SCB Policy Blog

On July 5, 2012, the Society for Conservation Biology submitted a formal petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) requesting that these agencies strengthen their regulations on critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.

Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires that all agencies of the Federal government consult with FWS and NOAA (collectively the “Services”) on actions that could jeopardize the existence of threatened and endangered species or result in the “destruction or adverse modification” of a species’ critical habitat.  In 1986, the Services proposed a weak regulatory definition of the term “destruction or adverse modification,” that undercut the protective effects of critical habitat.  Despite the Services’ definition being held legally invalid by three separate Federal Courts of Appeals as far back as 2001, the Services have still not changed their legally invalid regulations.  SCB is proposing a new definition of these terms that has a clear scientific basis, and that will require the Services to consider and provide for the recovery, not just the survival, of threatened and endangered species.

SCB is also proposing changes to the Services’ regulations to ensure that the Services consider and address climate change and habitat connectivity in the context of species recovery when they designates critical habitat.  Finally, SCB is proposing that the Services adopt a strict timeline for processing petitions to designate critical habitat.  As of April 2011, critical habitat has only been designated for 604 or 44 percent of the 1,372 domestic species protected by the ESA.  The Services' ability to address this backlog would be significantly improved if they agreed to an objective timeline for designating critical habitat for those species which have not yet received critical habitat.

SCB is filing this petition concurrently with its comments regarding the FWS’s revised critical habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina).  The FWS is proposing to designate up to 13.9 million acres as critical habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl (NSO).  While this would be a positive step for the recovery of the NSO, unfortunately the FWS is simultaneously undermining the long-term effectiveness of critical habitat by including several policy decisions that could undercut the recovery of the NSO.  For example, the FWS is proposing that any logging project smaller than 500 acres would not represent “destruction or adverse modification” of spotted owl critical habitat, despite the fact that there is no scientific literature supporting this policy.  SCB’s proposed reforms of the ESA’s regulations would prohibit the FWS from chopping up the NSO’s critical habitat in an unscientific, high-risk manner.

This is the second petition filed by SCB in 2012 to reform, strengthen, and modernize the regulations that implement the ESA.  While the ESA remains one of the most comprehensive laws ever passed to prevent extinction, the regulations that implement the ESA have mostly stood unchanged since 1986, a year before the founding of the Society for Conservation Biology.  In late 2008, SCB briefed the Obama Transition team on a set of recommendations for improving the implementation of several U.S. laws including the ESA. Since then we have worked with the FWS and NOAA to address the reforms we suggested in 2008.

Read the petition to the Department of Interior and Department of Commerce HERE.

On July 2, the Society for Conservation Biology, on behalf of its Marine Section, submitted formal comments to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) within the Department of Interior regarding its draft programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) regarding possible geological and geophysical seismic activities in support of oil and gas exploration and development in the Atlantic Ocean.  In 2010, Congress ordered BOEM to examine the possible environmental impacts of seismic activities in the Atlantic Ocean, a necessary precursor to further oil exploration and development activities off the Atlantic coast.  SCB is concernd that the draft PEIS underestimates the risks that seismic activities, especially deep penetration seismic air gun surveys, pose for the critically endangered north Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis).  Given the suite of anthropogenic threats that this species already faces from commercial and recreational fisheries, collisions with large vessels, renewable energy development, marine minerals use, LNG import terminals, military training, and dredged material disposal, as well as long-term challenges of climate change, seismic surveys will likely place this species in greater jeopardy of extinction.

High-intensity pulses produced by seismic air gun surveys can cause a range of impacts on marine mammals, fish, and other marine life, including habitat displacement and disruption of vital behaviors essential to foraging and breeding.  In some cases, seismic air gun surveys can result in injuries or mortalities to marine species, including marine mammals.   For these reasons, SCB is supporting Alternative C, the no action alternative, because it represents the most precautionary approach to managing the ongoing development of the Atlantic Ocean’s natural resources, while providing sufficient protection for its critically endangered wildlife.  Under this alternative, BOEM would not permit any seismic activities in the Atlantic ocean with regard to oil and gas exploration.  Adoption of Alternative C would not affect BOEM's ability to move forward with offshore wind or other renewable energy activities.

The SCB comment letter can be found HERE.

Panama City, 23 April 2012 – After several years of international negotiations, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was finally established. IPBES aims to accomplish for conservation science what the highly successful IPCC has accomplished for climate science questions. SCB has participated in the negotiations and will continue to focus on IPBES in the future. Carolyn Lundquist, representative of the Society for Conservation Biology, stressed “the need to for IPBES enhance the transparency of the platform through direct involvement of stakeholders and civil society organizations as observers.” The official press release stated:

IPBES aims to tackle head-on the accelerating worldwide loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem service by bridging the gap between accurate, impartial and up to date science and policy-makers. Although many organizations and initiatives contribute to improving the dialogue between policy-makers and the scientific community in this field, IPBES is established as a new platform, recognized by both the scientific and policy communities to address the existing gaps and strengthen the science-policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services. “Today, biodiversity won”, said the chair of the meeting, Sir Robert Watson, Chief Scientific Advisor of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom. “Over 90 governments successfully established the science-policy interface for all countries. Biodiversity and ecosystem services are essential for human wellbeing. This platform will generate the knowledge and build the capacity to protect them for this and future generations,” he said.
Read more…

Non-native insects and pathogens are seriously harming natural and human-managed forests. Invasive pests and forest diseases, in concert with other anthropogenic disturbances such as land clearing and changes in fire regimes, are dramatically altering the composition and structure of many forests in North America, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Australia, China, Africa and elsewhere. Further, they inflict high costs on society, including: the costs of prevention, control and eradication of the harmful organisms; costs of removing diseased trees; direct market losses (e.g., timber and nursery industries); and loss of nonmarket benefits, including wildlife habitat for vast numbers of species, carbon sequestration to mitigate global warming, and recreational and aesthetic benefits for humans. In connection with the recognition of 2011 as the ‘International Year of the Forest’, SCB recently released a report on ‘Recommendations for Protecting Forests From Introduced Forest Pests and Plant Pathogens’ (available here).
This detailed report builds on SCB’s earlier declaration in support of the International Year of the Forest.

SCB’s North America section has been extensively involved in policy issues surrounding the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline because the pipeline controversy touches on broader concerns regarding sustainable energy and wildlife conservation. On October 9, SCB submitted comments on the State Department’s finding that the permit to allow the Keystone XL pipeline would be in the national interest.
The full comments are here. Also see SCB previous comments on the pipeline. The six questions are:
1) If you cannot adequately assess the effects of the pipeline and alternatives to it, how can you determine that it would be in the national interest?
2) How can the Secretary comply with her duties to ensure that her action will not be likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the endangered whooping crane when neither her Biological Assessment nor the Interior Secretaries’ Biological Opinion consider the impact of the oil sands developments and the pipeline that makes them probable on the northern third of the habitat?
3) How can the Secretary find the pipeline to be in the national interest when Canada’s own Environment Commissioner has found that the effects are poorly understood, poorly controlled and will diminish the effectiveness of Canada’s participation in international agreements for the control of climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gases?
4) Will approving the permit reduce our environmental and other security risks more than choosing more prudent available alternatives?
5) Will approving the permit guarantee a source of transportation fuel for the U.S. at any reasonable price considering the competing bidders who will be much less constrained by market prices? Or will it merely guarantee access to those very bidders who would not otherwise have that access at all?
6) Why cause serious environmental harm and raise serious security risks — and reduce room for renewable energy — by permitting the pipeline, when we can conserve wildlife and supply our energy needs with secure, safe, clean, renewable energy in ways that can probably provide more permanent jobs across the US?

Keystone XL Pipeline Would Threaten Highly Endangered Whooping Cranes

WASHINGTON DC — As climate scientists, farmers, conservation groups and concerned citizens continue two weeks of protests at the White House in opposition to permitting a large new pipeline to carry partially refined tar from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, the world’s largest international conservation science society reminded the Obama Administration of the hazards the pipeline poses to the environment, particularly the highly endangered whooping crane.

“In addition to its well known climate change impact, the Keystone XL pipeline would threaten the whooping crane — one of the most highly endangered birds in the world — from one end of its migration route and habitat to the other,” said Dominick DellaSala, an ecologist and president of the North American Section of the Society for Conservation Biology.

Last year, the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) sent detailed comments to the State Department and other federal agencies explaining that the proposed pipeline and those it would connect to follows the migration of the endangered whooping crane for nearly its entire route. The risk of highly toxic oil spills and the dramatic expansion of tailing ponds could jeopardize the survival of the bird that the Fish and Wildlife Service calls one of the most famous symbols of America’s dedication to saving its wild national heritage.
Read more…

The United Nations has declared 2011 the International Year of Forests, in order to strengthen the conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests for the benefit of current and future generations. In conjunction with the UN campaign, SCB has issued a declaration outlining twelve recommendations based on conservation science that can help further these goals. Read more…

Each quarter, John Fitzgerald, SCB’s Policy Director, prepares a newsletter describing conservation policy news and SCB’s policy activities. It often provides more depth on an issue than we can post on the blog.
December’s issue can be found here.

Environment ministers from many nations are in Cancun, Mexico this week for the 16th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chang. This meeting follows the 2009 meeting of the group in Copenhagen. The Society for Conservation Biology today sent a letter to negotiators in Cancun, continueing the dialogue SCB began with the UNFCCC delegates and Secretariat before the Copenhagen meeting. Among other points, SCB’s letter stressed the imporrtance of including the significant contribution of biologically diverse, carbon-dense primary forests in temperate and boreal regions to climate stabilization in discussions on the REDD+ strategy. REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
The SCB letter is here.
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Signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is one of the most important international agreements regarding conservation of the earth’s biota. The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the governing body of the CBD, and advances implementation of the Convention through the decisions it takes at its periodic meetings. The Tenth meeting (COP10) was held in Nagoya, Japan (18 – 20 October 2010). SCB, in collaboration with other scientific societies, played a key role at the Nagoya meeting. Below is a report from John Fitzgerald, the SCB Policy Director. Read more…