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SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
http://www.sw-center.org
#169
1-29-98
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o
PETITION FILED TO LIST NEW MEXICO BUTTERFLY AS ENDANGERED
Forest
Service land trade would pave its habitat
o SALVAGE TIMBER SALE
CHALLENGED
o SANTA ANA SUCKER PROPOSED FOR ESA PROTECTION
o
LETTERS NEEDED: STOP GIVEAWAY OF PUBLIC LAND TO MINING
GIANT
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PETITION
FILED TO LIST NEW MEXICO BUTTERFLY AS ENDANGERED
On 1-26-98, the Southwest
Center submitted an emergency petition
with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service to list the Cloudcroft
checkerspot butterfly as an endangered
species. The butterfly
is endemic to a high elevation meadows on about 6,000
acres of
the Sacramento Mountains in southern New Mexico.
Seventy
percent of its habitat is on private lands where ensuring
conservation is
difficult. The remaining 30% percent is on the
Lincoln National Forest where
it should be afforded the absolute
priority for land management. The National
Forest, however, is
proposing to give away 10% of the butterfly's range to
the town of
Cloudcroft, NM to build a maintenance yard. While some
endangered
species issues involve genuine social conflicts, driving a
species
extinct to build a maintenance yard is the height of
nihilism.
____________________________
SALVAGE
TIMBER SALE CHALLENGED
On 1-19-99, the Southwest Center appealed the Leggett
salvage timber
sale on the Gila national forest in southwest New Mexico. The
forest
plans to log one million board feet from a 200 acre area which
burned
in June, 1998. Over 75% of the sale's volume consists of trees
over
16 inches in diameter, some up to 26 inches. Numerous
"temporary"
spur roads will be built, greatly increasing erosion, nutrient
loss,
and sedimentation in an area already left sensitive by the
burn.
The Forest Service violated NEPA by failing to take a 'hard look'
at
the widely documented adverse effects of salvage logging,
exceeding
road density standards. It also violated the Mexican Spotted
Owl
Recovery Plan logging trees greater than 24" in diameter within
pine
oak habitats.
____________________________
SANTA ANA SUCKER PROPOSED FOR ESA
PROTECTION
On 1-26-99, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed to list
the Santa
Ana sucker as a threatened species under the Endangered Species
Act.
The sucker formerly inhabited the Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and
Santa
Ana River drainage systems in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and
San
Bernardino counties. It has been extirpated from 75% of its range
and
is now restricted to three isolated populations in Big Tujunga
Creek
(Los Angeles River drainage), the East, West, and North Forks of
the
San Gabriel River, and the lower and middle Santa Ana River.
An
introduced population also occurs in the Santa Clara River.
The
petition to list the sucker was filed by Earth Justice on behalf of
a
coalition of groups. The Southwest Center has filed a 60-day notice of
intent
to sue the Army Corps of Engineers over the impacts of the nearly
complete
Seven Oaks Dam on endangered species in the Santa Ana
River.
____________________________
LETTERS NEEDED: STOP GIVEAWAY OF PUBLIC LAND
TO MINING CONGLOMERATE
The Safford District of the BLM is planning to
trade 17,000 acres
of public land to the Phelps Dodge corporation in exchange
for
4,000 acres of the company's private holdings. The exchange
would
allow PD to develop the Dos Pobres and San Juan deposits into
two
enormous open pit copper mines. By privatizing the land, PD will
be
exempt from most federal environmental laws.
Federal law requires land
exchanges to be of equal value and in
the public interest, yet, Dos
Pobres/San Juan would give PD four
acres for every one it trades away.
It would also allow access
to over 2 billion dollars in copper, in exchange
for land valued at
only four million.
Please send comments to the BLM
telling them that lining PD's
pockets is not in the public's interest.
Demand that the BLM
cease using land exchanges as another corporate
subsidy:
William Civish, District
Manager
Bureau of Land Management, Safford
District,
711 14th Avenue, Safford, AZ
85546
.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Kier�n
Suckling
[email protected]
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.sw-center.org
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710