Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#90
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#90
8/19/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver
city, tucson, phoenix, san
diego
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1.
APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS LOGGING/GRAZING INJUNCTION FOR SECOND TIME
2.
MEDIA: SOUTHWEST PONDEROSA PINE SONGBIRDS IN PERIL
3. PLEASE SIGN ON TO
LETTER TO MAINTAIN MORATORIUM ON LOG EXPORTS
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****
APPEALS COURT RE-AFFIRMS LOGGING/GRAZING INJUNCTION FOR SECOND
TIME
On August 18, 1997, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected
a
Forest Service request to delay, modify, or cancel its
injunction
against grazing permits and timber sales which violate Forest
Plan
standards and guidelines in AZ and NM. This was the court's
second
refusal to water down its injunction. The Southwest Center
and the
Forest Service agree that up to half of the region's 1,365
allotments may
violate the Forest Plans although no action has
been taken yet on the July
25, 1997 emergency injunction. The
injunction will remain in place until the
Court of Appeals makes a
final ruling on the case.
Twenty three timber
sales are currently enjoined. Others may
follow as Forest Guardians and the
Southwest Center challenge
sales which the Forest Service claims are
consistent with their
Forest Plans.
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MEDIA:
SOUTHWEST PONDEROSA PINE SONGBIRDS IN PERIL
The following article ran on
the front page of the Albuquerque
Journal (Northern Edition) and the Las
Cruces Sun News, and on
B1 of the Albuquerque Journal (State Edition). It
concerns a
Forest Service study on the status of songbirds in SW
ponderosa
pine forests. The study was won in settlement talks over
the
1995-1996 SW timber injunction.
"Report: Songbirds in Peril, Some
Species Losing Ground in
Southwest" By Ian Hoffman, Albuquerque
Journal
Here's the good news: No birds has become extinct in
New
Mexico this Century.
Now the bad: The raven and American crow, the
pinon jay and
mourning dove, the house finch and bushtit - all
common,
everyday birds - seem to be in decline in the Southwest's
largest
forests.
Cassin's finch, a gray-streaked mainstay of bird
feeders, is now a
species of concern in New Mexico, as are western and
mountain
bluebirds.
In short, the familiar backyard songbirds appear
to be losing
ground amid ponderosa pine in Arizona and New Mexico,
say
researchers cited in a new U.S. Forest Service report on
Southwest
songbird ecology.
Environmentalists seized on the new report as
vindication for
their claims that logging of old-growth ponderosa, coupled
with
grazing and putting out forest fires, are harming
songbird
populations.
"Quite frankly, it's discouragingly
reaffirming," said David
Henderson, executive director of the National
Audubon Society's
New Mexico office.
"Particularly here in Santa Fe,
we're talking about a loss of some
of our common feathered friends" Henderson
said. "I see the
possibility of this galvanizing the public as did Rachael
Carson's
book. Basically this is a harbinger of a second 'Silent
Spring.'
Photo Inset #1- "SPECIES OF CONCERN: Cutting
dead
trees
can harm mountain bluebirds. Such
insect-eating
birds tend to increase in numbers after forest
fires
leave dead trees behind."
Kieran Suckling and others insisted on the
Forest Service study
in October 1995, when settling a lawsuit over protection
of the
Mexican spotted owl and Northern goshawk.
"We're not talking
about a couple of rare species nobody's ever
heard of. This is across the
board," said Suckling, head of the
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity.
"Even our common
species, we're not going to be seeing these guys in 20
years. We're
talking about a songbird meltdown in the
Southwest."
Environmentalists such as Suckling see the latest report a
"silver
bullet," a potentially powerful tool for legal battles to
restrict
logging and grazing.
After years of using the federal
Endangered Species Act,
environmental lawyers could venture lawsuits under
the Migratory
Bird Treaty Act that outlaws the killing of migratory
songbirds.
Not so fast, says report co-editor Deborah M. Finch,
an
ornithologist with the Albuquerque office of the Forest Service's
Rocky
Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station.
"I would not go to that
extreme," Finch said.
Rather than finding evidence of a "songbird
meltdown," she said,
Forest Service researchers found studies suggesting
smaller
numbers of songbird species increase in abundance with
the
clearcutting, salvage logging and fire suppression
that
environmentalists abhor.
"The environmental groups could find
information here to
support their position. But it depends on what species
they're
talking about, what management practices they're talking about
and
where they're talking about," said Finch.
The same is true for federal
foresters. They could point to some
species that increase with logging and
grazing, Finch said.
Yet many of those birds, said the Audubon Society's
Henderson,
are either non-native species or birds that thrive in
disturbed
ecosystems.
"You're losing your specialists in favor of your
generalists, and
that isn't a trade-off I'd like to make," he
said.
"Regardless of what position you take you could probably
find
something to support it in this document," Finch said. "The
thing
about it is, these relationships are very complex."
The 152-page
report concludes that a highly diverse forest, full
of old and dead ponderosa
as well as some dense, younger stands
and open meadows, will support the
greatest variety of songbirds.
By contrast, Southwest ponderosa forests
today have been
homogenized by more than a century of commercial logging
and
grazing, along with half a century of putting out forest
fires.
The hallmarks are dense thickets of small and midsized
pines,
with vanishing pockets of centuries-old ponderosa that are
valuable
shelter for nesting and insect sources for many birds.
And while forest
service researchers found few unassailable
studies on the effects of salvage
logging - the harvesting of dead
trees in the aftermath of fires or insect
attacks - scientists do tend
to agree dead trees provide important insect
food and nesting
cavities.
"Bird species that depend on dead and dying
trees (snags) are
most impacted by any type of salvage logging, whether it
be
selective harvest of individual trees or complete stand removal,"
the
report said.'
Photo Inset #2- "OLD-GROWTH LODGER: They pygmy
nuthatch nests
in
tree cavities or abandoned woodpecker holes.
It
often winters in large numbers in old-growth
ponderosa
and prefers undisturbed forest."
Some of those birds - the pygmy
nuthatch, the white-breasted
nuthatch, the three-toed woodpecker and the
mountain and
western bluebirds - are species of concern in the
Southwest.
Among the report's highlights:
- As part of the
nation's most definitive bird survey, bird
watchers have
seen declines in 46 of 61 species, or 77 percent in
forests along New Mexico highways since 1968.
All of
the 11 surveyed birds that live year-long in New Mexico and
all
eight surveyed species that nest in conifers are
losing
numbers. Also, 23 of 26 birds, or 88 percent that
nest in open cups
are declining, according to a 1992
analysis of the Breeding Bird
Survey.
"We can presume that the synergistic and
cumulative effects of
natural vegetation change, livestock
grazing, logging, fuelwood
(firewood) harvest, and fire
suppression will underlie many of the
predicted population
declines," the report said of birds reliant on
fairly
undisturbed ponderosa pine forests.
- Scientists must parse out
the separate effects of logging,
grazing and fire on a
larger scale, as great as an entire national
forest, Finch
said. Studying grazing effects on songbirds in
Southwest
ponderosa forests is the single greatest research need.
- Cutting dead
trees and taking downed logs for firewood "has
created a new,
unbalanced nutrient cycle" and harms birds that
feed on
tree-killing insects, "which can lead to a reduction in forest
health."
- Recreation disturbs songbirds. "Camping...is perhaps the
most
destructive recreational pursuit," the report
said.
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PLEASE SIGN ON TO LETTER TO MAINTAIN
MORATORIUM ON LOG EXPORTS
As you may know, Sen. Slade Gorton has attached
a log export
rider to the Interior Appropriations Bill that would essentialy
nullify
the 1990 law that prohibits log exporting company from
purchasing
federal timber for its mills as a replacement for private
timber the company
is exporting. Please sign onto this letter and
circulate it for others
to sign on. We need the name of an individual
and organization,
no position title or signature needed. Please
respond
to:
Steve Thompson:
sthompson@desktop.org
Bob Freimark:
FREIMARK@TWSNW.ORG
Dear Mr.
President:
We are writing to
urge you to oppose any amendments that may
be included in the fiscal year
1998 Interior and Related Agencies
Appropriations bill that would weaken the
1990 law banning log
exports from federal and state lands in the West, or
otherwise
prevent the Forest Service from properly enforcing the export
ban.
As you know, in 1990
Congress overwhelmingly approved a
permanent ban on the export of unprocessed
timber from National
Forests, Bureau of Land Management and state owned lands
in the
western United States. An important part of that law prohibits
a
log exporting company from purchasing federal timber for its mills
as a
replacement for private timber the company is exporting. This
practice,
known as "substitution," is little more than the backdoor
export of federal
timber.
An amendment has been
attached to the Senate's FY 98 Interior
Appropriations bill that would
significantly weaken the 1990 log
export ban. Specifically, the
amendment would effectively make it
legal for a company to purchase federal
timber as a direct
substitute for private timber the company is
exporting. In addition
to weakening the 1990 export ban, the bill would
also create an
administrative nightmare by carving out a dizzying array
of
exceptions, loopholes and state-specific export rules that no
agency of
the federal government should be expected to
implement.
Every log exported
from the Pacific Northwest increases the
economic and political pressure to
log the region's federal forests.
It would be outrageous to weaken the
public log export ban at
time when the timber industry is mounting an
unprecedented attack on
our National
Forests.
The ban on log
exports from public lands enjoys overwhelming
support in the Pacific
Northwest. Not only is the export ban
hugely popular, it is critical to
the health of the Northwest's forest
ecosystems. We urge you to defend
the integrity of the 1990 log
export ban by insisting that the total
prohibition on federal and
state log exports continue and that the Forest
Service properly
implement the ban on
substitution.
Sincerely,
_____________________________________________________________________________
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710