Monday, 11 Nov 2002

Better Red Than Dead

A federal judge last week lifted development restrictions on more than 4 million acres of land that had been designated as critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imposed the restrictions in early 2001, but developers quickly sued to overturn them. To the dismay of environmentalists, the court ruling last week gave formal approval to a settlement reached between the SUFIS and the developers. Under the agreement, protections for the frog will be removed while the feds draw up a new habitat plan. The territory of the once-pervasive frog, which inspired Mark Twain's story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," has shrunk by 70 percent.

Green Day

The Green Party says it fared well during last week's election. The Greens ran 541 candidates for office, mostly at the state or local level. That's double the number from 2000, according to Dean Myerson, the party's national political coordinator. Sixty-seven candidates were elected; overall, 171 Greens now sit in office across the country. Another milestone: Maine now boasts the only Green sitting in a state legislature. Myerson attributed the gains to the party's expanding membership and its leftist perspective on the war on terrorism and corporate scandals. He said, "People look at the election as a bad election for progressives, but it was actually just a bad election for Democrats."

Are They Rocky Mountain High?

Another one from the Believe-It-Or-Not Department: Colorado officials want to increase clear-cutting to help solve the state's drought problem. Removing trees would allow more snow to fall to the ground, where it would run off into streams in the spring, providing enough new water to supply as many as a million families, says Kent Holsinger, the top water official at the state Department of Natural Resources. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens (R), a powerful Colorado representative to the U.S. House, and key Bush administration officials are all excited about the idea. They say the logging-for-water plan would kill two birds with one stone, increasing water resources while also reducing the risk of forest fires (no trees = no fires -- get it?). Environmentalists say the plan would only increase flooding and damage mountain streams. "This is beyond harebrained," says Chris Wood, a top U.S. Forest Service advisor during the Clinton years.

Sound the Alarm

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the midst of a five-year effort to catalogue the woes of the Puget Sound ecosystem, gathering information for what could become an undertaking as grand in size as the $8 billion Everglades restoration project. Many of the 2,354 miles of the sound's seashore, containing tide flats, marshes, and bluffs, are under assault. Millions of gallons of human waste drain into the sound each year and pollution is contaminating countless species, from mussels to killer whales. In all, 70 percent of sound's wetlands and estuaries have been lost to development. Environmentalists are more used to fighting the Army Corps than working with it, but some think the agency may now be the sound's best hope. Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the environmental group People for Puget Sound, says, "I have a long history of being hard on the corps, but if you want something done, you have to involve the agency that has the history and wherewithal to pull off big projects."

Uplifting News

If only Bob Dole had known, he could have raked in some environmental brownie points while touting Viagra as a wonder cure for erectile dysfunction: The little blue pill could be the saving grace for thousands of endangered animals, according to research published recently in the journal Environmental Conservation. Tigers, reindeer, and harp seals, among other endangered animals, have been hunted for thousands of years, in part for their presumed powers to improve sexual performance. As Viagra sales began to boom during the late 1990s, however, the poaching rates of at least three species used in traditional Asian impotence remedies plummeted, according to two researchers. They attribute some of the drop-off to Viagra's rise, saying they have hard data to back up their claim. But many wildlife activists are skeptical of the linkage, some of them pointing out that there is widespread suspicion in Asia toward Western remedies like Viagra.