've
already proposed them" for endangered status.
He said
the agency is able to issue biological opinions in a timely
manner that
enable more destruction of wildlife habitat, yet it doesn't
seem to have time
to devote to listing endangered species.
"The larger picture is that the
Clinton administration does not have a
strong commitment to wildlife
protection. This is as much suing the
Clinton administration as the Fish and
Wildlife Service, because
they're the ones telling Jeff Humphrey what to
do."
The Southwest Center has filed more than a half-dozen lawsuits
in
environmental-related cases this year, but the jaguar case is the
only
one with an outcome. It has no legal staff of its own, relying
on
services donated by sympathetic attorneys.
Galvin said the lack of
action by Fish and Wildlife officials is
"certainly worse in the West. What
we're seeing all across America in
animals and plants is a biological
meltdown."
"The reason we're doing this is because a lot of these species
aren't
the ones that get a lot of attention; they're sort of the backbone
or
unsung heroes of the ecosystem, these plants and fish and
reptiles."
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