Southern California Mega-development Next to Biodiversity Hotspot is Defeated

by the Center for Biological Diversity

The San Jacinto Valley is a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot that is host to more than 300 resident and migratory birds, including the California gnatcatcher shown above.

RIVERSIDE, Calif.— The Riverside County Superior Court has issued a final decision rejecting the “Villages of Lakeview” development next to the San Jacinto Wildlife Area in rural Riverside County. The massive development of 11,350 residential units and 500,000 square feet of commercial space would have congested roads, worsened the region’s air quality and generated more than 175,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

“The county should never have approved a new city next to one of California’s most important birding areas,” said Jonathan Evans, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Luring tens of thousands of residents to the edge of the environmentally sensitive San Jacinto Wildlife Area was a reckless idea that was properly thrown out by the court.”

The project posed a grave threat to imperiled wildlife on the project site and in the adjacent San Jacinto Wildlife Area. The San Jacinto Valley is a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot that is host to more than 300 resident and migratory birds, including burrowing owls, California gnatcatchers and yellow-billed cuckoos.

Tags: environment, nature, research, science, transportation, water

Animals left for dead in Indonesian zoos

Neglected, cramped, and now fatally ill-kept – the animals in these zoos are dying.

From The Independent (UK)

In a remote corner of Jakarta’s Ragunan Zoo, a Malayan sun bear is pacing back and forth, shaking its head in an agitated manner. There is no shade or shelter in the tiny, dilapidated enclosure – just a stagnant pond full of rubbish. The bear, which is riddled with mange, rears up against a concrete wall and howls.

It’s a scene that is not uncommon in Indonesia, where zoos have come under scrutiny following the death of a giraffe in Surabaya, East Java – later found to have a 40-pound wad of plastic in its stomach. In a country known for its rich biodiversity, many rare and threatened native creatures – such as the honey-eating sun bear – are kept in squalid and cramped conditions that appal animal welfare experts.

Across the country – particularly in zoos owned and run by municipal governments – listless and unhealthy animals are kept in ageing pens, looked after by keepers with no training and little interest in the job. Diet and veterinary care are poor. “The people managing our zoos only think about profit,” says Made Wedana, an internationally respected biologist who ran the primate centre at Ragunan Zoo for five years. “They don’t really care about animal welfare, or understand zoos.”

Click here to continue reading this article.

Tags: endangered species, animal liberation, indonesia, zoo, neglect

Washington/Idaho Megaload Resistance

At about 11:30 pm on Sunday night, May 20, a dozen activists from Occupy Spokane and Wild Idaho Rising Tide converged in Spokane, Washington, to protest megaloads of oversized equipment bound for Alberta tar sands operations from the Port of Pasco. ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil has been using Highway 395, Interstate 90, and city streets in Spokane and Spokane Valley since mid-October to transport road damaging shipments weighing up to 400,000 pounds and stretching over 200 feet long. Diverted in Idaho from
their originally intended Highway 12 route by court challenges and from their alternative Highway 95 path by Moscow area protests, these pieces of a tar sands/bitumen processing plant will expand Canadian carbon fuel extraction, American dependence on oil, and continental greenhouse gas emissions, while reaping hefty profits for one of the wealthiest corporations on Earth.

Tags: alberta tar sands, Climate Justice, deforeststion, ExxonMobil, idaho, megaload, spokane, Washington

North Carolina Pledges Action Against Fracking

On May 19th, roughly 200 people gathered in Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, to participate in a colorful march organized by Croatan Earth First! on Occupy Well Street’s Day of Action Against Extraction. Protesters marched through downtown with giant puppets, emulating earth spirits and elements, and arrived at the legislature where they plan to legalize fracking in the next coming months. After a talk about the importance of civil disobedience and direct action, hundreds of people recited a pledge of resistance outside the legislature promising to personally take action to stop hydraulic fracturing if it’s legalized. A sermon for the water was delivered as a coffin filled with water was presented to the legislature. A wide range of people and organizations participated in the march including Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Cumnock Preservation Association and Raleigh Occupy. Speeches were given by NC WARN, a representative of Red Hat, the Neuse Riverkeeper, W.A.L.L of Anson County, and Clean Water for North Carolina. Banners read, “No Jobs On A Dead Planet,” “Don’t Frack North Carolina – Earth First!,” and “We Can’t Drink Money.” Croatan Earth First! is planning to organize a direct action training camp in late summer to prepare if hydrofracking is legalized in the state.

For more photos and video see: www.croatanearthfirst.com

Tags: civil disobedience, fracking, North Carolina, protest, water health

Entrapment of Cleveland 5 and NATO 3 is “a pre-planned narrative”

Cross Posted from the Indypendent

The old trope of the bomb-throwing anarchist is back in the news, with a round-up in Ohio on May 1 and the three would-be NATO protesters arrested on Wednesday who are now charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism. While the impression that appears in the media is one of remnants of the Occupy movement verging toward violence, the driving forces behind these plots are the very agencies claiming to have foiled them.

The five activists arrested in Cleveland, Ohio, are facing multiple charges for conspiring and attempting to destroy the Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge on May Day to protest corporate rule. According to the FBI press statement released shortly after the May 1 arrests, FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen D. Anthony said “the individuals charged in this plot were intent on using violence to express their ideological views.” But that is only one side of the story. The mainstream media and blog reports, both nationally and in Cleveland, have emphasized that the young activists were part of Occupy Cleveland and self-identified anarchists (here, here, and here). The men — Douglas L. Wright, 26, of Indianapolis; Brandon L. Baxter, 20, of nearby Lakewood; Connor C. Stevens, 20, of suburban Berea; and Joshua S. Stafford, 23, and Anthony Hayne, 35, both of Cleveland — were arrested and remain in jail after they attempted to detonate a false bomb that they had set, in conjunction with the FBI.

It’s an old script: Violence-prone anarchists devise a nefarious plan and, just before they can carry it out, law enforcement swoops in to save the day, catching them red-handed. But there’s another script being acted out here too, one much more sinister, complex, and morally and legally dubious: Agents of the state infiltrate an activist group and, through techniques of psychological manipulation, lead its most vulnerable members into a violent plan — for which explosives, detonators, contacts and case mysteriously become available — until SWAT teams and prosecutors suddenly arrive and haul the accomplices off to jail for the rest of their lives.

ALEC Attacking Wind Next

Cross Posted from The League of Conservation Voters

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is an organization that writes voting-ready state legislation to hand to overextended politicians, giving them the chance to get bills passed quickly and efficiently.  Sounds like a friendly group, right?

Unless the organization was funded almost entirely by corporate special interests pushing laws that benefit their bottom line at the expense of the public interest.  ALEC’s legislation is corporate protectionism at its worst – downsizing government, knocking down health, safety, and environmental regulations on corporations, and making corporations nearly untouchable to the average consumer.

Notable legislation prepared by ALEC and introduced by ALEC’s politician members have included tax breaks that would allow tobacco companies to make fruit flavored tobacco cheaper and more attractive to younger consumers, restrictions on health insurance coverage, and restrictions on lawsuits to make it harder for Americans to sue when injured by dangerous products.

Now ALEC has decided to attack state Renewable Energy Standards (RES), which require utilities to provide a certain percentage of energy from renewables. 

Forest Service Awards One of Largest-ever Timber Contracts to Agency Insiders

by the Center for Biological Diversity

Map of the Four Forests boundaries.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— The U.S. Forest Service awarded one of the largest-ever tree-cutting contracts in the history of the national forest system today to a timber company represented by a retired Forest Service official. While he was a federal employee, the official was the agency’s liaison to that same company’s timber-sale inquiries in the same region. The contract calls for timber harvesting on approximately 300,000 acres of ponderosa pine in northern Arizona as part of the Four Forests Restoration Initiative, a showcase forest restoration project for the Obama administration under what’s known as “the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act” and program.

Speaking of today’s contract award, Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has led the charge to reform logging in the Southwest, said, “The decision stinks of cronyism.”