theguardianuk--2019-11-05--Europe must act on intensive farming to save wildlife, scientists say

The EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) should be overhauled urgently to stop the intensification of farming practices that is leading to a steep decline in wildlife, scientists from across the bloc have urged.  Five organisations representing more than 2,500 experts have written to Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming president of the European commission, and the European parliament, to demand major changes to the way the CAP operates.  Under current rules, farmers are rewarded for the land they farm, and can apply for supplementary subsidies based on implementing measures to protect the environment and preserve wildlife and flora. This system is regarded as an improvement on its predecessor, which encouraged over-supply in some areas by awarding production-based subsidies, leading to the infamous butter mountains and wine lakes of previous decades.  However, the current CAP – which costs EU taxpayers €60bn a year – is “turning rural areas into green deserts of uninhabitable maximum-yield monocultures”, according to the European Ornithologists Union, the European Mammal Foundation, the Societas Europaea Herpetologica, the Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica and Butterfly Conservation Europe.  There is now an “unequivocal scientific consensus” that the plummeting numbers of European farmland birds, populations of which more than halved between 1980 and 2015, and a decline of more than three-quarters among insects in some areas, have happened because of intensified farming, the signatories wrote.  “The greening measures in the CAP are largely ineffective at retaining or restoring biodiversity and are too often poorly controlled,” they wrote. “The current agri-environmental schemes are both underfunded and insufficiently targeted to meet the scale of the damage to farmland biodiversity.”  Proposed changes that would place more emphasis on such measures are still inadequate, the experts found. Instead, they want to see fundamental reforms that support smaller farms that use sustainable methods and maintain high biodiversity.  Harriet Bradley, the EU agriculture policy officer at BirdLife Europe, said: “The scientific evidence speaks for itself – intensive farming is killing nature. If the CAP isn’t fundamentally reformed – if we don’t make space for nature – then Europe’s ‘Green Deal’ promises on biodiversity and climate will just be empty words on another piece of paper.”  In the UK, farmers will no longer receive CAP subsidies of about £3bn a year after Brexit, but the government has pledged instead to offer payments to farmers who meet certain environmental targets, which have not yet been set out.  A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Leaving the EU presents an opportunity to design a bespoke agricultural policy and reward our farmers for enhancing the environment, including protecting and improving biodiversity.  “Our new environmental land management scheme is intended to be a powerful vehicle for driving this change and achieving the goals of the 25-year environment plan. We are now working closely with a range of environmental and agricultural stakeholders to collaboratively design this new scheme.”


theguardianuk--2019-09-04--Grow your own forest how to plant trees to help save the planet

Grow your own forest: how to plant trees to help save the planet

‘Tree planting ‘has mind-blowing potential’ to tackle climate crisis.” That’s how the Guardian reported findings from the Crowther Lab in Switzerland two months ago. Billions more trees, scientists claimed, could remove two-thirds of all the carbon dioxide created by human activity. Forest restoration “isn’t just one of our climate change solutions, it is overwhelmingly the top one,” said the lead scientist, climate change ecologist Tom Crowther.  Such a programme might take 100 years to be fully effective, but along the way it would reduce the consequences of the climate crisis – protecting soil from erosion, reducing the risk of flooding and providing habitats for a vast range of animals and other plant species.  Some baby steps are already being taken, such as the Bonn Challenge, a global attempt to reforest 350m hectares by 2030. In the UK, tree-planting initiatives include the Northern Forest, which will be made up of 25m trees, spanning the north of England from Liverpool to Hull.  But we need to do much, much more. Another study led by Crowther, published in Nature in 2015, estimated that while there are more than 3 trillion trees in the world, that number had fallen by 46% since the dawn of human civilisation.  In Brazil, the Amazon rainforest continues to shrink by the equivalent of three football fields every minute as land is turned over to cattle ranching, soya-bean production and mining. In August alone, an area the size of Hong Kong disappeared, not including losses from fires.  If you want to do your bit, here are some answers to the big questions.  In its recent report Net Zero: the UK’s contribution to stopping global warming, the Committee on Climate Change says the UK needs to increase its woodland from 13% of land area to 17% (the European average is around 35%). We need to be planting 30,000 hectares annually. “In the 2018-19 season, we did just under 13,000 hectares, of which 11,000 were in Scotland,” says John Tucker, director of woodland outreach at the Woodland Trust. “If you looked at England, we probably need six times more tree-planting. We are way off where we should be.”  In order to hit the target, says Jon Stokes, director of trees, science and research at the Tree Council, “we need a radically different approach in terms of funding, incentives, land availability, harnessing people power and private-public involvement. Existing woodlands are also valuable habitats and an essential source of carbon capture, however they are not always managed effectively. Improving the management of existing woodlands could maximise their ability to store and capture carbon, and should therefore be a key part of any plan to increase tree numbers or canopy cover.”  Can people planting trees in their garden make much of a dent? “One individual tree might not make a difference but if 10m people put one tree in, that would,” says Tucker. “If people feel they want to do something, then planting a tree in the right place is a good thing to do … Get trees that are produced from seed that is sourced from the UK and grown in the UK. We want to avoid encouraging people to buy trees that have been imported because that brings with it a risk of disease.”  It isn’t simply a case of filling every available space with trees. Species need to be chosen carefully to ensure they grow well – especially on deforested or degraded land – and fit into the existing ecosystem. “There are other landscapes – such as grasslands and peatlands – which are rich in biodiversity and can also lock up lots of carbon dioxide in their own right. These must be protected and here it might not be appropriate to plant trees,” says Stokes.  Isabella Tree, author of Wilding, who, with her husband Charles Burrell, turned a 1,400-hectare farm in West Sussex into one of the country’s biggest “rewilding” projects, is not in favour of plantations. “The advantages of natural regeneration are absolutely huge and haven’t really been taken seriously,” she claims. Creating forest plantations, she says, would require first spraying the area with a weedkiller, such as glyphosate. “Then you’re transporting people in by car, with saplings that have been grown in nurseries in an artificial high-carbon system. They may have been imported, so you’ve got a disease risk there. They also won’t have all the mycorrhizas [beneficial fungi] that they would have had if they were grown in the wild. It’s a human choice what tree is planted where, and we’re not always the best judge of that.”  Saplings are usually protected with a plastic tube that doesn’t biodegrade, and also creates “a micro-environment that can encourage a buildup of condensation, so those saplings are often prone to rot and disease buildup. They also encourage the saplings to grow fast and tall, so they are etiolated stems. That may be fine if you’re a forester and you want to grow trees with great tall trunks, but not if you want to get a natural landscape back.”  The alternative is to let nature do it. “You allow thorny scrub to grow up, and that happens with birds and wind dispersing seed across your landscape – it’s one of the most biodiverse habitats there is, but in the UK we have zero tolerance for it.” A single jay, for instance, can plant thousands of acorns in a month, she says. “That thorny scrub becomes essentially nature’s barbed wire, to protect that sapling as it grows, so deer and rabbits can’t get at it. The sapling is instantly plugged into all the fungi associates of the scrub and the trees around it, so it’s like getting an intravenous injection of nutrients and minerals from the get-go. That tree will be much healthier and much more resilient than a tree that has been artificially planted. At the end, what you’ll get is an open woodscape, with lateral branches, which is a huge habitat for birds and bats, and a scrubby landscape where you’ve got the next generation of trees coming up. It sequesters carbon in a much more dynamic way than a closed-canopy, single-generational plantation.”  One of the obstacles, she says, is funding. It is simple to request funds for, say, 500 oaks in a certain area. It is less easy to say we want to allow trees to regenerate naturally, but can’t say how many that will be. “The funding paradigm doesn’t fit natural regeneration – and that’s one of the big problems.”  You don’t need permission, but you do need to think about what species will grow where you live, and also how big it could get. “It’s no use planting an oak tree two feet outside your back door – it will damage your house,” says Tucker. “You need to think about house foundations, underground drains, overhead power lines and make sure the tree is going to be in a place where it can grow and not have any adverse impact.” Think about the effect on your neighbours, too. Smaller species include apple trees or rowan.  “The act of planting must not be seen as the end of this process,” Stokes adds. “Aftercare is absolutely vital for young and newly planted trees; without aftercare, we could plant many trees that simply die or don’t grow to a size where they can provide benefits such as capturing carbon.”  You can’t plant on waste ground or in your local park without permission from the landowner – that could well be the local council and, says Tucker: “They might be interested in people approaching them and asking them if they can plant trees on their land.” Other good places to try may be school or hospital grounds.  If you’re planting more than two hectares of forest (less if it’s a “sensitive area”), you may need to contact your local Forestry Commission office “about whether you need what is, in effect, planning permission to create a new woodland”. There may also be funding available.  “We need more trees everywhere, but they perform different functions,” says Tucker. Leaving aside carbon sequestration, “In the rural situation, soil erosion is a real problem and trees in the right place, because their roots help improve water infiltration, can reduce runoff. In our cities, trees can be really good for improving air quality. As the climate warms up, shading in our towns and cities is going to become increasingly important and trees can perform that role. Surface-water flooding is a big problem in cities now and trees can help alleviate some of those flash-flooding episodes.”  “Not many of the recent planting grants have been for urban trees, so it’s great to see the Urban Tree Challenge Fund promising to plant 130,000 new urban trees,” adds Stokes.  The Tree Council has a national network of volunteers called tree wardens, who help conserve trees in their community. There may also be local tree-planting groups. If there aren’t, you could set up your own (the Woodland Trust offers free planting packs for community groups). Trees for Cities is another organisation that runs tree-planting projects. Donate money or volunteer.  There are numerous reforestation charities operating around the world, such as the International Tree Foundation, and TreeSisters, which plants 2.2m trees across the tropics, including in India, Kenya and Brazil, every year.  Beyond that, support international organisations that promote the rights of indigenous people, whose land stores nearly a quarter of the carbon stored in tropical forests, and who are best placed to protect forested areas by monitor and report illegal logging. In the UK, lobby the government to take reforestation seriously. “Tree planting rates in the UK in the past probably eight years have been the lowest for a generation, so we are miles off where we should be,” says Tucker.  “Stopping deforestation is really important, because about 10% of carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation,” adds Dominick Spracklen, professor of biosphere-atmosphere interactions at the University of Leeds.  Many products we wouldn’t even think of contribute to the problem. “Ask questions,” says Stephen Donofrio, from the organisation Forest Trends. Ask the supermarkets where the palm oil in their products comes from, or the soya feed used to farm their meat. Ask sportswear companies where the leather in their trainers was sourced. Ask the person responsible for your pension fund how much deforestation its investments are causing. “Even if that person doesn’t know the answer, you’ve asked the question and hopefully others will, too, to the point where this comes on to their radar.”  Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London, says we should “support the rewilding forest restoration schemes. Lobby companies – and to get legislation – so that the food production chain is deforestation-free. On a personal level, reducing your meat and dairy consumption will take pressure off the land to allow the possibility of having more forest.”  Above all, we mustn’t get complacent. “There are people who think we can keep using fossil fuels, and plant a few trees, and it’s all going to be all right,” says Spracklen. “That’s not going to solve climate change on its own.”


fortune--2019-01-17--Key West Wants to Put the Cap on Sunscreens in Order to Save Coral Reefs

The Key West City Commission voted 7-0 in favor of passing a ban on the sale of sunscreens that contain chemicals that harm coral reefs, according to the Miami Herald. The chemicals in question are oxybenzone and octinoxate, which scientists say destroy coral by absorbing its nutrients. When coral reefs are depleted, that triggers damage further down the marine ecosystem, harming everything from algae to creatures such as sea urchins.  In 2018, Hawaii became the first state to ban certain sunscreens due to the harmful effects of some chemicals on coral reefs and marine life. The ban in Hawaii will take effect beginning on Jan. 1, 2021. And in other coastal areas, it’s not all that uncommon to suggest that anyone going into the ocean skip certain sunscreens in favor of those with minerals such as zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which block ultraviolet rays. The Herald notes that Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection already advises divers to skip sunscreens with benzones.  There are sunscreens on the market that do not contain oxybenzone and octinoxate, and the Key West city commissioner noted that individuals could still get a prescription from a physician for a sunscreen that contains the chemicals in question. That isn’t to say that if you can’t find a suitable sunscreen, you should risk sun damage. However, there are plenty of other ways to stay healthy outdoors that don’t involve slathering on sunscreen, such as sitting in the shade of an umbrella or covering up with hats and lightweight clothing that have a high Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) rating.  Nearly 100 people packed the commission debate Tuesday night, including boat captains, dermatologists, and school children. One more vote is needed to make the proposed measure a law. The next vote is scheduled for Feb. 2.


france24--2019-04-19--Climate change Could Red Sea corals save the worlds reefs

Climate change: Could Red Sea corals save the world’s reefs?

Could Red Sea corals save the world’s reefs? While most corals are very heat-sensitive, languishing if water temperatures rise by as little as 2 degrees Celsius, Red Sea specimens appear to be adapted to a warmer, more salty environment. And these are precisely the conditions that await our oceans as a result of climate change.  Corals are essential to our marine ecosystems, and scientists are studying the Red Sea corals with great interest in a bid to unravel the mystery behind their adaptation capabilities, with the hope of being able to help other oceans adapt to warmer waters.


shareblue--2019-12-27--Federal judge rules to protect fragile deep sea corals in Atlantic Ocean

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld former President Barack Obama's designation of a federally protected conservation area in the Atlantic Ocean, a move that commercial fishermen oppose.  Fishing groups sued over the creation of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a 5,000-square-mile area that contains fragile deep sea corals and vulnerable species of marine life. The monument was established in 2016.  A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit last year, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the decision Friday.  The appeals panel brushed aside arguments that federal law governing monuments applies only to land, not oceans; that the area of the ocean is not "controlled" by the federal government; that it is not compatible with National Marine Sanctuaries Act; and that it is not the "smallest area compatible" with management goals.  The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Conservation Law Foundation applauded the legal decision.  "Like one of America's very first national monuments, the Grand Canyon, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts is a natural treasure. It provides habitat for a wide range of species, from endangered whales to Atlantic puffins to centuries-old deep-sea corals," said Kate Desormeau, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.  The area is the only marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean and is one of five marine monuments nationwide.  Attorney Jonathan Wood, who represents the fishing groups, said previously that the matter deserves to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court but that he would need to consult with his clients before making a final decision.  The appeals court "gets the law wrong and ignores critical arguments" and conflicts with a decision from another appeals court, "creating an important split which the Supreme Court may need to resolve," Wood wrote in an email.


theguardianuk--2019-02-07--Key West bans some sunscreens to protect coral reefs

Officials in Key West, the popular Florida holiday destination, have decided to ban the sale of sunscreens containing certain chemicals blamed for harming the only living coral reef found in the continental US.  The Key West city commission voted 6-1 on Tuesday to ban the sale of sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate within the island city, which is part of the Florida Keys archipelago found off the southern tip of the state.  The vote followed a public meeting where marine biologists and conservations decried harmful sunscreens, pointing to research that suggests the chemicals alter corals’ DNA and weakens their immunity to disease. The ban will start in 2021.  “We have one reef, and we have to do one small thing to protect that,” said Teri Johnston, mayor of Key West. “It’s our obligation.”  Last year, both Hawaii and the Pacific nation of Palau prohibited the sale of certain sunscreens, citing the impact on their own declining coral reefs.  Some doctors have opposed banning the sunscreens, arguing the move would increase the risk of skin cancers. Scientists, too, have been divided. In response to a push in Australia to ban sunscreens, the prominent coral reef expert Terry Hughes said: “People make a long list of bad things that human beings do to coral reefs – I would place sunscreen at number 200.”  Even if sunscreens are banned, coral reefs around the world face being virtually wiped out on current global warming trends. Corals get stressed and can die in high ocean temperatures, with localized pollution and clumsy tourists also degrading reefs that are vital to a host of marine creatures.  Florida has the world’s third largest barrier reef, with nearly 1,400 species of plants and animals and 500 species of fish, but the reef is vanishing fast. Research has found that roughly half of the reef has disappeared over the past 250 years. Coverage of acropora, the primary genus of reef-building corals, has plummeted 97%.


cnn--2019-02-15--Judge dismisses wall lawsuit brought by butterfly conservationists who vow to keep fighting

Judge dismisses wall lawsuit brought by butterfly conservationists, who vow to keep fighting

A federal judge on Friday dealt a win to the Trump administration when he dismissed a lawsuit by a group of butterfly conservationists for wall construction that the group said was expected to run through its property.  The nonprofit association argued that construction must be stopped to prevent the "seizure and destruction" of its property and "adverse environmental impacts" to threatened and endangered species and critical habitats. The suit is related to previously funded wall construction.  Judge Richard Leon said the constitutional arguments made by the North American Butterfly Association didn't hold up. The association's flagship facility is a 100-acre wildlife center -- the National Butterfly Center -- just north of the US border in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.  "Unfortunately for the Plaintiff, The Fourth Amendment offers little refuge for unenclosed land near one of the country's external borders," wrote the judge. He also said it was "preemptive" to claim that the government deprived the group of property.  The judge also concluded that the Department of Homeland Security secretary has the authority to issue a waiver to a number of environmental laws for construction in the area, dismissing those claims brought by the association. The waiver "extinguishes" the association's claims, Leon wrote.  The executive director of the National Butterfly Center, Marianna Trevino Wright, told CNN that this isn't the end. "We are going to appeal or refile, absolutely," she said. The lawsuit was first brought in 2017 after the government was "on our property cutting down our trees," as well moving habitat and widening a road, Wright says. Earlier this month, the National Butterfly Center was in the spotlight after posting photos of what appeared to be excavation equipment for the first new miles of wall since President Donald Trump took office. Customs and Border Protection has said the first 14 miles would be built in the region near the center. The agency previously declined to comment due to pending litigation. The most recent budget passed by Congress exempts construction on the center's property, but Wright said, "We will be back in the crosshairs in the 2020 budget battle." And she said the national emergency declaration could change everything.


eveningstandard--2019-04-29--Cats should be banned from going outside to protect birds says Royal Parks conservation officer

Cats should be banned from going outside to protect birds, says Royal Parks conservation officer

Pet cats should be banned from venturing outside to stop them killing birds, according the Conservation Officer for the Royal Parks in London.  Tony Duckutt, who has overseen Regent Park’s rare birds since 1978, said cats are the cause of many bird deaths.  “These so-called pets shouldn't be allowed to roam freely, s******* in other people's gardens, killing birds or just putting them off,” he told The Telegraph.  “The owners have no right spoiling other people's enjoyment.”  “I'd love to take their s*** back and scatter it over their owners garden.”  "It's so wrong. The law again fails to defend the the home owner.  “As well as killing millions of birds they have brought the Scottish Wildcat to the edge of extinction."  However, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home told the paper: "Cats are naturally independent and territorial animals that enjoy exploring their surroundings and marking an area as their own.  “Outdoor access provides great opportunities to display natural, normal feline behaviours including roaming and hunting to help stimulate and engage cats and support their emotional and physical wellbeing.  “Battersea will always seek to rehome a cat to somewhere with outdoor access so that the cat can get the benefits of both worlds – indoor home comforts as well as outdoor adventures."  Royal Parks also made it clear that the comments did not reflect the charity's general view.  A spokesperson said: “This is the personal opinion of one of our Conservation Officers and is not the view of The Royal Parks charity.”


theguardianuk--2019-10-11--Last wolves in Africa: the fragile wildlife of Ethiopia's ravaged parks | Tom Gardner

Conservationist Getachew Assefa points across the valley. “It started close to the mist over there, by the most spectacular viewpoint,” he says. “Almost all the grassland was burnt. All of that plateau and the steep cliff over there.”  Six months after wildfires torched this part of Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains, the scars are healing: heather and grass have returned to carpet the hilltop, brightened by the yellow daisies which bloom after the long rains. On the near side of the valley lie barley fields, rippling in the wind.  The scene is bucolic. But, as Assefa explains, these montane grasslands and the rare wildlife they host are under threat.  Two fires broke out earlier this year, ravaging one of the oldest natural Unesco world heritage sites, and destroying, at least temporarily, the habitat of some of the world’s rarest species: the copper-coated Ethiopian wolf and the walia ibex, a goat found nowhere else on earth.  Few doubt the blazes’ cause. The park’s wolf monitors – which include Assefa – saw, through binoculars, two men setting tussocks alight, though they couldn’t confirm their identities.  “They did it in five areas, on purpose,” he says. The fire raged for several days, and it took thousands of locals including a nearby football club – eventually assisted by a team of Israeli firefighters – to bring the flames under control. Around the same time the Bale Mountains, in the country’s south, were also affected by wildfires that lasted for more than 20 days and which experts attributed to human encroachment on the park.  Incidents like these shed light on the pressures threatening Ethiopia’s fragile wildlife and delicate ecosystems: accelerating competition over resources as the human population swells, political instability, global heating and mass tourism.  “We are in a crisis situation,” says Greta Iori, Ethiopia technical advisor for the Wildlife Conservation Society, who fears the country’s endemic species are being driven close to extinction. “We are inundated with issues when it comes to wildlife.”  Ethiopia was one of the first countries in Africa to establish national parks. The Simien Mountains were formally added to these in 1969, and today there are 20 national parks, and many more protected areas nationwide. For a country with few minerals or natural resources such as oil, assets like these are an important source of national income.According to the World Bank, “natural capital”, including forests and agricultural land, accounts for 40% of Ethiopia’s total wealth.  But the parks are in a dire state. In Omo national park, in the far south of Ethiopia near the border with Kenya, the government is building sugar factories and vast irrigated plantations. Awash national park, the country’s oldest, is severed in two by the railway and eastern highway towards Djibouti. Abijatta-Shalla, south of Addis Ababa, is home to a soda ash factory.  Meanwhile, ethnic unrest in eastern Ethiopia has had an enormous impact on Babile Elephant Sanctuary, one of the country’s most important elephant ranges. According to Iori a huge number of new human settlements have appeared inside its borders since 2017.  The elephant population is under extreme pressure due to “heightened and unavoidable human-elephant conflict”, she says. A population of about 500 could be decimated “in a blink of an eye” through poaching, with park staff struggling to secure the sanctuary.  “2019 has been brutal with an incredible spike in elephant killings,” she says. “It’s like we’ve already lost in Babile, and it’s heartbreaking.”  Nationwide, conservation efforts have been stymied in recent years by civil unrest and the political transition following the appointment of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2018.  “In general Ethiopia has never been a huge poaching-for-trafficking hotspot – but since law and order has crumbled we’ve seen a spike in opportunistic poaching and subsequent trafficking,” Iori says. “The police and army are busy with other things, and the risk of getting caught is low.”  In the Simien Mountains the problems are less advanced and the park better managed. But similar dynamics are present. When political protests broke out in 2016, the park was a target of popular anger, with locals breaking prohibitions against tree-chopping and livestock grazing. “Everyone was rushing to get his share,” recalls Assefa. “We lost two of the best wolf habitats.”  Today the park’s authorities still struggle to enforce local laws designed to protect the natural environment.  “There is a big conflict between the young, unemployed people and the park management,” Assefa explains. He reckons the fires this year were started by locals disgruntled by the authorities’ heightened clampdown on livestock grazing inside the park’s perimeters.  Setegn, a local farmer whose house lies just beyond the park, admits he grazes his animals inside the boundary marked by the main road. “The park management said we can’t cross the road – they say we won’t get any benefit from tourism unless we graze on the right-hand side,” he says. “But it’s very difficult. There is no survival for us without livestock.”  Others interviewed by the Guardian expressed the same concerns, saying their incomes had been badly hit by the restrictions.  The barley fields on the left of the road are another sign of human intrusion, and of the waning authority of the park management, notes Nick Crane, the British owner of Simien Mountain Lodge. “They encroach slowly – imperceptibly – so you hardly notice it,” he says.  According to Abebaw Azanaw, the park warden, there are about 130 households around the edges of the park.  Relocating them would be costly and could spark renewed conflict. In 2016 the entire village of Gichi – nearly 500 households located on the escarpment where the fire started – opted to move to a new settlement near the town of Debark, which cost the government on average $17,000 (£14,000) per family. The compensation was sizeable but many complained about a lack of electricity in their new homes on arrival, and of a lack of jobs. Some threatened to return to the park.  “We learnt from Gichi that it is very difficult to resettle people from the park,” says Assefa.  The root of the problem is common in many developing countries when it comes to conservation: how to strike the right balance between the resource demands of local residents and the need to protect the natural environment for future generations.  Promoting tourism is part of the answer, should it mean jobs and higher incomes for locals, but only if managed well.  In 2015 the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that it intended to triple foreign visitors to more than 2.5 million by 2020.  But for John Watkin, who worked in the Simien Mountains as the chief technical advisor for Africa Wildlife Foundation between 2018 and 2019, “uncontrolled tourism” is the most serious threat to the park’s wildlife.  “The park infrastructure is simply not set up for huge numbers of tourists … Tourism is always looking for a new hot destination, and Ethiopia is it. But unless it is done well it is going to cause serious problems,” he says.  For Crane, one answer is to increase the park price for foreign visitors, to try to limit the number coming to the Simien Mountains each year.  Meanwhile Watkin suggests Ethiopia considers alternative conservation approaches that allow communities to take ownership of the process, moving away from the state-led “fortress conservation” model that prevails. He notes examples in Kenya and Tanzania, where local communities run eco-lodges and tourism ventures while ensuring the landscape is protected. “They’re 20 to 30 years ahead of Ethiopia in this,” he says.  Such approaches might make it possible for Ethiopia to square the circle between conservation and development.  “The core of the problem is that tourism is not working for the locals,” says Joshua Amlakse, a Simien Mountains guide. “Nothing ends up in the local community.”


thehuffingtonpost--2019-08-12--Trump Administration Weakens Endangered Species Act Amid Global Extinction Crisis

The new rules, unveiled on Monday, change how federal agencies implement portions of the conservation law, making it easier to remove recovered species from the protected list and opening the door for more drilling and other development. It also scraps the “blanket section 4(d) rule,” a provision that automatically extends the same protections to plants and animals listed as threatened as the act affords those listed as endangered, and revises how agencies go about designating habitat as critical to species’ long-term survival.  Karen Budd-Falen, the Interior Department’s deputy solicitor for fish, wildlife and parks who once called the ESA “a sword to tear down the American economy,” was among several agency officials who briefed reporters about the changes during a call Monday.  The rules, she said, will “ensure transparency” in the ESA process and “provide regulatory assurances and protection for both endangered species and the businesses that rely on the use of federal and private land.”  “This effort to gut protections for endangered and threatened species has the same two features of most Trump administration actions: It’s a gift to industry, and it’s illegal,” Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans at the nonprofit Earthjustice, said in a statement about the change. “We’ll see the Trump administration in court about it.”  The Endangered Species Act was passed with strong bipartisan support in 1973 and has succeeded in preventing 99% of listed species from going extinct, including the Yellowstone grizzly bear, bald eagle, peregrine falcon, manatee and humpback whale. Today, it protects more than 1,600 plants and animals, as well as the habitats critical to their survival.  A three-year study of the planet’s living world compiled by nearly 500 scientists for the United Nations in May showed that up to 1 million species of land and marine life could be made extinct by humans’ actions if present trends continue. The scientists said the rate of species extinction is up to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years. And a report last week from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, the leading U.N. body of researchers studying human-caused global warming, determined that humans have altered as much as 76% of the planet’s ice-free land ― exploitation that is helping to drive the climate and biodiversity crises.  “The best way to uphold the Endangered Species Act is to do everything we can to ensure it remains effective in achieving its ultimate goal ― recovery of our rarest species,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former oil and gas lobbyist, said in a statement Monday. “The Act’s effectiveness rests on clear, consistent and efficient implementation.”  The goal of the overhaul is clear: to “undercut the science” and reduce the number of listed species, according to David Hayes, the executive director of New York University’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center and former deputy secretary at the Interior Department under President Barack Obama. The only reason to consider economic impacts when making ESA decisions is to “poison the well and obtain a sort of public reaction to the listing,” he said.  Gary Frazer, assistant director for endangered species at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Monday that removing language that prohibits agencies from considering economic factors is simply aimed at better informing the public about those potential effects. He stressed that final listing decisions will continue to be made “solely on the basis of the best available scientific information and without consideration of the economic impacts.”  Even as the administration was working to finalize the new Endangered Species Act rules, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the act with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was working to weaken or remove protections for threatened and endangered species, according to an internal 2018 memo obtained by freelance reporter Jimmy Tobias.  Bernhardt has a long history of fighting the Endangered Species Act. In 2008, as the Interior Department’s top lawyer during the Bush administration, Bernhardt issued a legal memo that concluded the law cannot be used to protect imperiled species from climate change and told federal agencies not to consider the impact of planet-warming greenhouse gases when making permit decisions. Later, as a private industry lobbyist and lawyer, he was involved in litigation against the federal government for its implementation of the act. His former clients include the Independent Petroleum Association of America, an industry trade group that has described the Endangered Species Act as a “broken law that does not help species.”  The IPAA successfully lobbied the Trump administration to delay federal protections for the Texas hornshell mussel, as The Guardian reported last year. It also pushed for the Interior Department to ease ESA protections for the American burying beetle, according to internal emails obtained by the conservation group Western Values Project. In May, the federal agency proposed downlisting the beetle from endangered to threatened.  During his current stint at Interior, Bernhardt has played a key role in regulatory rollbacks, including loosening Obama-era protections for the greater sage grouse, a move that opened the door for more drilling, mining and other development in the game bird’s habitat. A recent investigation by The New York Times unearthed public records showing that Bernhardt intervened to block a scientific report by the Fish and Wildlife Service about the threat certain pesticides pose to more than 1,000 endangered species.


thesun--2019-03-31--The worlds most endangered animals from cute sea turtles to the rarest ape and what humans are d

The world’s most endangered animals, from cute sea turtles to the rarest ape – and what humans are doing to help them

ANIMALS we know and love, from the rhino to the tiger, are now critically endangered.  The International Union for Conservation of Nature has a 'Red List' where it notes down all the animals that could disappear in our life time and says 27,000 of these creatures will go extinct if action isn't taken.  The following are six of the most endangered animals in the world and the measures humans are taking to help save them.  Less than 60 Javan rhinos are alive in the world today.  The horned creatures all live in one National Park in Java, Indonesia  The International Rhino Foundation (IRF) and the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia are working together to protect this species and expand its habitat.  Five Rhino Protection Units, each consisting of a four person anti-poaching team, watch over the rhinos whilst deactivating traps and arresting poachers.  There are less than 300 Cross River gorillas left in existence due to deforestation and poaching.  It is the rarest species of ape in the world and was previously thought to have gone extinct in the 1960s as a result of the Nigerian civil war.  Efforts to save these animals mainly focus on securing the forest around them.  WWF and partners have worked with the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria to create a protected area for the gorillas that spans the border of the two countries.    Siberian tigers nearly went extinct in the 1940sSiberian tigers are the world's largest cats but less than 550 remain.  Hunting in the 1940s nearly drove the species to extinction with only 40 of them managing to survive the cull.  The tigers were saved when Russia became the first country in the world to grant the large cats full protection.  Continued conservation and anti-poaching efforts help to keep the small population fairly stable.  This cute porpoise is the rarest marine mammal in the worldThis dolphin-like creature is considered to be the most rare marine mammal.  Less than 30 vaquitas are known to exist as the population has dropped drastically in the last few years.  An organisation called VivaVaquita.org was set up in 2009 with the hope of raising awareness about the porpoise's plight and saving the small creature.  A lot of hawksbill sea turtles are now tracked by GPSThese turtles are critically endangered and their coloured shells make them highly valuable to illegal traders.  They represent a group of reptiles that have lived on Earth for over 100 million years.  Despite their protected status, hawksbill eggs are eaten across the globe and they are often accidentally killed by fisherman.  Conservationists are now tracking some of the turtles by satellite to save them from poachers, hunters and traders.  These big cats are fast runners and high leapersThere are less than 90 of these solitary big cats left.  It has been reported that male Amur leopards stay with the females to help them raise their young and that they can leap more than 19 feet in the air.  The number of these leopards has increased fairly recently due to conservation efforts like anti-poaching brigades and educational programmes for humans who live near to the leopard habitat.  ‘Worst disease ever recorded’ is flesh eating fungus responsible for ‘frog apocalypse’, scientists find.  Some insects could be extinct ‘within a century’ as scientists warn of ‘catastrophic consequences for survival of mankind’.  ‘Astronomically small’ micro-frogs the size of STAPLES found in Madagascar – and they terrorise ants and termites.  What's your favourite animal? Let us know in the comments...  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.


usatoday--2019-08-13--Trump administration overhauls Endangered Species Act as critics fear animal extinction

The Trump administration announced a major overhaul Monday to the Endangered Species Act that it said would reduce regulations. Environmentalists said the changes would push more animals and plants to extinction because of threats from climate change and human activities.  The changes end blanket protections for animals newly deemed threatened and allow federal authorities for the first time to take into account the economic cost of protecting a particular species.  The Endangered Species Act protects more than 1,600 species in the USA and its territories.  “The best way to uphold the Endangered Species Act is to do everything we can to ensure it remains effective in achieving its ultimate goal – recovery of our rarest species,” U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said in a statement.  “The act’s effectiveness rests on clear, consistent and efficient implementation.”  U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said, “The revisions finalized with this rulemaking fit squarely within the president’s mandate of easing the regulatory burden on the American public, without sacrificing our species’ protection and recovery goals."  The act helped save the bald eagle, California condor, the grizzly bear and dozens of other animals and plants from extinction since President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1973.  Endangered Species Act: Feds take first step toward protecting giraffes  It's an orangutan!: Endangered species born at Louisiana zoo  At least 10 attorneys general joined conservation groups in protesting an early draft of the changes, saying they would put more wildlife at greater risk of extinction.  “These changes crash a bulldozer through the Endangered Species Act’s lifesaving protections for America’s most vulnerable wildlife,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “For animals like wolverines and monarch butterflies, this could be the beginning of the end.  "We’ll fight the Trump administration in court to block this rewrite, which only serves the oil industry and other polluters who see endangered species as pesky inconveniences,” he said. “We’ll do everything in our power to get these dangerous regulations rescinded, including going to court.”  Drew Caputo of the environmental group Earthjustice said, "This effort to gut protections for endangered and threatened species has the same two features of most Trump administration actions: It's a gift to industry, and it's illegal. We'll see the Trump administration in court.”  The Endangered Species Act has prevented more than 99% of listed species from going extinct, according to Earthjustice. It is also wildly popular: 90% of Americans support the act, the group said.  Late Monday, both California and Massachusetts said they’ll go to court to fight the Trump administration’s overhaul of the act.  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official Margaret Everson said during a media call Monday that the changes “provide the maximum degree of regulatory certainty” while protecting species.  The Property and Environment Research Center praised the changes. "Our interest is getting this landmark wildlife protection law to work better,” Executive Director Brian Yablonski said. “That means fostering conditions so landowners become more enthusiastic in their role as stewards for species recovery, not worried if they find an endangered species on their land.”  A United Nations report warned in May that more species – as many as 1 million plants and animals – are threatened with extinction now than at any other time in human history because of development, climate warming and other threats.


thenewyorktimes--2019-08-13--US Significantly Weakens Endangered Species Act

U.S. Significantly Weakens Endangered Species Act

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would change the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, significantly weakening the nation’s bedrock conservation law and making it harder to protect wildlife from the multiple threats posed by climate change.  The new rules would make it easier to remove a species from the endangered list and weaken protections for threatened species , the classification one step below endangered. And, for the first time, regulators would be allowed to conduct economic assessments — for instance, estimating lost revenue from a prohibition on logging in a critical habitat — when deciding whether a species warrants protection.  Critically, the changes would also make it more difficult for regulators to factor in the effects of climate change on wildlife when making those decisions because those threats tend to be decades away, not immediate.  Over all, the revised rules appear very likely to clear the way for new mining, oil and gas drilling, and development in areas where protected species live.


washingtonmonthly--2019-08-12--Trump Administration Tears the Guts Out of the Endangered Species Act

It’s not just the wolves, grizzly bears, and bald eagles that we almost drove to extinction in this country. As Lisa Friedman reports in the New York Times, we have come close to wiping out many types of fauna and flora that were only saved by deliberate government intervention.  Obviously, if it didn’t cost anyone to preserve habitats and regulate hunting, then we’d try to save everything. But there’s always some landowner somewhere who is inconvenienced by the rules and regulations we put in place to preserve the biodiversity of the country. Sometimes, they have a legitimate complaint, and there’s a process for that.  The Republicans cater to the folks who chafe at government constraints on how they can use and develop their land, and that would not have to be a bad thing if they limited themselves to being advocates for an interest group that deserves representation. What they do instead is just malicious.  The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would change the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, significantly weakening the nation’s bedrock conservation law credited with rescuing the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the American alligator from extinction. The changes could clear the way for new mining, oil and gas drilling, and development in areas where protected species live. The new rules will make it harder to consider the effects of climate change on wildlife when deciding whether a given species warrants protection. They would most likely shrink critical habitats and, for the first time, allow economic factors to be taken into account when making determinations.  This isn’t an example of looking out for ranchers who need some relief from a poorly thought through regulation. This isn’t a case-by-case exercise of discretion or some advocacy for the little guy who is unduly impacted in unintentional ways. It’s a flat giveaway to the large mining and timber corporations and land developers that comes at the expense of the very survival of plants and animals.  The environmental groups are predictably appalled, but they have a good reason to feel that way.  One of the most controversial changes modifies longstanding language that prohibits the consideration of economic factors when deciding whether a species should be protected. Under the current law, such determinations must be made solely based on science, “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of determination.” “There can be economic costs to protecting endangered species,” said Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans at Earthjustice, an environmental law organization. But, he said, “If we make decisions based on short-term economic costs, we’re going to have a whole lot more extinct species.”  Again, this isn’t about finding some compromise or mitigation or an improved appeals or exemption process for small-time operators whose livelihoods are put at potentially avoidable risk. This is a big wet kiss to major corporations. There were economic reasons to shoot bison, wolves, and grizzlies almost to the point of extinction. There is also some tradeoff to restricting land use. This is simply a way for the administration to help big donors get around the Endangered Species Act without actually convincing Congress to change the law.  It’s wrong and if properly explained will not be popular. It could be exploited politically by the Democrats even in areas of the country where the Endangered Species Act is least popular, like the Mountain West. I certainly hope they will make the effort because this is not your ordinary kind of bad policy. It will lead to extinctions, and that’s something a future administration can’t fix.


fortune--2019-09-25--Endangered Species Acts Pending Trump Revamp Faces 16-State Lawsuit

Endangered Species Act’s Pending Trump Revamp Faces 16-State Lawsuit

Sixteen states, the District of Columbia, and New York City, are suing to block Trump administration rules weakening the Endangered Species Act.  The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, follows a similar challenge filed last month by several environmental groups, including the Humane Society, and the Sierra Club.  The new rules begin taking effect Thursday. They, for the first time, allow officials to consider how much it would cost to save a species. They also remove blanket protections for animals newly listed as threatened and make it easier for creatures to be removed from the protected list.  The administration and congressional Republicans have said the changes improve the law. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said they ease "the regulatory burden on the American public" without sacrificing conservation goals.  Democratic Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson called it "death by a thousand cuts" for the law.  California, Washington, and Maryland are the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, on which Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, the District of Columbia, and New York City, also joined.  “California is home to hundreds of endangered and threatened species, and wildlife that owes its continued existence to the Endangered Species Act, including the iconic bald eagle,” said the Golden State's Attorney General Xavier Becerra, in a statement. “As we face the unprecedented threat of a climate emergency, now is the time to strengthen our planet’s biodiversity, not to destroy it.  Meanwhile, the Trump administration's top steward of public lands has recused himself from work involving dozens of former clients following conflict of interest allegations from lawmakers and environmental advocates, federal officials disclosed Wednesday.  Acting Bureau of Land Management Director William "Perry" Pendley is a former property rights attorney who has argued for selling off public lands and railed against what he has labelled the "tyranny" of the federal government.  Pendley said in a Wednesday email to his staff obtained by The Associated Press that he wanted to set an example for the agency's 9,000 employees by avoiding the potential conflicts.  He agreed not to participate in matters involving 57 entities and individuals—from farming and mining organizations to an energy company seeking to drill on land adjacent to Glacier National Park, according to documents released by officials.  The Trump administration already has moved to weaken some protections for public lands, including easing restrictions on oil and gas exploration. BLM officials last week said the agency was moving its headquarters from Washington to an office building in Colorado that also houses oil and gas organizations, drawing criticism from environmental groups.  "I understand that preserving a culture of ethical compliance within the BLM begins with me," Pendley wrote. "I have also established a rigorous screening process to ensure that I will remain in full compliance."  Montana U.S. Democratic Sen. Jon Tester sharply criticized Pendley's past calls to sell off public lands and called his appointment an end-run around the Senate since no confirmation hearings were held. Others in Congress voiced similar concerns about Pendley's record.  The BLM leader said last month that his longtime advocacy for selling public lands was "irrelevant" because his boss, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, opposes the wholesale sale of public lands.  —The 25 most powerful women in politics  —Sanders vs. Warren: How their wealth tax plans differ  —Oprah has advice for the 2020 presidential candidates  —Higher U.S.-international postal rates loom before Christmas  —Can Andrew Yang win in 2020? Inside his unorthodox campaign  Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


latimes--2019-08-22--Environmentalists file suit in California over Endangered Species Act rollbacks

Seven environmental and animal protection groups teamed up Wednesday to file the first lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s rollback of the Endangered Species Act.  The environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice filed the federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court here on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Parks Conservation Assn., WildEarth Guardians and the Humane Society of the United States. The lawsuit comes after the federal government earlier this month announced a series of changes to weaken the Endangered Species Act.  In a filing, the groups argue that the Trump administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to analyze the effects of the new rules. They also charge that the administration unreasonably changed requirements to comply with part of the Endangered Species Act that would have prevented any changes that could threaten the existence or habitat of any listed species.  “In the midst of an unprecedented extinction crisis, the Trump administration is eviscerating our most effective wildlife protection law,” Rebecca Riley, legal director of the nature program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “These regulatory changes will place vulnerable species in immediate danger — all to line the pockets of industry. We are counting on the courts to step in before it’s too late.”  Nicholas Goodwin, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of the Interior, criticized the lawsuit.  “It is unsurprising that those who repeatedly seek to weaponize the Endangered Species Act — instead of use it as a means to recover imperiled species — would choose to sue,” Goodwin said. “We will see them in court, and we will be steadfast in our implementation of this important act with the unchanging goal of conserving and recovering species.”  Christina Meister, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, declined to comment. Spokespeople for the National Marine Fisheries Service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.  Under the enforcement changes, officials for the first time will be able to publicly attach a cost to saving an animal or plant. Blanket protections for creatures newly listed as threatened will be removed. Among several other changes, the action could allow the government to disregard the possible impact of climate change, which conservation groups call a major and growing threat to wildlife.  A United Nations report released in May warned that more than 1 million plants and animals globally face extinction, some within decades, because of human influence, climate change and other threats.  The Endangered Species Act is credited with helping save the bald eagle, California condor, and scores of other animals and plants from extinction since President Nixon signed it into law in 1973. The act currently protects more than 1,600 species in the United States and its territories.  But the act has also led to legal and political fights between animal protectors and industries and opponents. Republicans have long pushed to change the law.  The states of California and Massachusetts have also pledged to sue to block changes in the law.


latimes--2019-08-22--This rat is foiling developers plans to capitalize on a weaker Endangered Species Act

This rat is foiling developers' plans to capitalize on a weaker Endangered Species Act

Southern California developers have long sought relief from regulations protecting wildlife, and earlier this month the Trump administration obliged, formally moving to weaken the federal Endangered Species Act.  But any boon for business could be short-lived — California is stepping in to protect species left vulnerable by federal rollbacks.  The California Fish and Game Commission, for example, recently declared the San Bernardino kangaroo rat a candidate for the state endangered species list, a decision that could create legal obstacles for a 8,407-home development in Rialto.  The panel issued its decision after a nonprofit group, the Endangered Habitats League, argued that intervention was urgently needed to protect the rodent, a federally listed species, from threats including urban sprawl and President Trump’s “politicization of federal regulatory agencies.”  No one was more astonished by the commission’s 4-0 vote than a group of development opponents, who thought they had lost a 10-year effort to bolster protection for the rat. That came after federal biologists reversed themselves in July — concluding that the Rialto development would not be the death knell for the rat — even though the subdivision would cover 1,048 acres of critical habitat.  For Lynn Boshart, 72, whose home overlooks the disputed property, the state’s action was a stay of execution.  “We were stunned — then jubilant,” Boshart said. “Presenting our case to the commission was an act of desperation after we’d exhausted all other options.”  Breaking into a smile, she added, “This fight isn’t over after all.”  At the center of the fight is a 3-inch-tall rodent that had lost 95% of its habitat by the time it was listed as a federally endangered species a decade ago.  San Bernardino kangaroo rats, named for the way they hop across the ground, have adapted to a sage-and-sand habitat of meandering flood plains, rocky channels, grasslands and low shrubs.  It shares this landscape with an array of predators, including great horned owls, coyotes and snakes. But its biggest long-term threat is habitat fragmentation caused by sand-and-gravel operations, highway construction and new homes.  In 2002, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had designated 33,295 acres as critical habitat for the rat, but by 2018 only 16,000 acres were considered functional, including a portion of Lytle Creek Wash, where the Rialto homes are planned.  “We’re not saying don’t build that development,” Boshart said. “Just scale it back a bit, and move it away from the wash.”  While running for president, Trump railed against the Endangered Species Act for stifling development and harming farmers. During a 2015 campaign rally in Fresno, he complained about water regulations designed “to protect a certain kind of 3-inch fish,” the delta smelt, which has complicated the pumping of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Central Valley farms.  After months of signaling its intention to weaken federal protections for species, the administration unveiled its rollback on Aug. 12. Among other things, it for the first time will allow federal authorities to take into account the economic cost of protecting a particular endangered species.  Prior to that action, the Endangered Habitats League had spent months investigating the administration’s connections and communications with the Lytle Creek Development Co., based in Irvine.  Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the group learned that Ron Pharris, the company’s chairman, had reached out via email on July 12, 2018, to Ian Foley — then a legislative assistant for Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) — asking for help in “moving this important project forward.”  Pharris asked Foley to arrange a personal meeting with Assistant Interior Secretary Susan Combs, a Trump appointee who has referred to endangered species listings as “incoming Scud missiles.” He planned to use graphs and maps, he said, to “help her better understand the key issues which we have been unable to satisfactorily resolve” with local federal biologists reviewing the environmental impacts of the planned development.  Those biologists, he said, were “NOT using the best available science and information gathered about this project; rather, they seek ways to view the project through the lens of their preconceived belief of what biological conditions on the site ‘should’ be. ”  Pharris was particularly worried that they were preparing a “draft biological opinion” that would call for removing as much as one-third of the project’s footprint in an effort to protect the rats and their habitat.  On July 26, 2018, Paul Souza, regional director of fish and wildlife’s pacific southwest region, sent an email alerting his staff that the developer had bypassed the office and taken its concerns directly to Washington.  “Please make the point that the regional office is prepared to work with the developer,” he said, “and find a fair and reasonable solution.”  A year later, the service issued a draft biological opinion that said the “proposed action is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the San Bernardino kangaroo rat,” nor the value of critical habitat in the area.  It pointed out that the developer planned to avoid and conserve at least 892 acres of natural open space, more than half of which would be for the benefit of the rat.  Contacted by The Times, Pharris said: “I just do my thing — and yes, that includes conversations at both the state and federal level.”  Combs was unavailable for comment. Souza declined to say whether Combs had contacted him about the project. But in a prepared statement, he said it was not uncommon for interested parties to communicate with senior officials. “We are creating a conservation strategy for the species and expect to finalize our technical review in the weeks ahead,” he added.  When the Endangered Habitats League petitioned the California Fish and Game Commission to intervene, the group argued that the Trump administration’s politicization of federal environmental agencies threatened the rat’s survival.  “State listing is a necessary backstop to the disregard of law and science by federal government agencies under the current administration,” said Dan Silver, executive director of the Endangered Habitats League.  In issuing its decision, the state commission declined to endorse Silver’s argument about the politicization of federal agencies. But it did agree the rat might be in trouble.  “The fact that the species continues to decline after being federally listed for all these years suggests to me that something about the federal Endangered Species Act may not be working right,” said Melissa Miller-Henson, acting executive director of the commission.  The commission’s action provides interim protection for the San Bernardino kangaroo rat until a final decision is made on listing within the next year, officials said.  California could soon make other moves to backstop the Trump administration’s weakening of environmental laws.  State Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) has introduced legislation, SB 1, that decrees California will step in and adopt any federal environmental protection the Trump administration attempts to gut.  “This bill’s purpose is simple and clear,” Atkins said. “It gives the state Fish and Game Commission discretion to safeguard protections for our endangered species rolled back by the current federal administration.”  Atkins aims to push her bill through the Legislature before it adjourns for the year in mid-September.  “SB 1 is under attack,” said Kim Delfino, California program director for the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife, “by opponents including the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Farm Bureau Federation and big water districts.”  To hear the chamber tell it, the bill is a “job killer” that “would negatively impact the growth, employment and investment decisions of almost every major California business.”  On Wednesday, seven environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s rollback of the Endangered Species Act.  In the meantime, conservationists are waiting to see how skirmishes between California and the Trump administration will play out on the ground.  Boshart has recently been leading strolls through the rat’s remnant kingdom of buckwheat, yuccas, sage and soft, loose sand on the northern edge of Rialto in San Bernardino County, to win more support for her cause.  “Just after we moved here 12 years ago,” Boshart likes to say, “I saw a San Bernardino kangaroo rat stand up on its hind legs and say, ‘Hello!’ to me. We’ve been good neighbors ever since.”


latimes--2019-09-28--Defying environmentalists Newsom vetoes bill to block Trumps Endangered Species Act rollback

Defying environmentalists, Newsom vetoes bill to block Trump's Endangered Species Act rollback

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill on Friday that would have allowed California to preserve Obama-era endangered species protections and water-pumping restrictions for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta should they be dismantled by the Trump administration, a move scorned by environmental groups that have been among the governor’s most important political allies.  Newsom, who had announced his intent to veto Senate Bill 1 after it was approved by the Legislature this month, expressed little concern about a rift with environmentalists over the legislation, which he dismissed as a “solution in search of a problem.”  “I have spent 52 years of my life being an environmental leader and champion, and I’ll take a back seat to no one in terms of my advocacy,” Newsom told reporters just hours before sending the vetoed bill back to the Legislature.  Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that California’s environmental leaders still “hope for great things” from Newsom but that his decision to veto SB 1 was a consequential mistake.  “Newsom capitulated to Trump’s cronies and corporate interests and threw endangered species and Californians under the bus,” she said.  Siegel noted that state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra this week joined with 16 other states to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its weakening of the Endangered Species Act.  “That’s the kind of political courage we need for California,” Siegel said.  Newsom this week attended events in New York surrounding the U.N. Climate Action Summit, where he touted California’s environmental achievements and said he was “absolutely humiliated” by President Trump’s refusal to recognize established science on climate change.  Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, rejected the notion that there was a major rift with Newsom, but she didn’t spare her criticism over his veto.  She said she believes Newsom was swayed by arguments made by the bill’s opponents, including powerful public water agencies, that the legislation would reduce their water supply from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and derail negotiations over enhanced endangered species protections. The delta provides water for more than 25 million people and millions of acres of Central Valley farmland.  “What this has done is revealed some key challenges we’re going to face as we move forward over the next 3 ½ years with him,” Phillips said of the governor. “This is a pretty stubborn guy we’re dealing with, and when he digs his heels in, there’s no persuading him with facts.”  Audubon California Executive Director Sarah Rose also criticized Newsom’s veto, saying the state has “missed an important opportunity to protect the state’s residents, habitats and imperiled wildlife.”  In his veto message, Newsom said California has been a “leader in the fight for resource, environmental, and worker protections,” adding that since Trump has taken office, the state has aggressively fought any attempt by the president’s administration to roll back those protections.  Newsom has argued that the bill was unnecessary and that his administration has effectively challenged Trump’s policies in the courts and through administrative action.  “While I disagree about the efficacy and necessity of Senate Bill 1, I look forward to working with the Legislature in our shared fight against the weakening of California’s environmental and worker protections,” Newsom said in the veto message.  Newsom’s "veto of SB 1 is disappointing on many levels,” she said. “Citing California’s record of ‘deploying all the tools at the state’s disposal,’ Governor Newsom just refused to employ a new potentially powerful tool in SB 1. That’s mystifying.”  Written by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), SB 1 would have allowed state agencies to adopt protections under the federal Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and other major environmental and labor laws that were in place before Trump took office in January 2017.  In a tweet Friday evening, Atkins said she was disappointed by the veto and would continue to press to protect the environment and working Californians.  “The federal gov’t continues to roll back regulations while #climatechange impacts roll on,” she tweeted. “I will keep working with my colleagues and the Governor to push back wherever possible.”  The bill added fuel to the ongoing clash between water users — primarily Central Valley farms and Southern California cities — and environmentalists over efforts to protect delta smelt, Chinook salmon and steelhead trout in the delta by limiting the amount of water that can be siphoned away from their habitats.  The biggest hitch in negotiations over the bill was a provision that would impose the state’s endangered species protections and pumping restrictions on the Central Valley Project, the water system run by the federal Bureau of Reclamation that provides much of the water consumed by farms and people in the Central Valley.  Water districts that receive water from the Central Valley Project threatened to walk away from voluntary agreements being negotiated between them and state regulatory agencies. The pacts, which Newsom strongly supports, are aimed at allowing greater flexibility in how to protect endangered species and divert water from the delta.  The influential Metropolitan Water District of Southern California also opposed the bill. Leaders of the agency, which provides water to tens of millions of Southern California residents, feared they might be forced to reduce its water supply from the delta that is sent south by a separate state water system.  Water agencies also argued that the bill would have locked in outdated federal rules that regulate water pumping and species protections in the delta. As a result, they said, new scientific findings that offer prescriptions for better water and species management practices would be ignored.  Newsom agreed with those criticisms and vowed to veto the bill just hours after it passed the Legislature on Sept. 14.  Shortly after Newsom declared he would veto the bill, Western Growers President and CEO Tom Nassif praised the decision, saying that thousands of family farmers would benefit.  “Our farmers strive to be good stewards of the environment and our natural resources, and we support a balanced approach to water resiliency that relies on the best available science,” he said in a statement.  Since taking office, Trump has pushed to deliver more delta water to Central Valley farms, regardless of the effect on endangered species.  The Westlands Water District, a San Joaquin Valley irrigation district led by some of the state’s wealthiest growers, would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s proposal to allow more water to be withdrawn from the delta.  Before joining the Trump administration, U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt was a partner at a law and lobbying firm that represented Westlands, and he sued the Department of the Interior four times on the district’s behalf.  Newsom has been a frequent critic of Trump’s environmental policies.  In July, California circumvented the Trump administration’s efforts to relax tailpipe pollution regulations by reaching a deal with four major automakers to gradually increase fuel efficiency standards.  And in August, California and a coalition of 21 other states sued to block the Trump administration’s attempt to gut restrictions on coal-burning power plants, limits that were central to President Obama’s climate change policy.


motherjones--2019-08-21--Environmental Groups Just Sued the Trump Administration Over Its Endangered Species Act Rollback

Environmental and animal rights groups are taking the Trump administration to court over rules finalized last week by the departments of Commerce and Interior weakening the Endangered Species Act’s protections.  The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by Earthjustice on behalf of seven groups including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Defenders of Wildlife, alleges the administration failed to analyze and disclose the rules’ impact as required by law, changed the rules without proper public comment, and violated the language and purpose of the Endangered Species Act.  “This action is clearly intended to benefit developers and extractive industries, not species, and we are going to court to stop it,” said Jason Rylander, an endangered species lawyer with Defenders of Wildlife. “The overwhelming majority of Americans want to ensure that threatened and endangered species are protected for future generations.”  Despite the Trump administration’s maneuvers, the Endangered Species Act remains a popular piece of environmental legislation; a 2018 survey found that about four out of five Americans supported the law, with only one in 10 saying they were opposed. Over 800,000 people have so far sent comments to federal agencies opposing the administration’s changes.  The lawsuit represents just the first legal challenge to the new rules, according to Earthjustice. On Tuesday, the organization filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue on additional grounds, foreshadowing coming fights over changes ending automatic protections for threatened species, and the rules’ incorporation of economic considerations in designating new endangered species.  “Nothing in these new rules helps wildlife. Period,” says Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles, who argues the “regulatory changes seek to make protection and recovery of threatened and endangered species harder and less predictable.”  “We’re going to court to set things right,” says Boyles.


politicalwire--2019-08-12--Trump Significantly Weakens Endangered Species Act

“The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would change the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, significantly weakening the nation’s bedrock conservation law credited with rescuing the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the American alligator from extinction,” the New York Times reports..  “The changes will make it harder to consider the effects of climate change on wildlife when deciding whether a given species warrants protection. They would most likely shrink critical habitats and, for the first time, would allow economic assessments to be conducted when making determinations.”


thehuffingtonpost--2019-09-25--17 States Sue To Block Trumps Endangered Species Act Rollback

17 States Sue To Block Trump's Endangered Species Act Rollback

A coalition of 17 states, the District of Columbia and New York City sued the Trump administration on Wednesday to block its recent rollback of the Endangered Species Act.  The legal effort, led by the attorneys general of California, Massachusetts and Maryland, aims to safeguard one of America’s most important laws for protecting imperiled plants and animals.  “Now is the time to strengthen our planet’s biodiversity, not to destroy it,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said at a press conference Wednesday. “But instead of choosing to protect these species, the Trump administration has decided to backslide.”  Finalized last month, the Trump administration’s industry-friendly new rules weaken the popular and successful 1973 law by making it easier for federal agencies to remove species from the protected list. They also allow for economic impacts to be considered when making decisions about granting species protection, limit agencies’ ability to account for the impacts of future climate change and diminish protections for future threatened species.  Notably, the sweeping changes came on the heels of a United Nations report that found humans have driven up to 1 million species around the globe toward extinction.  “As we face a climate emergency and global extinction crisis threatening more than a million species, the Trump Administration is gutting Endangered Species Act protections to pave the way for oil and gas developments,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement. “We are suing to defend federal law and protect our imperiled wildlife and environment.”  The Trump administration has said the overhaul will “modernize” and “improve” the law, and that recovering populations of imperiled species is the ultimate goal. But several high-ranking officials in the Interior Department detest the law, claiming it is “a sword to tear down the American economy” and voicing support for repealing the act entirely.  “These are long overdue and necessary regulatory changes that will recover more imperiled species facing extinction than previously accomplished over the span of this law,” Interior spokesman Nick Goodwin said in a statement responding to the lawsuit. “We will see them in court, and we will be steadfast in our implementation of this important act to improve conservation efforts across the country.”  Among other things, the lawsuit argues that the Trump administration’s revisions unlawfully limit when species can receive protections under the law and insert economics into the decision-making process. Without action, it’s possible that future generations will only be able to see species like the southern sea otter or the desert tortoise in a museum, Becerra said.  The states’ lawsuit comes one month after eight environmental groups filed their own lawsuit, arguing that the changes violate the purpose of the ESA and that the administration failed to analyze the impact of its revisions.  The ESA was passed with strong bipartisan support in 1973 and has succeeded in preventing 99% of listed species from going extinct, including the Yellowstone grizzly bear, bald eagle and black-footed ferret. Today, it protects more than 1,600 plants and animals, as well as the habitats critical to their survival.


theindependent--2019-01-16--Whales and turtles protected by US endangered species act are bouncing back

Whales, manatees and sea turtles are on the rise following landmark legislation to protect some of the most endangered species in US waters.  More than three quarters of marine mammal and turtle populations protected by the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) have shown clear signs of recovery in the decades since they were listed.  Experts at the Centre for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based non governmental organisation, took these positive results as evidence that focused species conservation and fishery laws can pay off.  The ESA is a powerful environmental law first designed in 1973 with the express intention of stopping animals and plants across the US from going extinct.  Previous estimates suggest that without the protection offered by this set of laws, over 200 species would have been wiped out by around 2006.  However, with global threats to species survival increasing, Dr Abel Valdivia and his colleagues at the centre emphasised the importance of tracking population of all the species still under threat.  This is particularly true of marine animals, for which data is often lacking.  In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, the team analysed 23 and eight representative populations of 14 marine mammal and five turtle species.  They found 24 of the populations that had increased in abundance were from species listed under the ESA for at least two decades, suggesting the importance of long-term protection for these creatures.  For large whales such as the North Atlantic right whale, the ESA has offered protection for species that were already severely depleted as a result of decades of commercial hunting.  This included implementing speed limits for shipping to avert ship strikes, and restrictions on US military use of sonar in whale hotspots like Hawaii and southern California.  Sea turtles have benefited from strict prohibitions on harvesting both the animals and their eggs, which in the past has been a major cause of their decline.  However, not all animals benefited from ESA protections, including some populations of killer and beluga whales and the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal.  The authors of the paper warned that while stronger conservation measures have recently been implemented to preserve some of these groups, the additional pressure of climate change may make recovery difficult.  Conservation groups were concerned over the summer when the Trump administration announced its intention to “modernise” the ESA, including plans to remove some of the protections currently in place for listed species.


vox--2019-08-12--The Endangered Species Act is incredibly popular and effective Trump is weakening it anyway

The Endangered Species Act is incredibly popular and effective. Trump is weakening it anyway.

In May, a United Nations panel on biodiversity released a massive, troubling report on the state of the world’s animals. The bottom line: As many as 1 million species are now at risk of extinction if we don’t act to save them.  Species of all kinds — mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, plants, marine life, terrestrial life — are disappearing at a rate “tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the last 10 million years” due to human activity, the report stated. It implored the countries of the world to step up their actions to protect the wildlife that remains — like the endangered gray wolves and caribou that roam the United States, or the threatened polar bear in the Arctic.  The Trump administration has just done the opposite.  On Monday, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced they were pushing through changes to the Endangered Species Act that will, in effect, weaken protections for species, and possibly give industry more leeway to develop areas where threatened animals live. A draft proposal of these rule changes was announced last summer. And now the rules go into effect in 30 days after they are officially published in the federal register (which the New York Times expects will happen this week).  The Trump administration’s alterations don’t change the letter of the ESA, which was passed in 1973 during the Nixon administration. But they do change how the federal government will enforce it. Here are two of the biggest changes. (Read the full new finalized rules here.)  Currently, species that are listed as “threatened” are defined as “any species which is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future.” (Threatened is a designation that’s less severe than “endangered.”) The new rules constrain what is meant by “foreseeable future” and give significant discretion in interpreting what that means.  “The Services will describe the foreseeable future on a case-by-case basis,” the new rule states. Discretion is not a problem per se, but as the Washington Post explained last year, this could mean that in determining protections for plants and animals, regulators could ignore the far-flung effects of climate change that may occur several decades from now. Polar bears are threatened now, but they’ll be in even more peril in the future, when there’s less and less sea ice. There’s now more leeway for the government to determine if disappearing ice 40 years from now contributes to the threat Arctic animals face today.  The second big change is more of a giveaway to industry.  Until now, the agencies that enforce the ESA have had to base their decisions of whether to protect a species solely on scientific data, “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of such determination.”  The new rule removes that phrase. “The Act does not prohibit the [government] from compiling economic information or presenting that information to the public,” the rule argues. It does clarify that it’s allowed to do so “as long as such information does not influence the listing determination.” (But that’s confusing: Why strike the phrase from the guidelines in that case?)  That change, conservation groups fear, opens the door to business interests coming into discussions of whether a species should be protected. The new rule also gives the agencies more leeway to determine if an area that’s unoccupied by a species (but where it could also conceivably live) should be protected.  The Endangered Species Act, or ESA, is the key piece of US legislation protecting wildlife. Since its passage in 1973, it’s been credited with helping the rebound of the bald eagle, the grizzly bear, the humpback whale, and many other species living throughout the US and in its waterways.  The act is generally uncontroversial among the public: About 83 percent of Americans (including a large majority of conservatives) support it, according to an Ohio State University poll. And it works: According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the act has prevented the “extinction of 99 percent of the species it protects.”  Yet the strict regulations it put in place are often frustrating (and costly) roadblocks for industries like mining or oil and gas drilling, and for developers looking to build in areas where protected species live. Ranchers routinely complain that the ESA puts an undue burden on their shoulders. Compliance with all the rules of the ESA is expensive. Environmental groups also count on the ESA as an important legal tool to block projects like coal mines.  These changes are part of a broad suite of policies advanced by the Trump administration to favor industries like mining and fossil fuels by limiting or scrapping the environmental protection rules they have to follow.  Let’s remember what’s at stake with the weakening of the ESA.  The recent UN report found that, worldwide, 40 percent of all amphibian species, 33 percent of corals, and around 10 percent of insects may be at risk of extinction.  It amounts to a biodiversity crisis that spans the globe and threatens every ecosystem. The results echo much of what we already know: Life on Earth is in peril.  Saving these animals will be a monumental task, with a scope far bigger than enforcing the ESA.  It’s going to take countries deciding to set aside more room for nature, in the form of protected areas. It’s going to take lessening the load of plastic pollution on our seas. It’s going to take addressing climate change and its various inputs. It’s going to take policies that more strongly police the import of invasive species. It means protecting indigenous communities, who use their land in a more sustainable way. It’s going to take innovation: How can we feed the increasing number of humans in the world without converting more forests to farmlands?  The report states that “goals for conserving and sustainably using nature and achieving sustainability cannot be met by current trajectories.” If anything, the problems are accelerating.  We ought to do more to protect species — not less.  That’s because the damage we do to biodiversity in our lifetimes may never really be undone. In some ways, the fallout from the biodiversity crisis is more permanent than the climate crisis.  A few years ago, a team of researchers in Europe wanted to figure out the answer to a simple question: How long would it take for evolution to replace all the mammal species that have gone extinct in the time humans have walked the earth?  Some 300 mammal species have died off since the last ice age 130,000 years ago. The researchers estimated it would take 3 to 7 million years for evolution to generate 300 new species. Humans have been around for about 200,000 years; that’s a blink of an eye in terms of the age of the planet. Nevertheless, in that time, we have caused damage that may well last longer than our species.  And the researchers only looked at mammals. Evolution works slowly. Humans are killing off species at an alarming pace.


wakingtimes--2019-12-08--Trump Admin Guts Endangered Species Act in the Midst of Climate Crisis and Biodiversity Loss

The Trump administration announced sweeping changes to the Endangered Species Act Monday in a move that could make it harder to protect plants and animals from the climate crisis, The New York Times reported.  The changes would make it easier to remove species from the list, end the blanket rule giving threatened species the same protections as endangered ones, allow regulators to assess the economic impacts of protecting a species and give the government major leeway in how it interprets the phrase “foreseeable future.” This last change is relevant to species threatened by the climate crisis, since many of its effects may be decades away.  Interior Secretary and former energy lobbyist David Bernhardt claimed the changes would increase transparency.  But conservation groups disagreed. They pointed to a major biodiversity study released this springwarning that one million species could go extinct due to human activity.  The Endangered Species Act has saved 99 percent of listed species from extinction, according to HuffPost. Notable successes include the bald eagle, Yellowstone grizzly bear and humpback whale, but scientists warn that the new rules could prevent the act from performing similar rescues in the future. Take the North American wolverine, which the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is deciding whether or not to protect. The cold-loving mammal could lose a third of its U.S. range by 2050 and two thirds before 2100 due to rising temperatures, The Guardian reported.  But, because of the Trump administration’s changes to the interpretation of “foreseeable future,” it likely won’t.  Environmental groups are also concerned by the removal of language saying protection decisions must be made “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of determination.”  FWS assistant director for endangered species Gary Frazer told The New York Times that the language was only being removed to allow economic impact assessments to be conducted for informational reasons. He said they would not inform protection decisions.  But conservation groups mistrusted the language change. The only reason for writing economic impact reports, Obama-era Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes told HuffPost, is to “poison the well and obtain a sort of public reaction to the listing.”  Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans at Earthjustice, agreed the language removal was dangerous.  Earthjustice has already promised to sue over the changes, according to HuffPost, as have Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.