Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#47
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#47
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~ SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
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ksuckling@sw-center.org
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www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
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1.
SAN DIEGO FAIRY SHRIMP LISTED AS ENDANGERED-
ACTIVISTS POST
WEEKEND GUARD AT IMPERILED WETLANDS
2. GILA RIVER DIKE PROJECT
ABANDONED
3. FORESTS FOREVER! CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED
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SAN DIEGO FAIRY SHRIMP LISTED AS
ENDANGERED-
ACTIVISTS POST WEEKEND GUARD AT IMPERILED WETLANDS
In
response to a 1992 Endangered Species Act petition by the
Southwest Center
for Biological Diversity (and two lawsuits), the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service listed the San Diego fairy shrimp as
an Endangered species January
31, 1997. The shrimp is an obligate
and indicator species for southern
California vernal pools- small,
often temporary, wetlands formed atop coastal
mesas and inland
valleys. Ninety eight percent of vernal pools have been
destroyed by
agrobusiness and urban development. The shrimp will join
a
number of vernal pool plants already listed under the ESA.
The
listing was top TV, radio, and newspaper news in San Diego
due to the
threat of "midnight bulldozing" and the Center's
announcement that
volunteers would monitor controversial wetland
areas over the weekend
to prevent illegal grading. Developers have
in the past destroyed
vernal pools during the night.
The Southwest Center plans to immediately
challenge numerous
Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinions allowing the
loss of
vernal pools. The U.S. Marine Corps, for example, plans to
destroy
116 pools at the Miramar Air Station. The Southwest Center
also
plans to challenge an expected Fish and Wildlife
Service
determination that the City of San Diego's Multiple
Species
Conservation Program will not jeopardize the
species.
GILA RIVER DIKE PROJECT ABANDONED
The Gila National
Forest has abandoned a controversial plan to
construct two massive dikes in
the Gila River on the edge of the Gila
Wilderness in southwest New
Mexico. The Forest had proposed the
dikes and to divert the River to
protect an ill placed bridge and road
leading to the Gila Cliff Dwellings
National Monument. Both the
bridge and road have been temporarily
washed out during past
floods due to natural river course changes.
The
area's magical riparian aquatic habitat supports the threatened
loach minnow
and spikedace and is proposed critical habitat for the
endangered
southwestern willow flycatcher. It is within the historic
range of the
endangered Gila trout. After the Forest Service rejected
an alternative
proposal by the Southwest Center to restore the
watershed without dikes or
diversions through road realignment,
wetland creation and beaver
reintroduction, a bitter battle ensued to
prevent any further degradation of
the riverway.
FORESTS FOREVER! CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED
The Southwest
Forest Alliance has launched a new campaign to
restore biological and
economic integrity to Arizona and New
Mexico's eleven National Forests. Their
beautiful 32 page color
booklet, Forests Forever!, presents an overview of
Southwestern
forests and the mismanagement they have suffered at the hands of
the
Forest Service and timber, mining, and grazing industries.
It
concludes with a plan to restore the forests and the human
communities
which have come to depend on subsidized resources
extraction.
Forests
Forever! exposes the rhetoric of "forest health," calling for
comprehensive
mapping of forest communities and real ecosystem
restoration planning. It
would prohibit the logging of all trees over
16" dbh, restore of old growth
pines, and reintroduce native flowers
and grasses, native animals, and
natural fire regimes. Trees under
14" dbh in pine thickets would be thinned.
Cattle and roads would be
removed from priority watersheds. Erosion
prevention and watershed
restoration techniques would be mandated. Cattle
grazing and
pollution would be prohibited in wetlands.
Forests
Forever! was written by the Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity with
maps by Forest Guardians. To obtain copies, contact
the Southwest
Forest
Alliance:
swfa@igc.apc.org