Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Conservation Groups Challenge Federal Approval of Weak Montana Wildlife Protections
Conservation groups notified
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of their intent to bring a legal
challenge to federal approval of a forest development plan in Montana
that will likely harm grizzly bears and bull trout. Both species are
protected under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Friends of the Wild Swan, Montana Environmental Information Center, and
Natural Resources Defense Council, represented by Earthjustice, are
challenging a 50-year permit given to the State of Montana to log and
build roads on state forests lands in western Montana, activities that
the state admits would harm federally protected species. The groups say
that the permit fails to include essential protections for bull trout
and grizzly bears. The Endangered Species Act requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(USFWS) to ensure that its permit issuance to Montana’s Department
Natural Resource and Conservation “is not likely to jeopardize” listed
species’ survival. It restrains USFWS from approving a permit until
Montana demonstrates that it will mitigate the impacts of its harm to
the protected species. The permit given to Montana fails both of these
requirements...more
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