Wildlife

By Patrick Porgans of Planetary Solutionaries and author Lloyd Carter

The Golden State’s agricultural earnings have reached historic highs during the so-called three-year drought.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture, (USDA), California’s cash receipts from crop and livestock sales, in billions of dollars, are as follows: 2009- $34.841; 2008- $38.407; 2007- $36.386; 2006- $31.426; 2005 - $32.4; 2004- $30.939; 2003- $28.232; 2002- $26.544; 2000 - $26.206; and 2000- $25.185.

California’s Governor Schwarzenegger, state water officials, 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl, and Fox Cable TV host Sean Hannity, were among those espousing their “Dust Bowl” drought rhetoric for the past three years, depicting images or fallow fields, orchards being ripped out and projections of the state’s agricultural industry going under. It appears their doomsday predictions were all wet.

By Jim Martin
California Fisheries Coalition

Environmental groups, long the champions of upholding the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), have instead been working to short-cut environmental protection.

That’s correct: some environmental groups have actively sought to sidestep environmental law which requires openness in analyzing negative environmental impacts of projects.

Usually, these groups fight to ensure complete compliance with CEQA – they repelled numerous legislative attacks by developers, and even Governor Schwarzenegger, already this year. But ironically, some have apparently decided CEQA doesn’t apply to projects they favor.

By Dan Bacher

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on August 20 rejected an attempt by corporate agribusiness to strip protected status from wild steelhead rainbow trout in California’s Central Valley.

Six San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts - Stockton East, South San Joaquin, Merced, Modesto, Oakdale and Turlock - challenged the steelhead listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). They argued that ocean-going Central Valley steelhead population should be removed from the endangered species list based on their opinion that freshwater rainbow trout might someday replace extinct steelhead populations.

By Dan Bacher

Proponents of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative constantly gush in generic terms how the controversial process is "open, transparent and inclusive." Anybody who criticizes any aspect of the privately funded initiative is blasted for being against "ocean protection."

However, what many critics of the MLPA Initiative are actually opposed to is the parody of marine protection that Schwarzenegger's initiative has become. Many supporters of comprehensive ocean protection point out that the intent of the law, signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, has been continually violated under a privately funded process filled with numerous conflicts of interest and violations of state, federal and international laws.

By Elanor Starmer
Food&Water Watch

The legislature reconvened on Monday with a hefty set of tasks ahead of it. Passing a budget will clearly be the most painful, but let’s not underestimate the intensity of the battle over the fate of Proposition 18, the massive water bond currently on this November’s ballot. The legislature’s decision – widely believed to be forthcoming before August 20th – on whether to postpone, scrap or leave untouched this controversial measure is actually a referendum on who should control water in California. Legislators have an opportunity to weigh in in favor of the public by voting to permanently remove the bond from the ballot.

Liz Crosson
Baykeeper

The City of Malibu violated the federal Clean Water Act when it discharged polluted water into Santa Monica Bay beaches in a coastal preserve, according to a decision issued by a Federal District Court.  

The court found Malibu liable for illegally discharging polluted water into a marine coastal preserve located in northern Los Angeles County, one of three dozen designated Areas of Special Biological Significance along the California coast.  The preserve stretches from Latigo Point in Malibu to Mugu Lagoon in Ventura County. The decision is the result of a lawsuit brought by Santa Monica Baykeeper (Baykeeper) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). This decision should be celebrated by all who value coastal resources like recreation, natural habitats, and scenic beauty. The decision is a critical step towards addressing water pollution at some of the region’s most popular and valued beaches.

By Dr. Ami Bera
Candidate for Congress, District 3

182,000,000 gallons. That’s how much oil scientists estimate spewed into the Gulf during the BP catastrophe. It’s enough oil to cover San Francisco, Oakland and Berkley.

The oil is visible from space. It covers 400 miles of coastline across two states. It’s permeated fragile marsh ecosystems. The initial explosion killed 11 workers.

$82,000. That’s the amount of money my opponent, Congressman Lungren, has taken in campaign contributions from oil companies. Money from Chevron, from Exxon, and yes, even from BP.

$2.6 billion. That’s the amount of money Lungren voted to give Big Oil in tax breaks.

By Dan Bacher

The Eel River Prayer Ceremony and Summit, a historic 2-day event was held on the banks of the Eel River near Willits, California on July 17-18.

“We will not sit idly by," was the central message of the event, hosted by the Round Valley Tribes of Covelo and Friends of the Eel River (FOER), which drew concerned Eel River supporters from San Francisco to the Oregon border, including biologists, hydrologists, fishermen and leading environmental groups. It was the first time in 100 years, since traditional spiritual ceremonies were banned among tribal governments, where members of the Round Valley Tribes of Covelo; and their spiritual leaders and tribal dancers, guided a sacred prayer ceremony for the relief of the long-suffering Eel River.

By Dan Bacher

The environmental review process has begun for the South Coast Study Region Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) developed under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fast-track Marine Life Protection (MLPA) Initiative, a privatized process overseen by an oil industry lobbyist who has praised the industry's "safety record" as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil gusher continues to devastate marine life and fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico.

On June 29, the California Fish and Game Commission and Department of Fish and Game (DFG) together issued a Notice of Preparation (NOP) for the project, according to a DFG news release. This initiates the “scoping phase,” during which interested members of the public are invited to help identify the range of issues and type of information to be considered in the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), that will be prepared in the coming months.

Scott Morrison
The Nature Conservancy

Back when the line was drawn to separate California from Baja California, I bet few imagined how significant that border would become for wildlife. Today, the contrasts in conservation status across the U.S. – Mexico border are pretty stark.

North of the border is an extensive – albeit incomplete—network of public and private conservation lands that offers some protection for an extraordinary diversity of coastal, montane and desert species. South of the border there are only a few, isolated protected areas.

But unlike on the more intensively developed California side, there are still vast regions of northwest Baja California that are remarkably intact. The Sierra Juarez mountain range, for example, just south of San Diego County, is one of the few true wilderness areas remaining in the globally imperiled mediterranean biome of North America.