Trillium Organizes Tour of ‘Cancer Alley’
In early June, Trillium Asset Management Social Research Analyst Susan Baker led a group of 40 investors on a fact-finding tour of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” The investors, who were gathered in New Orleans for the annual meeting of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, represented faith-based institutions and socially responsible investment firms collectively holding billions of dollars under management.
They traveled 200 miles by bus to tour the heavily industrialized and highly polluted stretch west of New Orleans. Guided by prominent experts from local environmental justice, indigenous community, and coastal restoration groups, including the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, investors were provided with an in-depth examination of the history and current day environmental impacts of industrial corporations on Louisiana communities. The tour’s ultimate destination was Mossville, LA (known as the “unofficial polyvinyl chloride capital”) to talk to residents who have been disproportionately burdened by the toxic hazards emitted from 14 industrial facilities owned by companies such as Conoco Phillips, PPG Industries and Georgia Gulf. The concentration of vinyl chloride in Mossville, a known carcinogen, has been measured in quantities significantly exceeding ambient air quality standards set by the EPA to protect human health. In 1999, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported that residents of Mossville, had blood dioxin levels three times higher than the national comparison group. Supported by shareholder advocacy and legal actions Mossville residents have fought long and hard to make their community viable again. At the conclusion of this extraordinary tour, Trillium, ICCR, and the Investor Environmental Health Network committed to bring our collective shareholder voice to bear on the environmental injustices compromising human life and health in Cancer Alley.
For more information, contact Susan Baker at sbaker@trilliuminvest.com
Related links:
Environmental Justice Victory in Norco, Louisiana
Western Citizens Seek To Reinstate Roadless Area Protections:
San Francisco, CA – Joining the States of California, Oregon, and New Mexico, 20 conservation groups today added their voices to the call for protection of the last wild places in North America. The conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco seeking to invalidate a Bush administration decision targeting the last, large untouched tracts of our national forests for industrial development. The suit asks the court to reinstate a prior rule that protected these key areas.
“Roadless forests provide Americans with clean water and air, and homes for our wildlife. They also give us quiet places to recreate and recharge,” said James Wilson, owner of Wilson’s Eastside Sports in Bishop, California and a board member of California Wilderness Coalition. “Many places in the west, including the Sierra Nevada where I live, are endangered by bulldozers and chainsaws that destroy the outdoors hikers, fishermen, birdwatchers, and hunters come to experience.”
The 2001 Roadless Rule was a widely supported regulation that protected over 58 million acres of public land on national forests from road construction, commercial logging, and development. Hunters, fishermen, hikers, and millions of regular Americans considered it one of the greatest forest conservation measures in U.S. history. Despite its valuable protections, the 2001 Roadless Rule was formally repealed by the Bush administration in May of 2005.
“Our business relies on the cold, clear water that flows from our roadless forests. Developing these areas would hurt our business and affect our quality of life,” said Bonnie Schonefeld, owner of Lochsa Connection, a Kooskia, Idaho-based whitewater supply company.
“Roadless areas in the Colville and Umatilla National Forests are places I regularly hunt and fish,” said Jeff Holmes of Cheney, Washington. “I don’t think DC bureaucrats should give away these special places.”
Approximately 1.2 million Americans commented on the roadless rule after it was first proposed in 1998. Over 95 percent of these people supported the proposed ban on new roadbuilding in our largest tracts of undeveloped forest. The Bush administration’s repeal of the Roadless Rule swept away those protections without consideration for science, economics, biology, cost to communities, or common sense.
“Building new roads into roadless areas just adds more taxpayer subsidies, increases budget deficits, and is lousy public policy,” said Gundars Rudzitis, Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Idaho in Moscow. According to research conducted by Rudzitis and others, residents of communities adjacent to pristine areas “care about living close to unspoiled nature, where they can pursue hunting and fishing on public lands.” Rudzitis concluded, “Building roads into these pristine areas will only negatively impact the long-term economic future of these communities.”
On national forests, 386,000 miles of roads, many to nowhere, fragment wildlife habitat and open the land to massive, landscape-scale clearcut logging, as well as increased threat of wildfires. Thousands of miles of these roads have fallen into disrepair and are collapsing and eroding into many of our key watersheds causing significant water pollution problems for people and wildlife.
“Many roadless areas are the source of clear, cold streams that wild fish need to survive,” said Kristen Boyles with Earthjustice. “Last year, scientists at EPA recommended that key salmon and steelhead roadless areas remain protected, but that unbiased advice was ignored by the Bush administration.”
The Roadless Repeal also gives state governors the right to petition the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the US Forest Service, for particular roadless area protections, although the petitions may or may not be granted. Many states governors have objected to this process because it is cumbersome and costly. “This state-by-state approach takes the national out of national forests,” said Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society. “Our National Forests belong to all Americans.”
The lawsuit was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of The Wilderness Society, California Wilderness Coalition, Forests Forever Foundation, Northcoast Environmental Center, Oregon Natural Resources Fund, Sitka Conservation Society, Siskiyou Regional Education Project, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Defenders of Wildlife, Pacific Rivers Council, Idaho Conservation League, Conservation NW, and Greenpeace. The Attorneys General of California and New Mexico and the Governor of Oregon filed a lawsuit challenging the Roadless Repeal on August 30, 2005.
For more information on the Roadless Rule and its repeal, please visit www.earthjustice.org/campaign/display.html?ID=4.
LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST NEW NATIONAL FOREST RULES(A)
A coalition of conservation groups lodged a complaint today in
Federal District Court in San Francisco challenging the Bush
administration’s new rules for managing the nation’s 192
million acre National Forest System, a magnificent network of
forests and grasslands in 42 states that encompasses 8
percent of the country. The challenged regulations are
supposed to govern activities on all national forests and ensure
the protection of wildlife and the environment, but the Bush
administration has watered them down to the point where they
are virtually meaningless.
Earthjustice represents Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, The
Wilderness Society, and Vermont Natural Resources Council
as they challenge these regulations on the following grounds:
- they fail to include the environmental protection measures
mandated by Congress in the National Forest Management Act
of 1976;
- they reverse more than 20 years of protection for wildlife
and other resources without any sound or scientific basis for
doing so, or any adequate replacement; requirements to use
quantitative measurements of wildlife populations and
mandatory duties to conserve wildlife on national forests have
been eliminated or made discretionary;
- they were crafted through a flawed process – the
environmental impacts of this far-reaching action were never
analyzed and many significant changes first appeared in the
final rule, depriving the public of an opportunity to comment
on them.
“The nation’s forests and the people who own them deserve
better than this,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, President of
Defenders of Wildlife. “We are hopeful the courts will send
these rules back to the industry lobbyists who wrote them,
stamped ‘illegal’.”
“The new Bush forest rules aren’t rules at all – they’re more like
suggestions. They turn forest management to mush, mocking
the intent of Congress and undermining public participation in
the process,” said Trent Orr, an attorney with Earthjustice.
“Agencies need leadership and clear guidance, not this wink and
a nod that encourages the exploitation of the public’s resources.”
“Some basic protections for non-timber resources like wildlife
and water made sense to the Reagan administration, which put
them in place,” said Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society.
“But this administration just went on a search and destroy
mission for any environmental safeguard that might stand
between the administration’s industry donors and the public’s
trees.”
“The Bush administration is eliminating national forest wildlife
protections that have been in place and effective for decades,
“said Sean Cosgrove, forest policy specialist with the Sierra
Club. “Americans want to protect the places where they hike,
hunt, and fish, not turn them over to the logging companies.”
Local conservation groups are concerned and have joined this
legal challenge. The ramifications of the new regulations may
be felt in Vermont, where the Forest Service is updating a plan
to manage the Green Mountain National Forest. “The regulations
seemingly instruct the Forest Service to ignore the monitoring of
wildlife species that Vermonters and visitors value and cherish,
“said Jamey Fidel of the Vermont Natural Resources Council.
The complaint is being filed as a supplement to a lawsuit filed by
the same plaintiffs in November against a related rule more
specifically attacking national forest wildlife and other resource
protections. The lawsuit is Defenders of Wildlife v. Johanns,
and was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California.
For more information on these regulations, including opposition
from Congress, scientists, and the public, visit: www.SaveNationalForests.org.
Read the complaint online here: http://www.earthjustice.org/news/documents/2-05/NFMASupplementalComplaint.pdf
Climate Change is Human Rights Issue(A)
(Buenos Aires, Argentina) Ms. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, elected chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), announced tonight that the ICC will soon petition the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, seeking a declaration that emissions of greenhouse gases that are destroying the Inuit way of life are a violation of human rights.
Ms. Watt-Cloutier made the announcement at a CIEL-sponsored event at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in Buenos Aires. Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), shared the panel with Ms. Watt-Cloutier. Mr. Toepfer praised Ms. Watt-Cloutier for having, “ably articulated the concerns of your people in the face of the devastating effects of climate change and its relentless assault on Inuit traditional life.”
Attorneys from Earthjustice and CIEL are working with the Inuit Circumpolar Conference to file the petition. Donald Goldberg, a senior attorney from CIEL who moderated the panel said, “Climate change is a human rights concern on an unprecedented scale. It poses an immediate danger for Inuit and other Arctic inhabitants, but millions of people in mountain areas, low-lying island and coastal regions, and other vulnerable parts of the world will soon face similar threats.”
“Protecting human rights is the most fundamental responsibility of governments,” said Martin Wagner, International Program managing attorney for Earthjustice. “Climate change is threatening the health, culture, and livelihoods of the Inuit. It is the responsibility of the United States, as the largest source of greenhouse gases, to take immediate action to protect the rights of the Inuit and others around the world.”
The Arctic is warming much more rapidly than previously known, at nearly twice the rate as the rest of the globe, according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), a four-year scientific study conducted by an international team of 300 scientists under the direction of a high-level intergovernmental forum including the United States. Increasing greenhouse gases from human activities are projected to make the Arctic warmer still, according to this unprecedented report.
These changes will have major global impacts, such as contributing to global sea-level rise and intensifying global warming, according to the ACIA final report, which is available online at http://amap.no/acia/.
Bush Administration to Increase Logging in Sierra Nevada National Forests(A)
Oakland, CA – U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth today approved the January 2004 Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment (SNFPA), a management plan that governs all 11.5 million acres of national forest land in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and Modoc Plateau in California and parts of Nevada. The decision rejects 6,200 appeals from the public questioning the wisdom and legality of the plan. A majority of the appeals requested that the Agency overturn the Regional Forester’s 2004 decision and return to the popular 2001 Sierra Nevada Framework plan formulated during the previous administration after over a decade of scientific study and public involvement.
“This decision turns back the clock on forest management in the Sierra Nevada to the old days of ‘get out the cut,’ ignoring all we’ve learned about how to best protect our communities from fire and restore our native wildlife,” said Greg Loarie an attorney for Earthjustice. “An era of goodwill and consensus has been thrown out the window today; thankfully, we still have the courts to ensure that our forests are managed responsibly.”
The U.S. Forest Service revision approved today will nearly triple the amount of logging in the Sierra by allowing the cutting of 30-inch diameter, fire-resistant trees throughout the range while limiting safeguards for water and wildlife. The Forest Service hired a public relations firm to sell changes to plan to the public, knowing a majority of Californians prefer the balanced, management plan exemplified in the original Sierra Framework.
The original Sierra Framework, with its emphasis on sustainable forestry, habitat protection, and fire prevention, had a broad base of support including scientists, conservationists, business owners, the California Attorney General’s Office and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has called the original Framework “a model of forest ecosystem resource protection.”
California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the Bush administration’s amendment violates the, the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and other important environmental laws. Scientists are also contesting the lack of scientific and public input to the revised plan, which they say calls for an unnecessary increase in logging while allowing fire-prone communities to remain unprotected.
The plan approved today allows the removal of large trees – 20 to 30 inches in diameter – despite the fact that removing such fire resistant trees can create the perfect conditions for wildfire. Only by focusing on brush and small diameter trees near communities can we help protect families and homes from wildfire.
“Today’s decision is an obvious case of winners and losers,” said Loarie. “The people who live, work, and enjoy the Sierra are the losers. Sierra Pacific Industries, a major campaign contributor to the Bush campaign, appears to be the only winner,” said Loarie.
JUDGE ORDERS DISCLOSURE OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED “BIOPHARM” CROP LOCATIONS(A)
Honolulu, HI-A federal district court judge yesterday issued a landmark ruling ordering the United States Department of Agriculture to disclose the locations of open-air field tests in Hawai`i of “biopharmaceutical” crops genetically modified to produce industrial chemicals and drugs. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, Pesticide Action Network North America, and KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, seeking to compel USDA to conduct long-overdue reviews of the environmental and public health impacts of these activities. The USDA and biotech industry had been fiercely resisting disclosing the locations of the test plots to anyone, citing fears of “espionage,” “vandalism,” and “civil unrest.” However, District Court Judge David A. Ezra ordered USDA to provide the plaintiffs with the location information and ordered that the information would become public in 90 days unless USDA came up with better evidence of specific harm.
“Biopharming could have disastrous effects on human health and the environment and should not be shielded from public scrutiny,” said Paul Achitoff, an Earthjustice attorney. “At least now plaintiffs can find out if these crops are being grown near conventional crops that can be cross-pollinated, in ecologically sensitive areas, or near schools or homes.”
Judge Ezra’s ruling affirmed a previous order by Magistrate Judge Barry M. Kurren finding that USDA and the industry “fell far short” of demonstrating that specific harm to the field tests would result from disclosure of their locations. On appeal, Judge Ezra agreed that the “isolated incidents” raised by defendants failed to make a “particularized showing” of harm.
“Growing genetically engineered food crops to produce chemicals or drugs is a bad idea by itself,” said Joe Mendelson of CFS. “But hiding the facts about these crops from the people who could be most harmed by them is simply indefensible.”
“Biopharming” involves genetic alteration of food crops consumed by humans and livestock, such as corn and soybeans, to produce industrial chemicals and drugs, including contraceptives, hormones, vaccines, and other potent, biologically active substances. The crops are grown outdoors in open fields, potentially exposing humans and the environment to contamination, and are virtually indistinguishable from edible varieties.
Hawai`i has been the site of more than 4,000 open-air field tests of genetically engineered crops, including biopharmaceuticals. The tests, conducted by corporate agribusiness and industrial chemical giants such as Monsanto, Prodigene, DuPont, and Dow, produce crops that have not been approved for human or animal consumption, or for general release into the environment. Despite 12 years of open-air testing, not one biopharmed drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Genetically engineered crops have contaminated conventional food crops, as in the StarLink fiasco, where genetically engineered corn not approved for human consumption ended up in dozens of products on supermarket shelves and had to be recalled. There have been potentially disastrous slip-ups in biopharm field tests: In 2002, USDA had to quarantine and destroy 500,000 bushels of Nebraska soybeans meant for human consumption because the crop had been contaminated with corn engineered to produce a pig vaccine. That same year, potential contamination led to the destruction of 155 acres of conventional corn in Iowa. The grower in both instances, Prodigene, is currently conducting open-air tests in Hawai`i.
“It is unconscionable for governments to allow corporations to conceal potentially problematic activities and avoid public oversight. Biopharming poses particularly serious threats to Hawaii’s fragile biodiversity,” said Cha Smith, executive director of KAHEA.
“Almost everything about the regulation of gene-altered crops suggests that the federal agencies are far more responsive to industry than to the public,” said Skip Spitzer of plaintiff Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA). “That the court has to step in to force disclosure of such basic information highlights that problems like biopharming come from big agribusiness having too much control over our food.”
Thirty-Five U.S. Senators Ask President Bush to Rescind Policy That Expose Wetlands, Streams, and Other Waters to Pollution(A)
WASHINGTON DC-Wisconsin Senator Russell Feingold (D) and thirty-four of his colleagues sent letters to President Bush asking the President to withdraw a Clean Water Act policy directive issued in January 2003 that stripped environmental protections from streams, wetlands and lakes nationwide. Senator Feingold led the effort to defend the Clean Water Act among Senate Democrats, gathering the support of thirty other Democrats and the Senate’s one Independent, James Jeffords (I-VT). Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and three other Senate Republicans sent a similar letter making the same request of President Bush.
“The Clean Water Act has always had strong support in Congress, and today’s announcement restates that support in the strongest terms,” said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice. “Senator Feingold knows that goal of the Clean Water Act-to make all of the nation’s waters safe for fishing, swimming, drinking and other uses-cannot be met if any waters are cut out of the law’s scope, as President Bush has done.”
“We commend Senator Feingold for taking the lead on this issue, and thank him and the other Senators of both parties for speaking out for clean water and against the President’s destructive policy,” Mulhern added. “The Senators’ letters send a strong signal to the White House that efforts to weaken the nation’s fundamental clean water protections will be met with great resistance.”
The Senate letters ask President Bush to rescind the policy announced on January 15, 2003 that is meant to remove Clean Water Act protections for many streams, wetlands, ponds, lakes, and other waters. The policy-initiated through a joint memorandum issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps)-directs federal officials to ignore Clean Water Act environmental safeguards over many kinds of wetlands, streams, and other waters unless they first get permission from their national headquarters in Washington, DC. The policy leaves more than 20 millions of acres of wetlands and as much as 60 percent of the nations’ streams without any federal protections. Prior to the Bush policy, these waters were protected by EPA and the Corps under the Clean Water Act for over 30 years.
Copies of the Senate letters are available at:
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/documents/8-04/Feingold8-6-04.pdfhttp://www.earthjustice.org/news/documents/8-04/Chafee8-5-04.pdf
BUSH ADMINISTRATION MANAGEMENT OF CALIFORNIA DESERT CONSERVATION AREA STRUCK DOWN(A)
SAN FRANCISCO — In a major victory for desert tortoise and other endangered species recovery in the California desert, federal judge Susan Illston yesterday struck down biological opinions (permits) issued by the Bush administration’s Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) that authorized extensive cattle grazing and off-road vehicle use within the 4.1 million acres of critical desert tortoise habitat located in the California Desert Conservation Area. FWS had issued its faulty opinion in response to management plans issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the Virginia-sized Conservation Area. The BLM plans have been highly controversial and have been sharply criticized by biologists over their failure to protect endangered species’ critical habitat and implement recovery plans already approved by FWS.
The Court said FWS failed to consider the negative affects of the BLM plans on endangered species’ recovery, instead looking only at survival. “Recovery” means increasing the size of key desert tortoise populations to the point that the species can eventually be removed from the endangered and threatened species list. In contrast, “survival” does not necessarily include any improvement to the health of an endangered species.
“The Court finds that congressional intent in enacting the ESA was clear: critical habitat exists to promote the recovery and survival of listed species…,” wrote Judge Illston in her 16 page opinion and order. “Conservation means more than survival; it means recovery. The Court finds that formulating a biological opinion of ‘no adverse modification’ only where an action affects the value of critical habitat to both the recovery and survival of a species imposes a higher threshold than the statutory language permits.” She adds, “…the biological opinion itself suggests, and the administrative record confirms, that had the Service considered the impact of the CDCA Plan on recovery alone, it might have made a different finding regarding adverse modification.”Earthjustice attorney Michael Lozeau said of the ruling, “Since the passage of the Endangered Species Act, FWS and other agencies like BLM have been actively avoiding complying with Congress’ command that they take all necessary actions to recover endangered and threatened species. The federal court’s ruling restores Congress’ intent that critical habitat, including the desert tortoise critical habitat located in the CDCA, be managed to restore tortoises, not to subsidize grazing cows in the desert or serve as off-road vehicle highways.”
“This is a very important ruling which upholds the recovery intent of the Endangered Species Act, America’s most important wildlife conservation law,” said Daniel R. Patterson, ecologist with the Center, who formerly worked with BLM in the CDCA. “Critical habitat works, and now FWS and BLM will have to follow the law and the public-interest in protecting critical habitat for endangered species recovery, not just survival.”
“The Court’s decision is a critical step in stopping habitat degradation and the killing and crushing of tortoises and their dens by cattle and off-road vehicles,” explained Center attorney Brendan Cummings. “It’s unfortunate it took a federal lawsuit to force FWS and BLM to read the statute and implement FWS’ own recovery plan for the tortoise.”
“This decision is not only an affirmation of Congressional intent for species recovery under ESA; it is a poster-child for the value ofan independent judiciary,” said Karen Schambach, California Director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
By invalidating the biological opinion issued for the CDCA management plans, the remaining question in the lawsuit is what activities within desert tortoise critical habitat must be stopped or drastically curtailed.
“In order for the desert tortoise to recover from the brink of extinction, the recovery plan for the tortoise prepared by FWS must be fully implemented immediately, including its call for the complete elimination of livestock grazing and drastic reduction of off-road vehicle use on essential tortoise habitat,” said ecologist Patterson.
“Recovering the desert tortoise will take a maximum effort,” said Elden Hughes of the Sierra Club. “Unfortunately, the Bush Administration seems determined to do something less than minimum, but this important ruling will force them to change and follow the law.”
The Bush administration’s critical habitat policy is a self-fulfilling prophecy: refuse to protect critical habitat, then claim critical habitat is not protective. In striking down this illegal and illogical policy, the Court has ordered FWS to protect critical habitat at the highest level possible to ensure that it is managed to recover endangered species, not simply keep them alive.
Read the ruling online here: http://www.earthjustice.org/news/documents/8-04/CBDvBLMOrder.pdf
Japanese Delegation Comes To U.S. To Save Exotic Marine Mammal and Cultural Icon(A)
The U.S. military’s construction plans are the target of fierce protest in Japan, where a group of village elders just passed their 100th day of a sit-in to block seabed drilling off the Okinawa coast. The drilling has been held off by the protesters and this week the Japanese activists come to San Francisco for a hearing in their legal challenge to the U.S. government.
BACKGROUND ON LAWSUIT:
A delegation of Japanese residents from the island of Okinawa will arrive in San Francisco Tuesday to attend a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District court over the fate of a native marine mammal threatened by a U.S. military construction project. The marine mammal is called a dugong and is a close relative of the Florida manatee or sea cow. The Japanese are contesting a plan by the US military to build an airbase off the east coast of their island in a shallow bay that provides some of the only remaining dugong feeding grounds. Only 50 Okinawa dugong are believed to survive today. The gentle giants are shy vegetarians that live near the coral reefs and feed on coastal sea grasses. The dugong has deep cultural significance to the people of Okinawa and has been designated a national monument by the Japanese government. Locals have been occupying a protest camp for over three months in their efforts to get the U.S. military to consider moving the airbase elsewhere to protect the critically threatened dugong population.
The lawsuit, called Okinawa Dugong v. Rumsfeld, asks the U.S. military to perform a public cultural impacts analysis to assess the potential adverse impacts of the airbase to the dugong. Earthjustice represents an historic coalition of environmental groups from both sides of the Pacific.
Earthjustice attorney Marcello Mollo will cite the National Historic Preservation Act in his case against the government. The Act requires the US government to conduct a full public impact analysis before undertaking activities outside the United States that might impact the cultural resources of other nations. The Japanese government in 1955 listed the Okinawa dugong as a natural monument under Japan’s Cultural Properties Protection Law. This is the first legal test of the National Historic Preservation Act’ s international provisions.
Wednesday’s court hearing will be followed by a Wednesday evening cultural reception for the Japanese delegation featuring the music of Okinawa. Details below.
High-resolution photos of dugong, protests, drilling equipment, and region available at www.earthjustice.org
CONSERVATION GROUPS TAKE FIRST STEP IN LAWSUIT TO PROTECT PACIFIC FISHER(A)
The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Oregon Natural Resources Council filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue today against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for delaying protection of the Pacific fisher, a rare relative of the otter and mink and denizen of old-growth forests. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the fisher warranted protection as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on April 8, 2004, but refused to finalize such protection. “The Bush Administration’s further delay of protection for the fisher is driving it to extinction,” states Noah Greenwald, conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The fisher needs the safety net provided by the Endangered Species Act to survive.”
The fisher formerly ranged throughout old-growth forests of Washington, Oregon, northwestern California and the Sierra Nevada. Because of a combination of logging and historic fur-trapping, the fisher has been extirpated from all of Washington, most of Oregon and half its range in California. It is now found in two disjunct populations-one in northwestern California and extreme southwestern Oregon, and another in the southern Sierra Nevada. “The well-documented reduction in the distribution and abundance of the fisher is of serious concern,” states Dr. Steve Buskirk, Professor of Zoology and fisher expert at the University of Wyoming. “Fisher can and should be restored to their historical distribution on the West Coast.”
At the same time that the Administration is dragging its feet on protecting the fisher, it has substantially weakened protections for its late-sucessional forest habitats. In the Sierra Nevada, the Administration gutted the Sierra Nevada Framework, a plan that was in part designed to protect the fisher, and in the Northwest, the Administration weakened protections for old-growth forests in the Northwest Forest Plan. “The Bush Administration will stop at nothing to please their friends and campaign contributors in the timber industry,” states Greenwald, “the fisher needs protection of old-growth forests to survive.”
The Bush Administration has protected the fewest species of any Administration since passage of the Endangered Species Act. To date, they have only protected 31 species. By comparison, the Clinton Administration protected 394 species during its first term and the first Bush Administration protected 234 species. The Bush Administration claims they don’t have enough money to list species needing protection. A review of their annual budget requests, however, reveals that year after year the Administration requests only a fraction of the money that Fish and Wildlife says it need to properly implement the Endangered Species Act. For instance, this year it has requested only $17.3 million of the $153 million that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates they need to address the backlog of endangered species listings and critical habitat designations. “The Bush Administration is manufacturing a budget crisis to cover up their opposition to endangered species protection and poor implementation of the Nation’s most important environmental law,” states Greg Loarie, an attorney with Earthjustice, who is representing the groups.
View a photograph of a fisher here:
http://www.sierracampaign.org/images/Photos/PacificFisher.jpgBackground:
Fisher description and natural history
The fisher has a long, slender body with short legs. Its head is triangular, with a sharp, pronounced muzzle and large, rounded ears. Fishers are mostly brown, with a long bushy tail. Males range up to 47 inches in length, while females typically only reach 37 inches. Fishers run in a bounding gait, with their front feet leaping forward together, followed by the back feet. Unlike other carnivores, such as cats and dogs, fishers walk on their whole foot.
Contrary to its name, the fisher does not eat fish. The name probably relates to a poor translation of the name for the European polecat, which is a relative of the fisher and is called the fitch ferret, fichet or fitche. Instead of fish, the fisher has a diverse diet, preying on small mammals, snowshoe hare, porcupine, birds, carrion, fruit and truffles. Because it is the only animal that regularly preys on porcupines, which often kill or damage small trees, the timber industry reintroduced the fisher to many parts of the U.S., including the southern Cascades of Oregon. The fisher kills porcupines with repeated bites to the face, devouring the porcupine via the quill-less underbelly. Where fisher reintroductions have been successful, porcupines have indeed declined in number.
Endangered status for the fisher would have required protection for old-growth forests, benefiting the entire ecosystem. It would have provided funding for research and boosted efforts to reintroduce the fisher into Oregon and Washington.
