Diversity and species conservation

Forest Service actions lead to delisting threatened species

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The Daniel Boone National Forest is being credited with securing recovery of the white-haired goldenrod.  Here is what the forest plan says:

1.C-Goal 2. Bring about the delisting of white-haired goldenrod.
1.C-Objective 2.A. Complete recovery plan recommendations relating to white-haired
goldenrod sites.
1.C-Objective 2.B. Participate in the delisting procedure for white-haired goldenrod.

That’s pretty simple, but it does incorporate the requirements of the recovery plan as objectives (plan standards couldn’t have controlled recreational users causing the impacts).   This then led to projects to protect the species from the human activities that threatened it.  The results drew kudos from the Center for Biological Diversity, saying that the Endangered Species Act works (but failing to note that so does the National Forest Management Act).

This article also discusses the Kentucky arrow darter, a fish species that is part of the settlement agreement with CBD requiring a listing decision to be made.

The darter’s habitat has been “severely degraded” by pollution, siltation and loss of tree cover from surface mining, oil and gas exploration, logging, agricultural run-off and poor sewage disposal, according to the agency.  The conservation plan for the fish will include replacing some culverts on federal land that impede the movement of the fish and setting up a monitoring plan, officials said.

Delisting of the goldenrod is possible because results have been achieved on the ground.  That is usually not possible for pending listings because species are usually on a downward trend at that point.  A “conservation plan” incorporated into a forest plan by the Forest Service may contribute to avoiding listing as a regulatory mechanism if it protects the species against the threats identified in the listing process.

Forest plans may prevent listings under ESA

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Succinctly put by WildEarth Guardians:  “If the plans fall short of halting population declines and habitat destruction, then clearly the Endangered Species Act will be needed.”

This story is about sage grouse, but the principle applies whenever public land management is an important contributor to an at risk species’ habitat.  That’s because one of the five factors that must be considered in listing a species is “the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms.”  Thus far courts have recognized only mandatory forest plan standards as being sufficiently regulatory in nature to address this ESA factor for federal lands.

The absence of such regulatory mechanisms in forest plans was a key factor in listing the Canada lynx, for example.   The addition of regulatory standards to forest plans is viewed as being necessary to de-list grizzly bears.  So what to make of the idea of reducing regulatory mechanisms in the Northwest Forest Plan?

Also what to make of state objections to plan amendments for sage grouse?  It’s politically more difficult to get adequate regulatory mechanisms in place for private land, so I would think the states would be asking the feds to do whatever it takes to avoid listing.  Here’s another concise summary from a more objective source:  “A “not warranted” decision by the Service is possible — but they have made clear that it will only be possible if states, federal agencies, and private landowners put strong conservation measures in place.  (Neil Kornze, director of the Bureau of Land Management.)

Should federal lands bear the brunt of ESA conservation obligations?

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Sage grouse are putting that question out there.  BLM and the Forest Service are amending plans to adopt strategies for federal lands that are more ‘strict’ than what states would do.  States don’t like this; do you?

A related question – how important is it to have a consistent conservation strategy across jurisdictions?

I am disappointed by the many proposed differences between BLM’s Montana’s RMPs and the Montana Sage Grouse Habitat Conservation Program,” Bullock wrote in a 12-page letter to Jamie Connell, the BLM director for the state. “The difference between the Wyoming and Montana state plans and the Montana RMPs reflect inconsistencies that simply do not make sense when serving for a consistent approach to sage grouse conservation across significant and interconnected working landscapes.” 

Tongass roadless rule exemption: facts matter

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The Ninth Circuit has reversed the exemption of Alaska from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.  The case highlights some limits on the role of politics in agency decision-making.

While the dissent correctly asserts that “elections have consequences,” so do facts.  While Congress may choose to ignore them, the administrative and judicial branches may not.  The Ninth Circuit en banc review found that the Forest Service failed to explain why it ignored factual findings it had made under the previous Administration.

“Thus, contrary to the contentions of both Alaska and dissenting colleagues, this is not a case in which the Department—or a new Executive—merely decided that it valued socioeconomic concerns more highly than environmental protection. Rather, the 2003 ROD rests on the express finding that the Tongass Forest Plan poses only “minor” risks to roadless values; this is a direct, and entirely unexplained, contradiction of the Department’s finding in the 2001 ROD that continued forest management under precisely the same plan was unacceptable because it posed a high risk to the “extraordinary ecological values of the Tongass.” 66 Fed. Reg. at 3254. The Tongass Exemption thus plainly “rests upon factual findings that contradict those which underlay its prior policy.” Fox, 556 U.S. at 515. The Department was required to provide a “reasoned explanation . . . for disregarding” the “facts and circumstances” that underlay its previous decision. Id. at 516; Perez, 135 S. Ct. at 1209. It did not.

“The 2003 ROD does not explain why an action that it found posed a prohibitive risk to the Tongass environment only two years before now poses merely a “minor” one. The absence of a reasoned explanation for disregarding previous factual findings violates the APA. “An agency cannot simply disregard contrary or inconvenient factual determinations that it made in the past, any more than it can ignore inconvenient facts when it writes on a blank slate.” Fox, 556 U.S. at 537 (Kennedy, J., concurring).”

An agency has some explaining to do when it changes its mind, and that is going to be problematic if the underlying facts haven’t changed.  The Forest Service should think about that when it contemplates finding (under the new planning rule) that species it had classified as sensitive because of risks to their viability do not qualify as species of conservation concern because of lack of concern for their viability.

Court takes an interest in habitat connectivity – so should the Forest Service

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Connectivity is a new buzzword in the 2012 Planning Rule. It is part of the requirement for ecological integrity, but the Forest Service seems reluctant to fully embrace it in its early revision efforts under the new rule.

On June 25th, the Arizona District Court invalidated a Forest Service grazing permit on the Coconino National Forest because the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to consider effects on habitat connectivity in areas designated as critical habitat for the Chiricahua leopard frog. The judge held (in Center for Biological Diversity v. Branton):

Viable dispersal corridors are needed to ensure that the Buckskin Hills can sustain a functioning metapopulation: without them, CLFs would be unable to spread from one stock tank to another, and would be unable to recolonize a stock tank should its local population die out (record citations omitted). Accordingly, adverse modification of the dispersal corridors would “appreciably diminish the value” of (the critical habitat unit). In short, the 2013 BiOp’s failure to account for the maleffects of livestock grazing in dispersal corridors renders its conclusion that the Proposed Action “should not significantly reduce or modify” PCE 2b (record citation omitted) arbitrary and capricious.

This was a project decision involving a listed species and critical habitat. However, the principles of metapopulation dynamics it recognizes should be equally applicable to NFMA requirements that forest plan components provide ecological conditions necessary for viable populations.   This opinion suggests that, where connectivity is necessary for an at-risk species, and where information about the connectivity value of specific areas is available, their locations should be identified in the planning process and probably given special protection by plan components.

In this case, a requirement in the forest plan to apply specific conservation measures to dispersal corridors might have saved this project. Moreover, fixing this project would not prevent the same thing from happening on other projects. This suggests that the Forest Service should amend the plan (which would be subject to the 2012 Planning Rule requirements for viability), or at least reinitiate consultation on the forest plan on critical habitat for this species (based on new information about effects – but wait – this is the 10th Circuit, where that is not required.) What should the Forest Service do?

FYI – Here’s what Defenders of Wildlife thinks the Forest Service should do about connectivity in its forest plans.  (I suppose I should explain that I did the work on this document on a contract, and that I contribute to this blog on my own time, so that I am not intending to represent the views of Defenders of Wildlife here.)

Beaverhead-Deerlodge Forest Plan NEPA not site-specific enough

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge (B-D) National Forest’s revised forest plan to designate areas for use by winter motorized vehicles. It found that the forest plan EIS failed to provide analysis that was site-specific enough to make an informed decision, as required by NEPA, and that the planning process did not comply with the “minimization” requirements of Executive Order 11644 for off-road vehicles, including evaluation of specific areas open to motorized vehicles.

This was a rare loss at the forest plan level on a NEPA issue.  While courts often accept more general NEPA analysis for programmatic decisions, this court recognized that the essence of forest plans is land allocation decisions.  Here it was important to know where winter range was in order to consider how the plan affected it or to propose alternatives for it.  The court stated that, “Without data on the location of the big game winter range, the public was severely limited in its ability to participate in the decision-making process.”  This principle should be applicable to other wildlife issues in plan revisions.

The holding on motorized use may also be precedent-setting.  It found that the plan ‘designated’ ‘areas open to snowmobile use.’  That made it subject to the executive order and to the Travel Management Rule (TMR) the FS adopted to implement the executive order.  The court stated, “What is required is that the Forest Service document how it evaluated and applied the data on an area by-area basis with the objective of minimizing impacts as specified in the TMR.”  It held that the Forest Service had instead deferred that level of analysis to subsequent travel planning.  The B-D plan had more site-specific direction for motorized use than many plans would have, but this holding could arguably apply to any forest plan components that identify areas in which motorized use would be allowed (especially where it is already occurring without prior compliance with the TMR).  This opinion blurs the distinction between forest planning and travel planning that the Forest Service has tried to maintain.

Forest Service Must Re-initiate Consultation With USFWS on Lynx

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This looks to have far-reaching effects on those National Forests within the “core habitats”. This looks like a forced settlement situation, where the Forest Service will probably pay dearly for their loss in court.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2015/06/17/13-35624.pdf

Interesting:

Although the court granted summary judgment to Cottonwood and ordered reinitiation of consultation, it declined to enjoin any specific project.

The Extinction Crisis- 45 Years of Crying “Wolf?”

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environment_cartoon2While we were discussing the extinction crisis, I had a vague memory (boy, all those old memories are getting fairly vague!) about past predictions by scientists of future cataclysmic environmental events.

While looking around the web, I found this in Reason magazine in 2000 (15 years ago). Yes, Reason magazine, but the quotes are either real quotes or not (couldn’t find the originals online). The link is to page 3 of the article, which talks about biodiversity. Of all the people mentioned, I know Roger Sedjo regularly works with forests and numbers about forests.

The below article was written in 2000, and the First Earth Day was in 1970.

Worries about declining biodiversity have become popular lately. On the first Earth Day, participants were concerned about saving a few particularly charismatic species such as the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon. But even then some foresaw a coming holocaust. As Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look, “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Writing just five years after the first Earth Day, Paul Ehrlich and his biologist wife, Anne Ehrlich, predicted that “since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it.”

There’s only one problem: Most species that were alive in 1970 are still around today. “Documented animal extinctions peaked in the 1930s, and the number of extinctions has been declining since then,” according to Stephen Edwards, an ecologist with the World Conservation Union, a leading international conservation organization whose members are non-governmental organizations, international agencies, and national conservation agencies. Edwards notes that a 1994 World Conservation Union report found known extinctions since 1600 encompassed 258 animal species, 368 insect species, and 384 vascular plants. Most of these species, he explains, were “island endemics” like the Dodo. As a result, they are particularly vulnerable to habitat disruption, hunting, and competition from invading species. Since 1973, only seven species have gone extinct in the United States.

What mostly accounts for relatively low rates of extinction? As with many other green indicators, wealth leads the way by both creating a market for environmental values and delivering resource-efficient technology. Consider, for example, that one of the main causes of extinction is deforestation and the ensuing loss of habitat. According to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, what drives most tropical deforestation is not commercial logging, but “poor farmers who have no other option for feeding their families than slashing and burning a patch of forest.” By contrast, countries that practice high yield, chemically assisted agriculture have expanding forests. In 1920, U.S. forests covered 732 million acres. Today they cover 737 million acres, even though the number of Americans grew from 106 million in 1920 to 272 million now. Forests in Europe expanded even more dramatically, from 361 million acres to 482 million acres between 1950 and 1990. Despite continuing deforestation in tropical countries, Roger Sedjo, a senior fellow at the think tank Resources for the Future, notes that “76 percent of the tropical rain forest zone is still covered with forest.” Which is quite a far cry from being nine-tenths gone. More good news: In its State of the World’s Forests 1999, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization documents that while forests in developing countries were reduced by 9.1 percent between 1980 and 1995, the global rate of deforestation is now slowing.

“The developed countries in the temperate regions appear to have largely completed forestland conversion to agriculture and have achieved relative land use stability. By contrast, the developing countries in the tropics are still in a land conversion mode. This suggests that land conversion stability correlates strongly with successful economic development,” concludes Sedjo, in his chapter on forestry in The True State of the Planet, a collection of essays I edited. In other words, if you want to save forests and wildlife, you had better help poor people become wealthy.

Sage grouse plans are out

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Here are national and state perspectives.

 

The proposals to amend federal BLM and Forest Service plans to protect sage grouse have been released. I haven’t read the new plan components but I have followed the process since I was peripherally involved before I retired from the FS, and I was also more heavily involved in developing similar strategies for bull trout, lynx and grizzly bears. This is the way conservation planning on federal lands should be done – but BEFORE it gets to the point of possible listing and this kind of crisis management.

 

It would be nice to see this happening now in the forest plan revision process for species of conservation concern (for which a regional forester has found “substantial concern about a species’ capability to persist over the long-term in the plan area”). Instead of consistent conservation strategies being developed (based on ecosystem and/or species-specific plan components) we see species like wolverine, which recently barely (and maybe temporarily) dodged listing, not even being identified as a species of conservation concern in the Idaho and Montana plans that are being revised.   There doesn’t seem to be a learning process here.

 

But the states are worse. They’ve had jurisdiction over sage grouse for the last century or two, and we’ve seen what results. It’s pretty laughable for them to now say the feds should follow state plans for sage grouse.

 

This is just flat out wrong,” Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said of the plan. “If the Administration really cares about the bird they will adopt the state plans as they originally said they would. The state plans work. This proposal is only about controlling land, not saving the bird.”

 

Are the states trying to save the bird, or do they just see this as another opportunity to exert their control on federal lands?