Posted 12/31/96

A broad coalition of environmental groups including Forests Forever has endorsed legislation to increase protection for endangered and threatened species.

The Endangered Natural Heritage Act (ENHA) would: 1) close loopholes in the current Endangered Species Act (ESA), 2) add provisions to ensure the recovery of species now listed, and 3) prevent the need to list species in the future. Although drafted, this legislation now must be introduced in Congress.

Since it was founded in 1989 Forests Forever's chief campaign has been to protect the Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County. Located 15 miles southeast of Eureka, Calif., this largest-in-the-world unprotected forest of ancient redwoods is home to listed or rare species including the Marbled murrelet, Northern spotted owl, Coho salmon, Pacific giant salamander, and many others. The ESA has been the strongest single legal tool of forest-preservation activists in the fight to save Headwaters. And the ESA will certainly continue to be an indispensable lever for saving California's forest ecosystems.

Yet the ESA is under unprecedented attack. The Republican-controlled 105th Congress has identified "revising" ESA as a top priority in 1997. Many in that caucus repeatedly have called for amendments to ESA that would further weaken species protections.

A visionary law aimed at identifying and saving the nation's most threatened plants and animals, the ESA is one of America's proudest environmental accomplishments. Species including the Bald eagle, Peregrine falcon, Sea otter, Manatee, Brown pelican, and California condor have progressed toward recovery under the ESA. But hundreds of species in the U.S. and thousands worldwide remain in trouble. Scientists estimate that 100 species per day are driven to extinction worldwide, largely due to habitat destruction.

ESA must be made even more effective, not weakened. ENHA would strengthen ESA by:

A.

encouraging preventive conservation of species before they become "emergency room" cases, at which point costs of recovery are higher and chances of success lower. The act would extend federal conservation obligations to proposed and candidate species-- not merely to endangered or threatened species, as is now the case.

B.

requiring the federal government to act in a timely manner– deciding in no more than four years whether to list a candidate species.

C.

designating essential habitat at the time of listing, with fine-tuned critical-habitat designation following later in the recovery plan. Loopholes that currently allow delays in critical-habitat designation due to economic-impact questions would be closed.

D.

mandating implementation plans along with recovery plans. ENHA would set forth the specific benchmarks necessary for species' recovery, including population size and distribution and other biological criteria.

E.

restoring integrity to the "consultation" process, in which federal agencies are required to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to ensure their activities do minimal harm to protected species. ENHA would clarify that the standard for Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) is recovery of the targeted species, not merely survival.

F.

establishing avenues for greater public participation in the species protection and recovery process. ENHA would expand ESA's provisions concerning enforcement suits by citizens groups, and concerning public comment on HCPs as they are developed.

G.

increasing penalties for violations of the ESA, based on specific definitions of a violation, such as each day of an ongoing violation. Violators would be required to pay natural resources damages to help redress the harm caused to a species or its habitat. Similar restoration damages currently are in force under the Superfund toxics-cleanup law.

H.

closing loopholes in the current HCP procedure– loopholes that have allowed the HCP to become an egregious means of skirting the ESA at the expense of further harm to the species.

I.

leveraging greater protection for imperiled species abroad by clarifying that federal-agency consultations apply to actions that may affect non-U.S. species. ENHA would strengthen U.S. implementation of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) treaty provisions protecting endangered species.

In California alone there are 172 species currently listed under the ESA and many more candidates. Many of these are forest-dependent species.

What you can do

Contact your Member of Congress and California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

To obtain your Congressperson's name, phone the Congressional switchboard at 202/224-3121. The address is Rep. __________, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515.

The Senators' address is: Sen. __________, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. Also contact Feinstein at 202/224-3841 (phone), 202/228-3954 (FAX), or e-mail senator@feinstein.senate.gov. Contact Boxer at 202/224-3553 (phone), 415/956-6701 (FAX), or e-mail senator@boxer.senate.gov.

Tell them to introduce the Endangered Natural Heritage Act. (They already have been lobbied on this and are aware of the draft legislation.) Let them know how you feel about protecting and recovering the planet's biodiversity. Saving imperiled wildlife is more than just the right thing to do– it provides medicinal and agricultural stock, and maintains the integrity of the ecosystems on which all life– including human life– depends.

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