Biodiversity & Species
Ninth Circuit reinstates Clinton roadless rule
Since the end of the Clinton era, there has been much confusion over the status of roadless areas in the national forests. Yesterday the Ninth Circuit weighed in, ruling in California v. USDA that the Bush administration had unlawfully revised the Clinton administration’s Roadless Rule, and reinstating that rule. The decision, which has been welcomed …
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CONTINUE READINGImproving ESA consultation
In early May, I wrote about the Obama administration’s decision to take up Congress’s invitation to recall the last-minute Bush revisions to the ESA’s section 7 consultation rules. At the time, the new administration also requested public comment on “ways to improve the section 7 regulations while retaining the purposes and policies of the ESA.” …
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CONTINUE READINGUS won’t appeal Casitas decision
Last month, when he posted about the Supreme Court taking up the Florida beach renourishment case, Rick noted the possibility that the Court might hear another takings case, Casitas Municipal Water District v. U.S., 543 F.3d 1276 (2008). Indeed, the Casitas case, in which the Federal Circuit held that the physical takings doctrine applied to …
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CONTINUE READINGBack to the future in northwest federal forests
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today announced the withdrawal of the Bush administration’s last-minute revisions of the Northwest Forest Plan. Interior will also ask a federal court to vacate the 2008 modification of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl, and will review the 2008 spotted owl recovery plan, heavily criticized by outside scientists, which was …
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CONTINUE READINGPolar bear fact and fantasy
There was an interesting juxtaposition of news about the polar bear recently, one that illustrates the divide between working research scientists trying to grapple with the impacts of global warming and the skeptics who insist that climate change either is not occurring or is not a problem. The Polar Bear Specialist Group, launched in the …
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CONTINUE READINGBush administration forest planning rules struck down — again
For much of the past decade, the Department of Agriculture regulations governing land and resource management planning in the national forests have been a kind of political ping-pong ball, bounced back and forth between administrations, and between the executive branch and the courts. Now the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has …
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CONTINUE READINGHabitat loss still the key conservation concern
Some time ago, I noted this essay in Slate by environmental journalist Brendan Borrell, arguing that our current obsession with climate change is inhibiting more important conservation work. A new report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature provides some support for Borrell’s position. The IUCN periodically updates its Red List of Threatened …
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CONTINUE READINGKilling rats kills eagles in Alaska
There really is no free lunch in the world of environmental restoration, and often the consequences are difficult to predict. Last month, Scientific American reported that 41 bald eagles were found dead on Rat Island in the western Aleutians after an aggressive rat extermination effort. Rat Island was so named because it had been overrun …
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CONTINUE READINGBiodiversity-friendly seawalls
Seawalls as typically constructed are smooth, vertical structures, beautiful to an engineer’s eye but unappealing to tidal creatures looking for the more complex physical structure typical of a rocky shore. A new paper (Oecologia, subscription required) out of the University of Sydney shows that engineering and ecology need not be at odds, however. The authors …
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CONTINUE READINGPreble’s mouse jumps back into the courtroom
Five environmental groups — NRDC, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Native Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation Alliance — have filed a lawsuit challenging FWS’s decision last year to list the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse (pictured) as threatened only in Colorado, leaving it off the protected list in Wyoming. FWS justified that distinction …
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