Crowdog
04-29-2002, 07:13 AM
CBD is part of the El Dorado Forest lawsuit.
Crowdog
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San Bernardino County Sun
Hotshots or Heroes?
Environmental group draws ire, admiration
By Chuck Mueller
Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 23, 2002 - A group of legal gunslingers from Tucson, Ariz., have ridden into San Bernardino County to make sure the Endangered Species Act is enforced on public lands, which has many folks riled up.
Brendan Cummings, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, shrugs off the nonprofit organization's reputation as environmental-law hotshots.
``People have been trying to undo environmental laws long before the center came along,'' he said. ``A law that's unenforced is the worst kind of law. We're making sure that laws we deal with fulfill their intent … to protect the environment.''
In the span of nine years, the center has filed 220 lawsuits to protect habitat of endangered species from degradation. Organization officials say it has been successful 93 percent of the time. :eek:
The organization's involvement in local land-use issues recently prompted the center to open an office in Idyllwild. Advocates of open use of public lands for recreation, grazing, mining and other activities view the center as impeding their rights.
Ron Kemper, one of seven Mojave ranchers who were ordered to temporarily remove cattle from desert tortoise habitat earlier this year, stood by his guns in a court challenge to a BLM order stemming from a lawsuit by the organization.
``If you don't protect your own rights, no one else will,'' he declared. ``We're playing a legal game of chess.''
But even its critics acknowledge that the center, operating with 28 full-time staff members, 20 others on contract and supported by 7,500 members, is on a roll.
The nonprofit group, with an annual budget of $1.2 million, is backed by 28 foundations and trusts, including Ted Turner :mad3: and the Wilberforce, Rockefeller and Columbia foundations.
A series of court settlements in 2000 and 2001 shook Southern California's off-road vehicle community, livestock grazers and mining interests like a 7.0 earthquake.
When the dust settled over the Mojave Desert in the wake of the agreements, the big winner was the desert tortoise, a slow-moving creature that was listed in 1990 as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.
``The tortoise needs a lot of help to survive,'' said Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. ``It is declining in San Bernardino and Riverside counties because those who manage lands have failed to implement plans to protect the tortoise.''
And there seems to be reluctance, Patterson added, on the part of various land use agencies to launch recovery plans to help the tortoise survive.
The steady drop in tortoise population is attributed primarily habitat losses due to urbanization, destruction by off-road vehicles, disease, livestock grazing and predatory ravens.
The Center for Biological Diversity, joined by the Sierra Club and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, took the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to federal court on grounds the bureau, which oversees public lands, failed to comply with provisions of the Endangered Species Act.
The act, passed by Congress in 1973, requires federal agencies like the BLM to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that any action they authorize or fund will not jeopardize endangered species living on public land.
Upon reaching a settlement in the lawsuit with the Center, the BLM acknowledged that off-road vehicle use, livestock grazing and other activities could threaten endangered species in the desert.
In its legal battles since 1993, the center has won endangered-species classification for 280 species, and the designation of 38 million acres as critical habitat. Through its efforts, the habitat of 24 endangered species, including the tortoise, have been given protection on millions of acres in the California desert.
Through legal settlements with the BLM and other agencies, the Center for Biological Diversity also has brought about:
º‚Closure of 550,000 acres of the California Desert Conservation Area, including parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, to off-road vehicles to protect imperiled animals and plants.
º‚Temporary closure of 4,500 miles of back roads and trails in critical habitat of the desert tortoise, mainly in the western Mojave Desert.
º‚An agreement with the National Park Service to close the Cima Cinder Mine in Mojave National Preserve, east of Barstow, and reached a settlement banning new or expanded mines in 3.4 million acres of critical habitat for endangered species.
º‚An agreement for humane removal of burros from tortoise habitat, and eradication of non-native tamarisk trees to help restore wildlife habitat.
The organization also has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for seven endangered species, including the kangaroo rat, said Cummings.
And it has filed a joint suit with the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society to overturn a decision by county supervisors approving a 2,466-unit residential development at Lytle Creek, next to the San Bernardino National Forest and Glen Helen Regional Park, said Kassie Siegel, attorney at the center's Idyllwild office.
Meanwhile, the center is working with the U.S. Forest Service to revise a conservation plan for the San Bernardino, Angeles, Los Padres and Cleveland national forests, said Monica Bond, a wildlife biologist in the Idyllwild office.
One of the center's principal targets, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, acknowledges that the legal avenues the center takes are legitimate but feels it is not the best path to change.
``While BLM acknowledges the legal rights of groups such as the center to litigate, we believe decisions on proper management of the public lands should be made through the normal land use planning process with full public participation,'' said bureau spokeswoman Jan Bedrosian.
``Our goal is to complete land use plans now under way in the California desert with the public's help, and replace the interim restrictions resulting from the center's legal settlement. We think that's just a better way to do the public's business.''
Jeri Ferguson, land use representative for the California Association of Four-Wheel Drive Clubs, believes the center's agenda is to get rid of all off-highway vehicle groups.
``Using the Endangered Species Act is just a tool to reach that goal,'' the Victor Valley resident said. ``They are out of control, but they've brought a lot of multiple-use groups together.
``There are other ways to protect endangered species. The tortoise itself needs more protection against disease and predatory ravens.''
According to Ferguson, no studies have been made that show off-highway vehicles have a major effect on tortoise habitat.
But something is killing the state's reptile, according to Michael Connor, executive director of the Riverside-based Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee.
``Desert tortoises, which have survived for millions of years, have declined precipitously in recent years in the eastern and western Mojave,'' Connor said.
``Their protection is vital,'' he said, noting that every creature provides something special that could be a key to the survival of humanity.
Biologist Peter Galvin, one of the co-founders of the center, said, ``We're in an extinction crisis today that is unparalleled in the history of our planet.''
In 1989, Galvin and philosopher Kieran Suckling, another of the center's co-founders, started work as contract biologists with the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico.
``What inspired us to start the center was the lack of checks and balances in the federal system,'' Galvin explained. ``Logging and ranching activities occupied the main building, and the wildlife office was in a trailer out back.''
That was the tip-off on what appeared to interest the government most, Galvin said.
Suckling said the energetic staff of the center does not play by the standard rules of activism. By moving constantly in different directions, the center has kept loggers, cattle grazers, miners and other targeted groups off balance.
According to Suckling, the center's success in the courtroom is based on the environmental movement's two strongest forces: science and law.
``The law says that the best possible science is to be used in managing our public lands,'' he said. ``So we conduct our own scientific research to show that's not happening, then we litigate.''
Robin Silver, an emergency room physician who is among the center's co-founders, met Galvin and Suckling while photographing the Mexican spotted owl, an endangered species in New Mexico, in 1989.
They enhanced their tactics with the help of Jasper Carlton, an expert in the Endangered Species Act, who outlined a way to gather data on endangered species and take the government to court if it failed to take appropriate remedial action.
In the Center's efforts to protect the desert tortoise, an intensive evaluation of the plight of the hard-shelled creature was conducted by Patterson, who is based at the center's office in Idyllwild.
``He determined that the BLM was out of compliance with the Endangered Species Act, and had not looked at the implications of the California Desert Plan in respect to the act,'' Galvin said.
Patterson and other staff members studied thousands of documents for more than a year before the center filed a lawsuit against the BLM in federal district court in San Francisco.
``We sued on grounds the bureau implemented the desert plan without addressing the collective impact of the plan on the tortoise and 23 other endangered species,'' Galvin said. ``We contended that all aspects of the plan … dealing with urbanization, grazing allotments, new utility corridors … would collectively lead to the extinction of the tortoise.''
A historic court settlement between the three environmental groups, the BLM and five groups using public land was approved by federal District Judge Joseph Alsup.
But when the terms reached the grass-roots level, more than 500 off-highway fans protested at a gathering in Barstow to denounce the closure of 48,310 of the 120,000 acres at the Algodones (or Glamis) sand dunes in Imperial County to protect an endangered plant, Peirson's milkvetch, found nowhere else in the country.
``I'm outraged,'' said off-road buff Wayne Mooradian of Montclair. ``We all have rights to use public land. This is an antitrust violation to lock off-road vehicle users off the land.''
Said Rick Fisher of Chatsworth: ``We're all victims of a bad law … the Endangered Species Act. It was a law that was badly conceived and is badly enforced that puts weeds above humanity.''
San Bernardino businesswoman Dee Stapp, vice president of Public Lands for the People, said the Center for Biological Diversity is made up of ``a bunch of people who could care less about economics and how many people they hurt financially or take away their outdoor recreation.
``They are overstepping their bounds, closing areas like the Glamis dunes on the basis of junk science. They are taking away our rights to use the public lands .‚.‚. (and) have devastated ranchers' and miners' ability to make a living on these lands.''
Crowdog
----------------------------------------------------------------------
San Bernardino County Sun
Hotshots or Heroes?
Environmental group draws ire, admiration
By Chuck Mueller
Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 23, 2002 - A group of legal gunslingers from Tucson, Ariz., have ridden into San Bernardino County to make sure the Endangered Species Act is enforced on public lands, which has many folks riled up.
Brendan Cummings, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, shrugs off the nonprofit organization's reputation as environmental-law hotshots.
``People have been trying to undo environmental laws long before the center came along,'' he said. ``A law that's unenforced is the worst kind of law. We're making sure that laws we deal with fulfill their intent … to protect the environment.''
In the span of nine years, the center has filed 220 lawsuits to protect habitat of endangered species from degradation. Organization officials say it has been successful 93 percent of the time. :eek:
The organization's involvement in local land-use issues recently prompted the center to open an office in Idyllwild. Advocates of open use of public lands for recreation, grazing, mining and other activities view the center as impeding their rights.
Ron Kemper, one of seven Mojave ranchers who were ordered to temporarily remove cattle from desert tortoise habitat earlier this year, stood by his guns in a court challenge to a BLM order stemming from a lawsuit by the organization.
``If you don't protect your own rights, no one else will,'' he declared. ``We're playing a legal game of chess.''
But even its critics acknowledge that the center, operating with 28 full-time staff members, 20 others on contract and supported by 7,500 members, is on a roll.
The nonprofit group, with an annual budget of $1.2 million, is backed by 28 foundations and trusts, including Ted Turner :mad3: and the Wilberforce, Rockefeller and Columbia foundations.
A series of court settlements in 2000 and 2001 shook Southern California's off-road vehicle community, livestock grazers and mining interests like a 7.0 earthquake.
When the dust settled over the Mojave Desert in the wake of the agreements, the big winner was the desert tortoise, a slow-moving creature that was listed in 1990 as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.
``The tortoise needs a lot of help to survive,'' said Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. ``It is declining in San Bernardino and Riverside counties because those who manage lands have failed to implement plans to protect the tortoise.''
And there seems to be reluctance, Patterson added, on the part of various land use agencies to launch recovery plans to help the tortoise survive.
The steady drop in tortoise population is attributed primarily habitat losses due to urbanization, destruction by off-road vehicles, disease, livestock grazing and predatory ravens.
The Center for Biological Diversity, joined by the Sierra Club and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, took the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to federal court on grounds the bureau, which oversees public lands, failed to comply with provisions of the Endangered Species Act.
The act, passed by Congress in 1973, requires federal agencies like the BLM to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that any action they authorize or fund will not jeopardize endangered species living on public land.
Upon reaching a settlement in the lawsuit with the Center, the BLM acknowledged that off-road vehicle use, livestock grazing and other activities could threaten endangered species in the desert.
In its legal battles since 1993, the center has won endangered-species classification for 280 species, and the designation of 38 million acres as critical habitat. Through its efforts, the habitat of 24 endangered species, including the tortoise, have been given protection on millions of acres in the California desert.
Through legal settlements with the BLM and other agencies, the Center for Biological Diversity also has brought about:
º‚Closure of 550,000 acres of the California Desert Conservation Area, including parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, to off-road vehicles to protect imperiled animals and plants.
º‚Temporary closure of 4,500 miles of back roads and trails in critical habitat of the desert tortoise, mainly in the western Mojave Desert.
º‚An agreement with the National Park Service to close the Cima Cinder Mine in Mojave National Preserve, east of Barstow, and reached a settlement banning new or expanded mines in 3.4 million acres of critical habitat for endangered species.
º‚An agreement for humane removal of burros from tortoise habitat, and eradication of non-native tamarisk trees to help restore wildlife habitat.
The organization also has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for seven endangered species, including the kangaroo rat, said Cummings.
And it has filed a joint suit with the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society to overturn a decision by county supervisors approving a 2,466-unit residential development at Lytle Creek, next to the San Bernardino National Forest and Glen Helen Regional Park, said Kassie Siegel, attorney at the center's Idyllwild office.
Meanwhile, the center is working with the U.S. Forest Service to revise a conservation plan for the San Bernardino, Angeles, Los Padres and Cleveland national forests, said Monica Bond, a wildlife biologist in the Idyllwild office.
One of the center's principal targets, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, acknowledges that the legal avenues the center takes are legitimate but feels it is not the best path to change.
``While BLM acknowledges the legal rights of groups such as the center to litigate, we believe decisions on proper management of the public lands should be made through the normal land use planning process with full public participation,'' said bureau spokeswoman Jan Bedrosian.
``Our goal is to complete land use plans now under way in the California desert with the public's help, and replace the interim restrictions resulting from the center's legal settlement. We think that's just a better way to do the public's business.''
Jeri Ferguson, land use representative for the California Association of Four-Wheel Drive Clubs, believes the center's agenda is to get rid of all off-highway vehicle groups.
``Using the Endangered Species Act is just a tool to reach that goal,'' the Victor Valley resident said. ``They are out of control, but they've brought a lot of multiple-use groups together.
``There are other ways to protect endangered species. The tortoise itself needs more protection against disease and predatory ravens.''
According to Ferguson, no studies have been made that show off-highway vehicles have a major effect on tortoise habitat.
But something is killing the state's reptile, according to Michael Connor, executive director of the Riverside-based Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee.
``Desert tortoises, which have survived for millions of years, have declined precipitously in recent years in the eastern and western Mojave,'' Connor said.
``Their protection is vital,'' he said, noting that every creature provides something special that could be a key to the survival of humanity.
Biologist Peter Galvin, one of the co-founders of the center, said, ``We're in an extinction crisis today that is unparalleled in the history of our planet.''
In 1989, Galvin and philosopher Kieran Suckling, another of the center's co-founders, started work as contract biologists with the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico.
``What inspired us to start the center was the lack of checks and balances in the federal system,'' Galvin explained. ``Logging and ranching activities occupied the main building, and the wildlife office was in a trailer out back.''
That was the tip-off on what appeared to interest the government most, Galvin said.
Suckling said the energetic staff of the center does not play by the standard rules of activism. By moving constantly in different directions, the center has kept loggers, cattle grazers, miners and other targeted groups off balance.
According to Suckling, the center's success in the courtroom is based on the environmental movement's two strongest forces: science and law.
``The law says that the best possible science is to be used in managing our public lands,'' he said. ``So we conduct our own scientific research to show that's not happening, then we litigate.''
Robin Silver, an emergency room physician who is among the center's co-founders, met Galvin and Suckling while photographing the Mexican spotted owl, an endangered species in New Mexico, in 1989.
They enhanced their tactics with the help of Jasper Carlton, an expert in the Endangered Species Act, who outlined a way to gather data on endangered species and take the government to court if it failed to take appropriate remedial action.
In the Center's efforts to protect the desert tortoise, an intensive evaluation of the plight of the hard-shelled creature was conducted by Patterson, who is based at the center's office in Idyllwild.
``He determined that the BLM was out of compliance with the Endangered Species Act, and had not looked at the implications of the California Desert Plan in respect to the act,'' Galvin said.
Patterson and other staff members studied thousands of documents for more than a year before the center filed a lawsuit against the BLM in federal district court in San Francisco.
``We sued on grounds the bureau implemented the desert plan without addressing the collective impact of the plan on the tortoise and 23 other endangered species,'' Galvin said. ``We contended that all aspects of the plan … dealing with urbanization, grazing allotments, new utility corridors … would collectively lead to the extinction of the tortoise.''
A historic court settlement between the three environmental groups, the BLM and five groups using public land was approved by federal District Judge Joseph Alsup.
But when the terms reached the grass-roots level, more than 500 off-highway fans protested at a gathering in Barstow to denounce the closure of 48,310 of the 120,000 acres at the Algodones (or Glamis) sand dunes in Imperial County to protect an endangered plant, Peirson's milkvetch, found nowhere else in the country.
``I'm outraged,'' said off-road buff Wayne Mooradian of Montclair. ``We all have rights to use public land. This is an antitrust violation to lock off-road vehicle users off the land.''
Said Rick Fisher of Chatsworth: ``We're all victims of a bad law … the Endangered Species Act. It was a law that was badly conceived and is badly enforced that puts weeds above humanity.''
San Bernardino businesswoman Dee Stapp, vice president of Public Lands for the People, said the Center for Biological Diversity is made up of ``a bunch of people who could care less about economics and how many people they hurt financially or take away their outdoor recreation.
``They are overstepping their bounds, closing areas like the Glamis dunes on the basis of junk science. They are taking away our rights to use the public lands .‚.‚. (and) have devastated ranchers' and miners' ability to make a living on these lands.''