by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 7, 2018 | Lobbying
Featured image: Dusky gopher frog courtesy USFWS
by Center for Biological Diversity
NEW ORLEANS— From economists and scientists to religious leaders and business owners, dozens of groups this week submitted “friend of the court” briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to maintain protections for 1,600 acres of “critical habitat” designated in Louisiana for endangered dusky gopher frogs.
“It’s inspiring to see so many people eloquently urge our nation’s highest court to protect endangered wildlife,” said Collette Adkins, a Center attorney fighting in the Supreme Court for the frog’s protections. “While these folks represent a wide range of interests, they’re united in supporting these little frogs, their habitat protections and the Endangered Species Act. Like most Americans, these scientists, businesspeople and faith leaders recognize that imperiled animals need a place to live.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in January granted a “petition for certiorari,” filed by the timber company Weyerhaeuser, to reconsider a June 2016 decision from a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a 2012 rule establishing the frog’s protections.
That rule protects 6,477 acres of critical habitat in Mississippi and Louisiana, including 1,600 privately owned acres of unoccupied frog habitat in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. The panel held that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reasonably concluded that the St. Tammany Parish land is essential for recovery of the frogs, which are now confined to just three sites in southern Mississippi — with only one site regularly showing frog reproduction.
The “friend of the court” briefs, also known as “amicus briefs,” filed this week ask the Supreme Court to affirm the panel decision. Volunteer lawyers and law students wrote the briefs, in a coast-to-coast effort to represent scientists, legal experts and others with economic, scientific, moral and aesthetic interests affected by this case:
- Landowners who value the presence of endangered species on their property and welcome efforts to preserve their habitats;
- Faith-based groups recognizing a shared commitment, rooted in religious teachings and principles, to care for the earth and its species;
- Scientists with expertise in conservation biology, including Stuart Pimm and E.O. Wilson;
- Frog experts who study amphibian ecology and have expertise in conservation of gopher frogs;
- Leading nonprofit conservation organizations with longstanding interests in protecting wildlife;
- Environmental law professors with expertise in the Endangered Species Act;
- Economists and law professors with expertise in economic theory, cost-benefit analysis, the valuation of environmental goods and environmental law and regulation;
- Former leaders of the Department of the Interior, ranging from the Nixon administration through the Obama administration, who administered and enforced the Endangered Species Act; and
- Small-business owners including ranchers, ecotourism entrepreneurs and artists, who make an economic case for biodiversity and stewardship.
The Center for Biological Diversity organized the amicus effort and, along with the Gulf Restoration Network, intervened in the case. Participating as parties in the litigation before the Supreme Court, the Center and GRN last week filed their brief in support of the frog’s habitat protections.
Background
The dusky gopher frog (Rana sevosa) is a warty, dark-colored frog with ridges on the sides of its back. When picked up, these frogs cover their eyes with their forefeet, possibly to protect their faces until predators taste their bitter skin secretions and release them. Gopher frogs spend most of their lives underground in burrows created by gopher tortoises — hence their name.
Once prevalent in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, dusky gopher frogs are nearly extinct. More than 98 percent of longleaf pine forests — upon which the frog and many other rare animals depend — have been destroyed. Fire suppression, drought, pesticides, urban sprawl, highway construction and the decline of gopher tortoises have made this frog so rare it now lives in only a few small Mississippi ponds, with only one pond showing consistent frog reproduction.
In response to a Center lawsuit, the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the gopher frog as a federally endangered species in 2001. The lawsuit and advocacy by the Center also prompted the 2012 critical habitat designation at issue in the Supreme Court case. Additionally, in response to legal advocacy by the Center and Gulf Restoration Network, the agency released a final recovery plan for the frogs in 2015.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 22, 2018 | Agriculture
Legislation Guts Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Public Lands Protections
by Center for Biological Diversity
WASHINGTON— In a narrow vote, on June 21 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a 2018 Farm Bill that contains an unprecedented provision that would allow the killing of endangered wildlife with pesticides.
With every Democrat and 20 Republicans voting in opposition, H.R. 2, the so-called Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, passed by a vote of 213 to 211. Two Republicans abstained from voting.
“House Republicans just put killer whales, frogs and hundreds of other species on the fast track to extinction,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is a stunning gift to the pesticide industry with staggeringly harmful implications for wildlife.”
The legislation would also eliminate the requirement that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analyze a pesticide’s harm to the nation’s 1,800 protected species before the Environmental Protection Agency can approve it for general use. A separate provision would eliminate the Clean Water Act’s requirement that private parties applying pesticides directly into lakes, rivers and streams must first obtain a permit.
During this session of Congress, the pesticide industry has spent more than $43 million on congressional lobbying to advance these provisions.
In addition to giveaways to the pesticide industry, H.R. 2 includes a sweeping provision that would gut environmental protections for national forests to expedite logging and mining, including eliminating nearly all protections for old-growth forests in Alaska. The legislation contains nearly 50 separate provisions that would eliminate all public input in land-management decisions provided by the National Environmental Policy Act.
“This farm bill should be called the Extinction Act of 2018,” said Hartl. “If it becomes law, this bill will be remembered for generations as the hammer that drove the final nail into the coffin of some of America’s most vulnerable species.”
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 5, 2018 | Lobbying
by Center for Biological Diversity
WASHINGTON— Defenders of Wildlife, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and Patagonia Area Resource Alliance, today filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the Patagonia eyed silkmoth under the Endangered Species Act.
The rare Patagonia eyed silkmoth is clinging to survival in only three isolated locations in Arizona and Mexico. The groups previously petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the moth under the Endangered Species Act and designate critical habitat for the species.
“The Patagonia eyed silkmoth is hanging by a thread. With the only U.S. population existing in an Arizona cemetery, where its only remaining food source could be wiped out by cattle, this species clearly needs federal protection to save it from extinction,” said Lindsay Dofelmier, legal fellow at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to dismiss evidence supporting listing the Patagonia eyed silkmoth was arbitrary. By failing to provide adequate explanation for the decision and not allowing for a 12-month status review, the Fish and Wildlife Service put the species at risk. Listing the silkmoth and designating critical habitat provides the best chance for recovery.”
The Patagonia eyed silkmoth exists in a single U.S. location, in an Arizona cemetery less than half an acre in size. In Sonora, Mexico, it lives on two sky islands, higher elevation areas that are ecologically different from the lowlands surrounding them.
“The Patagonia eyed silkmoth needs endangered species protection now, so we can start the work of recovering this beautiful animal,” said Brian Segee, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Endangered Species Act has saved more than 99 percent of plants and animals with its protection from extinction, and it can do the same for this rare moth.”
Cattle grazing was the primary historic cause of habitat loss for the moth and continues to play a major role in the precarious situation of the species. Mining and climate change also threaten to destroy the last vestiges of potential silkmoth habitat on both sides of the border. A catastrophic fire at critical times of the year, when the adults, eggs or larvae are out, could completely erase the moth from any of these remaining localities. Listing the silkmoth and designating critical habitat for the species offers its best chance of survival and recovery.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 13, 2018 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
Editor’s note: On January 8, 2018, a federal judge dismissed US government’s criminal charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and another man linked to militia groups, over procedural errors made by the prosecution. This is a history of the Bundy grazing allotment.
by Center for Biological Diversity
• The Bundy family began grazing on federal public lands near Gold Butte, Nevada, in 1954 – lands located in the recently designated Gold Butte National Monument – some of the driest and most fragile desert in North America.
• In 1973 the Bundys were granted their first federal grazing permit. Given the aridity and fragility of the desert, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a permit for grazing in this ephemeral range, which is subject to environmental and other conditions. Ephemeral range in the southwest desert region does not consistently produce forage for grazing.
• In 1989 the desert tortoise was granted protection under the federal Endangered Species Act because of widespread destruction of its fragile desert habitat by livestock grazing, urbanization and other factors.
• In 1991, the U.S. and Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a draft Biological Opinion (BO) governing the management of desert tortoise habitat. The BLM developed a timetable to meet its requirements and shared the requirements and timetable with permittees, including Cliven Bundy, whose cattle grazed in tortoise habitat. The BLM requested and FWS then agreed to delay implementation of the BO until 1993.
• On February 26th, 1993, Cliven Bundy sent two “Administrative Notices of Intent” to the BLM asserting that the BLM has no legal jurisdiction over federal public lands, and stating his intent to graze cattle, “pursuant to my vested grazing rights.” Bundy stopped paying his grazing fees after February 28th of 1993.
• The BLM sent Bundy a notice that his request for a grazing application had not been received and requested that he re-submit within one week or BLM action would be taken.
• On July 13, 1993, BLM sent Bundy a Trespass Notice and Order to Remove which set a timeline for cattle removal given his non-payment of fees. Later BLM extended the timetable at Bundy’s request.
• On September 30, 1993, the Nevada State BLM Director requested injunctive relief—action from the court—to address Bundy’s unlawful cattle grazing.
• On January 24, 1994 BLM tried to deliver to Bundy a proposed decision to cancel his permit, request payment of trespass damages, and order the removal of trespass livestock. When BLM delivered the notice, Bundy’s son tore up the document. The torn document was recovered and used as evidence of illegal grazing by the BLM in court.
• On March 3, 1994, Cliven Bundy, given his refusal to recognize federal authority to own and administer federal lands, sent payment for his grazing permit to Clark County instead of the BLM. The county refused Bundy’s payment for lack of jurisdiction.
• In 1998, the U.S. Attorney filed suit requesting that the federal district court order Bundy to remove his cattle and pay outstanding grazing fees and fines totaling now more than $150,000.
• In October 1998, the BLM approved a new Resource Management Plan for the Las Vegas Field Office. The plan allowed for the closure of grazing allotments in critical tortoise habitats, including the Bunkerville allotment.
• On November 3, 1998, United States District Judge Johnnie Rawlinson permanently enjoined Bundy from grazing his livestock within the Bunkerville allotment. Rawlinson assessed fines against Bundy, affirmed federal authority over federal land, and wrote that “[t]he government has shown commendable restraint in allowing this trespass to continue for so long without impounding Bundy’s livestock.” Cite.
• Bundy refused to comply with the order. He filed an emergency motion for stay to try and halt the court ruling while he appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court.
• On May 14th, 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court denied Bundy’s appeal and upheld the district court decision ordering the removal of Bundy’s cattle from the Bunkerville allotment. Cite.
• On September 17th, 1999, after Bundy refused to comply with the court’s earlier orders, the Federal District Court again ordered Bundy to comply with the earlier permanent injunction and assessed additional fines.
• In December 1998, in order to mitigate harm to desert tortoise from urban sprawl, Clark County purchased the federal grazing permit to the Bunkerville Allotment for $375,000. The county retired the allotment to protect the desert tortoise. With the ongoing trespass cattle, Clark County inquired as to the rights of Cliven Bundy to be on the allotment. In a July, 2002 memo the BLM stated that the “Mr. Bundy has no right to occupy or graze livestock in the Bunkerville grazing allotment. Two court decisions, one in Federal District Court and another in the Circuit Court of Appeals,
fully supports our positions.”
• On April 2, 2008 the BLM sent Bundy a notice of cancellation, cancelling Bundy’s range improvement permit and a cooperative agreement. The notice called for the removal of his range improvements, such as gates and water infrastructure.
Cattle have been grazing in the vast Gold Butte area since an armed standoff between the government and self-styled militia in 2014.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
• On May 9, 2008 Cliven Bundy sent a document entitled “Constructive Notice” to local, county, state, and federal officials, including the BLM. It claimed that Bundy had rights to graze on the Bunkerville Allotment; it called on state and county officials to protect those rights from the federal government; and it responded to the BLM’s April 2 Notice of Cancellation by saying he has not ignored it, and that he will do whatever it takes to protect grazing rights.
• In 2011, BLM sent Bundy a cease-and-desist order and notice of intent to roundup his trespass cattle.
• In 2012, BLM aerial surveys estimated about 1000 trespass cattle remained.
• In April 2012, the BLM at the last moment canceled plans to roundup trespass cattle to ensure the safety of people involved in the roundup after Cliven Bundy made violent threats against BLM.
• On July 2013, U.S. District Court of Nevada again affirmed that Bundy has no legal rights to graze cattle. It ordered Bundy to remove his cattle from public lands within 45 days and authorized the U.S. government to seize and impound any remaining cattle thereafter. Cite.
• In October 2013, after an appeal by Bundy, the federal court again affirmed that Bundy had no legal right to graze cattle on federal public lands. The court ordered the removal of cattle within 45 days and ordered Bundy not to interfere with the round-up. Cite.
• In March 2014, the BLM issued a notice of intent to impound Bundy’s trespass cattle and closed the area to the public for the duration of the action.
• On April 5, 2014 the roundup began.
• On April 9, 2014 heavily armed militia from across the U.S. converged on the Bundy ranch to confront federal officials conducting the roundup.
• On April 12, about 300 cattle that had been rounded up and held in a corral were released by the BLM after the heavily armed militia confronted and aimed rifles at federal agents. The BLM canceled the roundup out of safety concerns for employees and the public.
• In April 2015, Bundy held a weekend barbecue and “Liberty Celebration” to mark the one-year anniversary of the standoff.
• In June, 2015, shots were fired near public land surveyors working in the Gold Butte area. BLM orders all employees to stay away from Gold Butte.
• On Feb 11, 2016, Cliven Bundy was arrested at the Portland, Oregon airport on his way to support his son’s paramilitary occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
• As of February, 2017, Bundy’s trespass cattle continue to graze illegally on federal public lands near Gold Butte.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 27, 2017 | Lobbying
Suit Seeks Ban on Mexican Seafood Imports to Prevent Extinction of Vaquita
by Center for Biological Diversity
WASHINGTON— Conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration today for failing to respond to their emergency request to ban certain seafood imports from Mexico’s Gulf of California in order to save the critically endangered vaquita porpoise from extinction.
Fewer than 30 vaquita now remain on the planet after the population suffered a 95 percent decline over the past 20 years. Entanglement in fishing gillnets is the sole threat to the species’ survival. Scientists predict that the vaquita will be extinct by 2019 if fishing practices remain unchanged.
In May the groups filed a formal legal petition requesting that the U.S. government ban the import of seafood from Mexico that was caught in the vaquita’s habitat using deadly gillnets. Today’s lawsuit seeks an immediate response to that emergency petition. A U.S. ban on lucrative Mexican seafood imports will pressure Mexico to fully ban gillnets and strengthen much-needed enforcement.
“We’ve asked politely that the U.S. government take action to save the vaquita by banning Mexican seafood imports,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “But the clock is running out for the vaquita and it’s time to demand action. The Trump administration must use the strongest possible pressure quickly to force Mexico’s hand in protecting the vaquita before it’s too late.”
Mexico has failed to permanently ban all gillnets in the vaquita’s habitat, despite repeated recommendations by scientists and evidence that the use of gillnets by any fishery — in or adjacent to the vaquita’s range — will undeniably lead to the species’ extinction.
“We can’t leave any tool unused that will help get the vaquita’s killer — gillnets — out of their habitat,” said Zak Smith, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Marine Mammal Protection Project. “The fishing industry is driving the vaquita’s extinction — and pressure on that group to fix their practices may be the most important way to save these porpoises. The United States must immediately ban the import of any seafood from Mexico that is contributing to the vaquita’s extinction.”
The U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act requires the U.S. government to ban seafood imports from fisheries that kill marine mammals, including the vaquita, in excess of U.S. standards for marine mammal bycatch (the accidental entanglement and deaths of marine mammals in fishing gear). If American standards were applied to Mexican fishermen operating in and near the vaquita’s habitat, fishermen would be prohibited from contributing to the bycatch of any vaquita because it is gravely endangered and losing its population at a rate of nearly 40 percent each year.
“Mexico has known for decades what must be done to save the vaquita, yet has not found the political will to stop the species from plummeting toward extinction,” said Kate O’Connell, marine wildlife consultant with the Animal Welfare Institute. “If the U.S. government does not step up and use its laws to compel the Mexican government to save the species by banning certain seafood imports, it too will be complicit in the loss of the vaquita.”
In 2016, following a legal petition by conservation groups, the Service adopted new rules to enforce the Marine Mammal Protection Act’s import provision. Those rules will be fully applicable worldwide by 2022. Today’s lawsuit seeks emergency application of the rules to save the vaquita.
