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Overview

For some people, summer is a season of vacations and time away from work, but here at the Center, we were busy on behalf of the planet – and we have the

victories to prove it.

Last quarter the game-changing “Keep It in the Ground” movement sent a powerful message to President Obama when we delivered more than 1 million signatures on a petition demanding a swift end to all new fossil fuel lease sales on U.S. public lands and waters. On the legal front, the Center won a landmark victory in stopping the federal Bureau of Land Management’s plan to open up more than a million acres of public land in Central California to drilling and fracking.

Other important achievements last quarter include:

• Securing nearly 3.7 million acres of protected critical habitat in Washington, Oregon and California for the marbled murrelet, a low-flying, chubby coastal bird unique to the Pacific Northwest, and an additional 1.8 million acres of critical habitat in California for three amphibians: Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs, Yosemite toads and a northern population of mountain yellow-legged frogs. 

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• Winning a lawsuit with global significance that requires foreign fishing fleets to meet the same marine mammal protection standards applied to the U.S. fishing industry in order for them to sell their seafood in the United States.

•• Persuading California to require products containing the dangerous herbicide atrazine, which has been known to chemically castrate frogs, to include a warning label before it can be sold in the state. 

• Forcing New York to require new air permits for crude-oil transportation and a refining facility in Albany, N.Y., which is spewing toxic pollution into population-dense nearby communities.

• Halting a Highway 1 expansion project pushed by the California Department of Transportation in Pacifica by showing that it failed to take into account how the plan might hurt imperiled wildlife in the area.

• • Pushing the EPA to officially acknowledge that

greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes significantly disrupt the climate and endanger human health.

Details on these and other Center achievements during the third quarter of 2016 are spelled out on the following pages.

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CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITYQuarterly Report — July - September 2016

Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog / Devin Edmonds, USGS

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Climate Law InstituteThe Center has been leading the fight to prevent the BLM from opening up more than a million acres of public land in Central California to fracking, a dangerous oil and gas production technique. In a tremendous victory last quarter, a federal judge ruled that the agency had failed to analyze the risks of fracking and other fossil fuel extraction techniques in its proposal. There had been a moratorium on oil and gas leasing on public lands in California since 2013, when the Center first took the BLM to court on this issue. Now the moratorium will remain in place — a victory that echoes across the Center’s hard-hitting programs, from the “Keep It in the Ground” movement to our bedrock efforts to protect imperiled species from the many threats to their existence. The ruling called attention to the “extraordinary biodiversity” living in the path of the proposed fracking sites. Of the 130 federally protected threatened and endangered animal species in California, more than one-third would have been jeopardized without this win.

The Center’s relentless pressure on the EPA to take action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation industry was rewarded when the agency, after nine years of delay, finally officially acknowledged in a so-called “endangerment finding” that planet-warming pollution from airplanes disrupts the climate and endangers human welfare. Now it’s up to the EPA to act by forming rules to actually reduce aircraft emissions. The Center and our allies first petitioned the EPA in 2007 to regulate carbon emissions from aircraft under the federal Clean Air Act, and have repeatedly sued the agency since that time to force it to take action.

One of the many destructive consequences of the tar sands/oil shale boom has been the dangerous practice of

transporting the highly flammable oil by rail to refineries located in dense, low-income urban communities, where its processing releases a host of dangerous

pollutants. One such refinery is located in Albany, N.Y., where air

monitoring at an adjacent low-income housing community has consistently revealed benzene — a carcinogen that can be deadly to humans and wildlife — at levels well above state guidelines. The Center has made a point of demanding changes to this facility to address its environmental hazards and last quarter the state of New York announced it will require new air permits from Global Companies and Buckeye Partners, corporations that have been operating the facilities.

Endangered Species

Five years ago this quarter, the Center achieved a groundbreaking agreement that forced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to set deadlines in making protection decisions for 757 species that were in dire need of help. The agreement also allows the Center to call for the review of 10 species a year, including the “class of 2016”listed below:  

• alligator snapping turtles (2020) • Barrens topminnows (2017) • California spotted owls (2019) • beaverpond marstonia (2017) • Canoe Creek pigtoes mussel (2020) • cobblestone tiger beetles (2019) • foothill yellow-legged frogs (2020) • monarch butterflies (2019) • Northern Rockies fishers (2017) • Virgin River spinedace (2021)

Monarch butterfly / Rodney Campbell

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This quarter, leading up to the anniversary of the 2011 decision, more than 30 species were protected under the Endangered Species Act—the most powerful wildlife law in the world—and several more were proposed for protection.

While the Service is moving forward on protecting these species, too many others are being left behind. To date at least 42 species have gone extinct waiting for Endangered Species Act protection. So last quarter the Center notified the Fish and Wildlife Service of our intention to sue for failing to take action on some 417 species, from cranes to crayfish. Immediate action is required now if these species are to survive and recover.

Successful species recovery requires more than an Endangered Species Act listing – these plants and animals also need their habitat protected and other safeguards to protect them from harmful human activity. The Center registered a couple of big wins last quarter in this regard. First, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized protections on nearly 3.7 million acres of critical habitat in Washington, Oregon and California for the marbled murrelet, a small coastal bird unique to the Pacific Northwest. Second, after more than 15 years of advocacy by the Center, the Service protected 1.8 million acres of California critical habitat for three amphibians: Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs, Yosemite toads and a northern population of mountain yellow-legged frogs. 

Worldwide, amphibians are among the animals most at risk, which is why the Center has made their protection a top priority. Over the past few years we have hired the only two attorneys in the nation specializing in amphibians and reptiles. Their efforts were rewarded in Iowa this quarter when state wildlife officials proposed to restrict collection and killing of four species of wild turtles: common snapping turtles, painted turtles, spiny softshells and smooth

softshells. More than 3 million wild-caught, live turtles are exported from the United States each year to feed Asian markets. If finalized the new rules would impose seasons, daily bag limits and possession limits for the animals, which are under tremendous pressure.

Livestock owners and their political allies in the western United States continued their relentless war on wolves last quarter, and we continued to fight to protect these iconic predators. One important victory occurred in Oregon, where the state appeals court ruled that the Center and our allies can proceed with a lawsuit over the state’s decision to strip endangered species protections from Oregon’s small population of about 120 gray wolves. The suit was complicated by a controversial state bill blocking judicial review of the decision to take away wolves’ protection. The appeals court ruled that the issues we presented “are complex matters of public importance” that deserve further consideration. 

Public LandsThe Center’s key role in the “Keep It in the Ground” movement, working to end new fossil fuel leasing on U.S. public lands, continues to grow. In September, along with frontline, indigenous and climate leaders from across the country, we gathered at the White House to deliver more than 1 million signatures on a petition calling on President Obama to stop fossil fuel lease sales on public lands and oceans. Earlier in the quarter, we led more than 250 climate, community and tribal groups in filing a landmark legal petition calling on the Obama administration to halt all new fossil fuel leasing on federal lands and to expand the current moratorium on new coal leases. It’s a critical step to ensure the United States does its part to meet the global climate commitments we made last year in Paris. 

Hundreds of pumpjacks in Kern Co. California / Arne Hückelheim CC-BY-SA

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Canada lynx by Juliana Luz

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Environmental HealthThe Center has advocated for years against atrazine — the second-most widely used herbicide in the United States and one of the most dangerous ever for humans and the environment. Atrazine has been linked to birth defects and reduced fertility in men and women, and its environmental toxicity is so intense that it chemically castrates male frogs. Thanks to our advocacy, California has now formally acknowledged the dangers of this wildlife-killing chemical and mandated that the product feature a warning label before it can be sold in the state. 

The Center dealt a blow this past quarter to another toxic pesticide we have been fighting against — flubendiamide This lethal chemical is extremely harmful to freshwater aquatic species like dragonflies, crayfish and mussels, which subsequently has a cascading effects on the entire web of life in water ecosystems. The EPA had previously canceled the use of flubendiamide, but that decision was challenged by the maker, Bayer CropScience. Last quarter the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board rejected the challenge, stating that Bayer had failed to live up to its commitment to stop selling the pesticide when studies confirmed that it was too toxic for wildlife to be kept on the market.

Our long-term goal is not just to get toxic and harmful pesticides off the market one by one; we want to revolutionize the way the federal government tests and regulates all pesticides. So last quarter we released a

The “Keep It in the Ground” movement also continues to score victories in the fight to shut down individual lease sales of public lands for fossil fuel development. This summer, in response to pressure from the Center and our allies, the BLM postponed a controversial July 20 lease sale to auction oil and gas leases across 13,000 acres in New Mexico. The Center and partners filed a formal administrative protest challenging a BLM plan to auction off 4,400 acres of publicly owned fossil fuels in Kentucky and Mississippi. The following month we challenged a BLM plan to auction off nearly 20,000 acres of publicly owned fossil fuels in northeast Montana. Most recently, after the Center and allies appealed a federal decision to lease 6,175 acres of public land for coal mining in Utah — including crucial habitat for the rare, dancing greater sage grouse — the feds agreed to stop the sale pending a review.

Our public lands are under assault from numerous threats, including the severe degradation of soil, water and plant life by cattle grazing. We’ve long fought to get cattle off public lands, and last quarter saw our latest victory in this fight. In response to our notice of intent to sue, the U.S. Forest Service decided to restrict livestock grazing on California’s Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest to prevent harm to California’s Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and Yosemite toad, both of which recently received designated critical habitat thanks to Center advocacy.

Dragonfly / Tony Hudson CC-BY-SA

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new Center study finding that the EPA approved nearly 100 pesticide products over six years that are dangerous chemical cocktails, which, when combined, are much more poisonous and deadly to imperiled pollinators and rare plants. These “synergistic” chemical combinations have been widely overlooked by the EPA in its approval of pesticides for food, lawns and other uses. We petitioned the EPA to require those companies to release information on their products’ synergistic effects when seeking the agency’s approval. 

Pesticides and herbicide runoff aren’t the only poisons the Center is working to eliminate from our environment. Toxic metals also pose a serious threat to a host of species. Mercury in freshwater streams, for example, is threatening salmon, red-legged frogs and songbirds. That’s why the Center has been vigorously fighting to maintain a moratorium on the destructive gold extraction technique known as “suction dredge mining” in California. Suction dredge mining vacuums up gravel and sand from river bottoms, stirring up and releasing toxic minerals like mercury left over from prior mining operations, which then poison the water. It also utterly disrupts and destroys river bottom wildlife habitat. We won a critical victory in this fight last quarter when the California Supreme Court issued a decision upholding the statewide halt on suction dredge gold mining.

OceansEach year around the globe more than 650,000 marine mammals are caught and killed in fishing gear. Following a 2014 lawsuit by the Center and allies, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued rules last quarter banning U.S.

import of seafood from countries whose fisheries kill more whales and dolphins than U.S. standards allow. Since 1972 U.S. law has prohibited seafood from entering the country unless it meets those standards, but for the past 40 years, the federal government has largely ignored that ban — until now. This new ruling requires that foreign fishermen must meet the same marine-mammal protection standards applied to U.S. fishermen, or they’re banned from selling their catch in the lucrative American market.

Instantly recognizable by its beautiful and distinctive spiral shell, the unique ocean species called the chambered nautilus, a relative of the squid and octopus, is threatened by overharvesting by shell collectors. The Center petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to protect this 90-tentacled “living fossil” and last quarter the Service responded by declaring that the nautilus may warrant Endangered Species Act protection. 

What’s causing the crisis affecting Earth’s coral reefs? An answer was provided last quarter in a groundbreaking new analysis, coauthored by Center marine scientist Abel Valdivia. The report largely settles a debate within the scientific community about the relative importance of local versus global causes of declining coral reefs, showing that global climate change far surpasses any localized factors. The global CO2 problem is causing both coral bleaching (when heat-stressed corals expel the colorful algae they need to survive) and ocean acidification (which depletes seawater of the compounds that corals need to build their skeletons). The policy consequences of this analysis are clear: to save coral reefs we must reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and lead global efforts to swiftly and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions.

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Urban WildlandsIf you want to widen a highway in California, you better pay attention to the possible impacts of the project on endangered species. That’s the lesson the California Department of Transportation learned last quarter when it tangled with the Center’s Urban Wildlands Program. Caltrans had approved the Calera Parkway Project, a plan to widen Highway 1 in Pacifica, Calif., without taking into account how it might hurt imperiled wildlife in the area, including San Francisco garter snakes and California red-legged frogs. The Center challenged the decision in federal court under the Endangered Species Act, and the court ruled in our favor. Caltrans must now reinitiate a formal consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service regarding impacts and mitigations for endangered species.

Intensive Center advocacy also stopped a controversial proposal to develop one of the largest open private parcels of land on the Southern California coast. The Newport “Banning Ranch” project would have built about 900 homes, a hotel and shops on an Orange County oilfield overlooking the Pacific Ocean — a crucial refuge for wildlife, including burrowing owls. Thanks to mobilization efforts by the Center and our allies, California’s Coastal Commission gave thumbs down to the proposal. 

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Population and SustainabilityThe Population and Sustainability Program’s award-winning Endangered Species condoms project continues to spark conversations and debate among people considering human impacts on the environment and what it means to make responsible reproduction decisions. Thanks to our Population and Sustainability Program’s nationwide army of volunteer-distributors, 10,000 of our highly popular, free Endangered Species Condoms were distributed across the country on World Population Day (July 11) to make the connection between unsustainable human population growth and the wildlife extinction crisis. 

Over the past quarter, California adopted a “Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan,” which provides direction for renewable-energy development on 10 million acres of public lands in California. This announcement comes after years of Center advocacy. The plan both spurs renewable energy development in designated areas while also preventing new, poorly-sited renewable energy projects from encroaching on California’s sensitive desert habitats and imperiled wildlife.

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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 other friends and allies. We are proud of what we have accomplished this quarter and will continue to accomplish together with your loyalty and support. Thank you for your solidarity and for giving voice to the wild.

Female burrowing owl and owlet in Southern California / Kevin Cole CC-BY