Logging & grazing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

SAN FRANCISCO––The 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals just before Christmas lifted injunction
it imposed in July aganst logging on 13 National
Forest tracts in northern Arizona and three in New
Mexico, and allowed grazing to resume on 715 leaseholds
that Forest Guardians and the Southwest Center
for Biodiversity alleged were illegally administrated.
Forest Guardians and the Southwest Center
for Biodiversity argued that the logging and grazing
could harm endangered, threatened, and otherwise
protected species, including the Mexican spotted owl
and northern goshawk. The July injunction had temporarily
voided 177 of the 202 grazing leases in the
Coronado National Forest. But it didn’t end the issue:
as the 9th Circuit verdict was imminent, Forest
Guardians on December 12 filed another suit, seeking
to remove about 10,000 cattle from National Forests
alongside four rivers in Arizona and three rivers in
New Mexico, on grounds they may harm 18 endangered
species.

That was the third in an overlapping series of
cases. Trying to forestall such serial litigation,
Wilderness Society board member John Wilkinson
shocked colleagues by arguing in an October brief
concerning the case adjudicated before Christmas that
any group in a coalition bringing a suit should be
removed from the case if any other group in the coalition
had ever brought a related suit. This could have
ended the series right then, since Forest Guardians had
previously filed a suit pertaining to logging in the La
Manga National Forest, also involved in the case that
Wilkinson specifically addressed.
Wilkinson claimed the interuption of logging
hurt poor Hispanic workers, arguing that national
environmental groups should be more sensitive to the
needs and feelings of minorities.
However, a study published that week by
faculty of the University of Michigan School of
Natural Resources and Environment found that minorities
are no less concerned about endangered species
than Caucasians, and are no less concerned about oil
spills, another issue pitting resource use against
wildlife. Afro-Americans seemed most environmentally
conscious, among the 793 Detroit-area residents
surveyed: 80% said air pollution is a serious problem
and 78% cited pollution of drinking water, compared
respectively with only 64% and 54% of Caucasians.