Endangered & Protected Species

 

Spotlight Turns To States As Critics Slam Feds' Salmon Plan. According to E&E News, “A long-awaited, court-ordered federal plan to recover the Pacific Northwest’s salmon has satisfied few and has shifted attention to Congress and statehouses to come up with a solution before time runs out for the region’s iconic species. Federal managers of the Columbia River’s complex hydropower system last week released a draft environmental analysis of how the dams affect salmon and steelhead, and what they should do to mitigate those impacts. For the first time, they were required to consider breaching four dams on the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington that conservationists say are the straw that breaks the camel’s back for several runs of salmon and steelhead. Unsurprisingly, advocates who sued to force the assessment say, the agencies did not back the breaching option. Instead, they recommended relatively minor tweaks to a program that many say isn’t working for several runs of fish (Greenwire, Feb. 28). ‘With this draft EIS, the agencies have confirmed that they are not going to take the kind of broad view that would let us actually make the investments and take the actions to solve this problem,’ said Todd True of Earthjustice, who represented environmental groups in the lawsuit that led to the new review. ‘That really puts the spotlight on various elected leaders,’ True said. The salmon and steelhead runs of the Columbia River were once among the largest in the world, with 10 million to 16 million fish returning every year to spawn. About half of those swam upstream hundreds of miles to the Columbia’s main tributary, the Snake River, and into Idaho.” [E&E News, 3/4/20 (=)]

 

Wolves Facing Betrayal If Removed From Endangered Species List. According to Tulsa World, “Dear Dr. Fox: I am reaching out today to discuss the wolves of America. It appears to me the federal government is heading toward removing wolves from the ‘threatened’ or ‘endangered’ species list. It looks to be led by Trump’s appointed Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt. Reading your article ‘Betrayal of Wolves,’ it sure seems like that would be a disaster to the wolf population. It’s sad to think of all the reintroduction efforts for this animal, only to see them killed off again. I truly don’t understand who could get any pleasure from shooting such a magnificent animal. In Michigan, like Minnesota, it seems so divided, although I think most people are in favor of the wolves. The scary part is I don’t think a lot of people know the wolf is being removed from the protection of the act. I imagine that’s part of the feds’ idea: not to publicize it very much. … Dear R.C.: You and I are not alone in feeling despair over what I have previously called bio-fascism. The gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency and essentially wiping out species once protected under the Endangered Species Act is not in the public interest. It may boost the ‘economy,’ but such initiatives mainly serve the private interests of ranchers and land developers, especially the mining, oil, gas and timber industries. When species and biodiversity are sacrificed, along with air and water quality, for short-term profit, the public interest is not served. Under the principle of One Health, our own health and economic security depend upon a healthy environment, which is in part maintained by indigenous species, plant and animal — all of whom should be protected, if not in their own right, then for the well-being of future generations.” [Tulsa World, 3/3/20 (+)]

 

Op-Ed: Saving Endangered Species: Now We Must Focus On Ecosystem Health. According to New York Daily News, “It’s been almost a decade since nations from across the globe convened in Aichi Prefecture of Japan for a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, at which targets were established to halt to the biodiversity crisis. How’d we do? So far, nations have increased the amount of land and sea set aside for conservation and we have protected approximately 15% of the planet’s land and more than 7% of its ocean. There’s no question that represents important progress, even though many of these places are being increasingly eroded by human activity. There is also evidence that some species like tigers that were near extinct have increasingly recovered. But in one critical respect, the current global strategic plan for biodiversity is simply not working. As we celebrate World Wildlife Day today, we must embrace a new approach that directly targets the conservation of ecosystems. Ecosystems, from the boreal forest and wetlands to coral reefs and mangroves, are more than the total of the plants and animals living in them. Complex interactions between biological and physical systems drive processes that sustain all life. This includes production of clean water, regulation of air quality and climate through carbon sequestration and storage, soil formation, pollination and the production of food and wood for houses. The last decade has seen an extraordinary increase in our ability to map ecosystems and track the pressures human increasingly place on them. Many are already severely damaged” [New York Daily News, 3/3/20 (+)]

 

Wildlife

 

E.U. Warns Of Biodiversity Loss. According to E&E News, “The European Commission launched a global biodiversity coalition today to raise awareness of species and habitat loss — ahead of a U.N. summit this fall. The commission is recruiting zoos, national parks, natural history museums, aquariums and other organizations to take part in its ‘United for Biodiversity’ awareness campaign. Participants sign a pledge to ‘join forces for nature’ and warn their visitors that ‘one million species are at risk of extinction’ due to human impacts, including climate change. ‘We urgently need to take global action, otherwise, our only chance of seeing nature is in the zoos and botanical gardens,’ European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevicius said in a statement. ‘That would be a failure of the humankind.’ Parties to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity are planning to meet in Kunming, China, in October to adopt a global framework to conserve nature. The coalition hopes to bring biodiversity loss to the forefront of public consciousness and to draft a pact similar in gravity to the Paris Agreement on climate. The European Commission said the coalition will complement its 2017 campaign to reduce plastic pollution in the oceans. That effort included more than 200 aquariums in 41 countries. ‘There has never been a point in human history where the state of nature has been so degraded, and the decisions we make about nature today have never been as critical,’ said Anne Larigauderie, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.” [E&E News, 3/4/20 (=)]

 

 

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