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Overview

It is customary to begin these quarterly reports by listing our recent accomplishments, made possible by your generous support.

But something happened last quarter that requires us to take a different approach this time. Everything changed the day Donald Trump received enough Electoral College votes to become the next president of the United States.

The Center for Biological Diversity is putting itself at the forefront of resistance to the Trump agenda, and we’ve got a host of initiatives to stop him in his tracks. We’re confident that, with your help, we’ll succeed. Since the election more than 100,000 activist supporters and members have signed the Center’s Pledge of Resistance to fight Trump and his anti-wildlife cabinet of climate deniers and industry insiders. Throughout the month of January, thousands will be joining a broad-based resistance movement started by the Center to hold the line on this country’s democratic progress. The Center’s 16-city #Earth2Trump resistance tour will rally activists nationwide who are alarmed by Donald Trump’s attacks on wildlife, civil liberties and a livable global

future. The #Earth2Trump tour will join up with allies in a protest march on Washington, D.C. around Trump’s inauguration.

Every Center program — Endangered Species, Oceans, Environmental Health, Public Lands, Population and Sustainability, Urban Wildlands, the Climate Law Institute and our recently created International program — is gearing up to challenge Trump, his fossil fuel industry cabinet picks, and his far-right, land grabbing congressional allies.

In the last quarter of 2016 alone the Center and our members:

• Were part of a large coalition of environmental, indigenous and coastal groups that called on Obama earlier this year to protect U.S. waters from the oil industry. In a historic win for the climate, Obama banned offshore oil and gas drilling across 115 million acres of the Arctic and nearly 4 million acres in the Atlantic, along the Eastern Seaboard.

• Scored a major victory in November when, working with local activists, we ensured that Measure Z passed in Monterey County California —

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CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITYQuarterly Report — October - December 2016

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California’s fourth-largest oil-producing county — banning all fracking and other dangerous oil and gas extraction techniques.

• Convinced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider Endangered Species Act protection for African and Asian leopards.

• Urged Missouri to consider ending unlimited commercial collection of the state’s wild freshwater turtles.

• Settled a lawsuit with the federal government that will require the new Trump administration to conduct in-depth analyses of risks to wildlife and ocean ecosystems before it approves future deep-sea mining projects.

• Convinced the U.S. Forest Service to agree to halt new oil and gas leasing throughout the nearly 2-million-acre Los Padres National Forest.

• Pressured the Environmental Protection Agency to restrict the use of eight widely available pesticide products used to kill burrowing animals in areas where they could endanger a number of imperiled species.

• Compelled Merced County, Calif., to go back to the drawing board on its regional transportation plan to ensure that the final version includes effective, measurable steps to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and promote sustainability.

These accomplishments, along with those outlined below, are part of an established chain of victories that lay the groundwork for success against the incoming Trump administration and its destructive agenda.

Climate Law Institute While the U.S. election came to a shocking close, Center staff members were in Marrakesh, Morocco at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 22). The devil is in the details, so Center staff educated, advocated and organized during the negotiations of the international Paris Agreement climate accord, holding the U.S. government’s feet to the fire. The Center spearheaded two panel discussions at the conference that explored the growing global movement to end fossil fuel extraction and usher in a zero-carbon pollution future and additionally organized a rally and show of solidarity as part of the international day of action against the Dakota Access Pipeline. One bright spot in an otherwise dismal election night was in Monterey County, Calif. — the state’s fourth-largest oil-producing county — where voters passed Measure Z, the strongest ballot measure on the subject anywhere in the country, banning fracking and other dangerous oil and gas extraction techniques. The measure won with more than 55 percent of the vote, despite supporters being outspent 30 to 1 by oil companies. Measure Z also phases out toxic wastewater injection and prohibits new oil wells in the county. Monterey is California’s sixth county to ban fracking. Residents put Measure Z on the ballot after county supervisors in 2015 rejected the unanimous recommendation by the planning commission to enact a moratorium on fracking and wastewater injection; the Center helped mobilize the community to ensure that it passed.

Leopard, public domain

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California was the site of another important victory against the oil and gas industry last quarter. The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission voted to reject a Phillips 66’s proposed oil train facility in Nipomo. The decision comes after a nearly three-year review process, with more than 20,000 Californians opposing the project, as well as more than 45 cities, counties and school boards sending letters urging the planning commission to deny it. The terminal, if built, would have allowed more than 7 million gallons of dangerous, highly flammable crude oil to be shipped via rail through the county to a local refinery each week. This victory was the second involving a proposed oil refinery in California last quarter. A week before the San Luis Obispo Country Planning Commission vote, the Benicia California City Council rejected a proposal for a similar project to be located in that city. The Center helped lead efforts to oppose both these refineries.

Endangered Species ProgramIn 2016, as a result of our remarkably productive 757 species agreement, the Center successfully obtained federal protection — and a new lease on life — for 32 species, bringing the total protected so far to 176.

We also secured protection in 2016 for 2.5 million acres of critical habitat, including 1.8 million for

Sierra Nevada amphibians. Meanwhile our work to save America’s jaguars hit the big time: More than 20 million people saw the video we released of “El Jefe” earlier this year on national broadcast and cable networks. And just this fall a new, young male jaguar was glimpsed on a wildlife camera while roaming prime jaguar habitat in the Southwest.

The Center’s Endangered Species Program scored a whole series of important victories last quarter, throwing a lifeline to many imperiled species. In response to a petition by the Center and our allies, African and Asian leopards are now under consideration for Endangered Species Act protection by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Leopards are in urgent need of protection, in part due to brutal trophy hunting by Americans . Endangered Species Act protection is critical to protecting these rapidly vanishing big cats.

Center advocacy also compelled the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider protection for another species last quarter: the American wolverine. After a lawsuit by the Center and our allies, Fish and Wildlife agreed to reconsider whether these majestic mountain-forest mammals should be protected under the Act. The Service had proposed federal protections for the wolverine in 2013 but then withdrew its proposal the following year. After we sued a federal judge ruled that the Service’s withdrawal was illegal and ordered the agency to reconsider proposed protections. There are

Wolverine by William Warby

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Canada lynx by Juliana Luz

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Oceans Program

The Center’s Oceans Program scored a major win last quarter over deep-sea mining, a dangerous practice that can irreparably harm ocean ecosystems. Deep-sea mining operations use large, robotic machines to excavate the ocean floor for rare-earth metals and minerals in a way that’s similar to strip-mining on land. The materials are pumped up to the ship, while wastewater and debris are dumped into the ocean, forming large sediment clouds underwater. The Center sued the federal government in 2015 over its approval of exploratory permits for a Lockheed Martin subsidiary to do deep-sea mining work in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, halfway between Mexico and Hawaii. Under a legal settlement of the litigation secured last quarter by the Center, the federal government must conduct in-depth analyses of risks to wildlife and ocean ecosystems before it approves future deep-sea mining projects.

Three imperiled ocean species moved toward greater protection last quarter as a result of Center advocacy. First, in response to a petition from the Center and our allies, the Obama administration announced that Endangered Species Act protection may be warranted for Pacific bluefin tuna. This is a species particularly in need of help: Bluefin tuna populations have declined more than 97 percent since industrial fishing began.

as few as 300 wolverines left in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, and climate change and other threats are driving them toward extinction.

Alongside these federal victories for species in peril, the Center also racked up two important state wins last quarter. In the first, the Missouri Department of Conservation announced it was considering ending unlimited commercial collection of the state’s wild freshwater turtles. The decision came in response to a petition filed by the Center and our allies. Under current law turtle traders can legally collect unlimited numbers of common snapping and softshell turtles to either sell domestically or export for Asian food and medicinal markets. As a result thousands of Missouri’s turtles have been caught and sold over the past 10 years.

In another victory in California, a Superior Court upheld a ban on ivory and rhino horn trade, rejecting claims that the ban was unconstitutional. Ivory-market proponents filed suit challenging the ban earlier this year. The Center and our allies intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of the state of California to help defend the law, which many of these allied partners had sponsored in 2015. Before the ban California was the second-largest U.S. ivory market. Cutting off the markets that drive demand for ivory is critical to stopping the slaughter of elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns.

Bluefin tuna by Opencage.info

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The Center also helped secure a major victory for bearded seals when the 9th Circuit court of appeals restored the animals’ Endangered Species Act protections. Bearded seals were first proposed for federal protection by the Center in 2008. But progress in protecting them was slow and uneven: After the National Marine Fisheries Service agreed to list the seals, the decision was challenged by oil companies and the state of Alaska. That challenge was upheld by a lower court in 2014. The Center intervened in the appeal of the lower court’s decision, and last quarter a federal appeals court upheld the Fisheries Service’s listing. In the words of 9th Circuit Judge Richard Paez and author of the decision, “There is no debate that temperatures will continue to increase over the remainder of the century and that the effects will be particularly acute in the Arctic.” This win is a significant marker in connecting climate change to the extinction crisis.

Finally, Center efforts compelled the Fisheries Service to take action to protect imperiled sea turtles from being killed in commercial shrimp fishery nets. Working with our allies, we pushed the Service to propose a new administrative rule to address sea turtle entanglements in skimmer trawls. These are nets used primarily in bays and estuaries that are currently exempt from the requirements to include turtle-excluder devices. For many decades shrimp trawling has been the primary threat to sea turtle survival in waters off the United States. If fully implemented, the new rule could prevent thousands of new sea turtle deaths each year.

Public Lands ProgramThe Center’s “Keep It in the Ground” movement, working to end the leasing of U.S. public lands for fossil fuel development, continues to build its power and momentum. We filed administrative challenges over the Bureau of Land Management’s plans to auction off more than 20,000 acres of publicly owned fossil fuels in Colorado and more than 12,000 acres of publicly owned fossil fuels in northeast Utah. We filed another administrative protest and organized a spirited demonstration outside the BLM office in Salt Lake City to protest the auction of more than 12,000 acres of Utah’s public land for fossil fuel extraction. We helped organize another protest in Ohio where Native American water protectors joined dozens of other activists to protest a BLM plan to auction off 1,600 acres of Ohio’s only national forest to private energy companies for oil and gas fracking.

At the urging of the Center and our allies, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors joined the “Keep It in the Ground” movement last quarter when it approved legislation prohibiting new fossil fuel leases on city-owned land. The legislation also directs the city to shift from oil production to solar energy on an 800-acre property in Kern County currently leased to Chevron. The change, in addition to contributing to the fight

Keep It In the Ground / Standing Rock protest in Minnesota by Fibonacci Blue

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against climate change, is expected to generate more revenue for the city than current oil operations.

In response to the threat of Center litigation, the U.S. Forest Service is also beginning to give way before the demand to “Keep It in the Ground.” Last quarter, after the Center and our allies threatened to sue, the Forest Service agreed to halt new oil and gas leasing across the nearly 2-million-acre Los Padres National Forest in central and Southern California. The leasing suspension will give the Forest Service a chance to consider the risks of fracking and drilling to air and water quality and endangered animals like the California condor.

Population & Sustainability ProgramThe Center’s popular Endangered Species condoms keep winning over new fans to our campaign to help people connect their reproductive choices to the worldwide extinction crisis. Recently joining us is celebrated Colorado author Benjamin Dancer, whose latest eco-thriller Patriarch Run is helping us spread the message about how rapid human population growth poses a threat to wildlife and wild places. Dancer and the Center have been teaming up to bring this message to new audiences, with the author giving readings from his book and the Center making free condoms available to

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people in attendance. To close the last few days of 2016 and prepare for the incoming inauguration, the Center distributed 10,000 free Endangered Species Condoms nationwide. We have now given away 670,000 of the free condoms since 2009.

As in previous years, in 2016 the Center helped actively promote World Vasectomy Day, calling on men to take action for wildlife and women by getting a vasectomy. It’s a particularly salient message now, with an incoming Trump administration posing new threats to women’s rights and promising to make access to reproductive healthcare even more difficult. The Center’s “Get Whacked for Wildlife” campaign urges men to consider a vasectomy — an easy and effective way to take an active role on the issue — by connecting reproductive rights not only to human rights but also to the protection of wildlife and wild places.

Environmental Health ProgramPesticides pose major threats to a wide variety of imperiled wildlife and human health. Unfortunately the EPA — the federal agency charged with regulating pesticides — has failed to do its job when it comes to restricting dangerous pesticide usage. The Center’s Environmental Health Program is closely watching the EPA, and our vigilance is paying off. Last quarter

vasectomies help.

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Center pressure compelled the EPA to restrict the use of eight widely available pesticide products used to kill burrowing animals. These pesticides contain sodium and potassium nitrate, carbon and carbon dioxide, and sulfur, and come in the form of gas cartridges that are thrown into animal burrows. Farmers, rangers and the federal government often use them to control coyotes, red foxes, skunks, and similar unwanted critters. This puts many other animals that might be using or living near those burrows at risk. The new restrictions are limited only to areas where the protected species — the gopher tortoise, Hualapai Mexican vole, Mount Graham red squirrel and Utah prairie dog — live. The Center hailed the decision, but warned the agency that many other pesticides need similar restrictions and vowed to keep up the fight until every unsafe pesticide is properly and strictly regulated or else taken off the market.

Urban Wildlands ProgramThe transportation sector is a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling global climate change. That’s why it’s critical for urban transportation plans to prioritize reducing pollution and promoting sustainability. When they don’t, environmental groups like the Center need to

step in, raise questions and, if necessary, challenge them in court. In Merced County, Calif., the Center did precisely that, and the results are a victory for county residents — and the environment. In 2024 the Merced County Association of Government approved a “regional transportation plan and sustainable communities strategy” that significantly failed to take measurable steps to reduce regional greenhouse gas pollution from transportation and land use. The Center and our allies sued and in a legal settlement entered last quarter Merced County agreed to go back and revise the plan to ensure that it adequately addresses the twin problems of urban sprawl and greenhouse gas emissions.

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All the activities and initiatives described in this report were made possible by your contributions and those of the Center’s many other friends and allies. We are proud of what we have accomplished and will continue to accomplish together with your loyalty and support. Thank you for your solidarity and for giving voice to the wild. In the coming year, with your support behind us we’ll grow stronger and will fighter harder for life on Earth. That’s what America’s precious wildlife and wild places demand.

Gopher tortoise courtesy St. Johns County Government

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