T H I S I S S U E W E N T T O P R E S S B E F O R E E L E C T I O N D AY
WINTER 2019
’ NATURE SVOICE
IN THIS ISSUE
GIRAFFES © SHERROD PHOTO
For the 3 million Members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council
Forward on Climate Action, Despite Trump NRDC Challenges Sham Permit Process for Mine Trump’s “Wildlife Conservation” Council Shoots to Kill 10 Environmental Victories, Thanks to You!
NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.
Victory
KEYSTONE XL BATTLE HEATS UP
NRDC won round one in an ongoing legal fight over the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline when a federal court found the Trump Administration had violated the law by trying to fast-track review of the pipeline’s new route through Nebraska. It ordered the government to go back and conduct a proper environmental review. The administration then crashed through a rubber-stamp review in a head-spinning 36 days, concluding that the pipeline would cause no significant damage. NRDC is continuing to fight the pipeline in both federal and state courts.
Victory
VAQUITAS WIN AGAIN IN COURT
The U.S. Court of International Trade has extended a desperately needed lifeline to critically endangered vaquitas, ordering the Trump Administration to ban seafood imports from the vaquita’s range in Mexico caught with gillnets—fishing gear that often kills the tiny porpoises. Siding with NRDC and partners, the court rejected the administration’s attempt to narrow an earlier order on gillnet fishing. As few as 15 vaquitas remain in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California, down from 200 in 2010. Nearly half the population dies in gillnets every year.
Victory
COURT STOPS GRIZZLY HUNT
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump Administration acted illegally when it stripped Yellowstone grizzly bears of their Endangered Species Act protections in 2017. The court’s decision reinstates federal protections for grizzlies in the Yellowstone region and foils plans to allow grizzly hunts in Wyoming and Idaho. Yellowstone’s grizzlies have started to recover under federal protections but still face many threats, including climate change and isolation from other grizzlies. NRDC has opposed the bears’ premature delisting and the state’s plans to allow them to be hunted for sport.
C OV E R A RT I C L E
FORWARD ON CLIMATE ACTION, DESPITE TRUMP W hile President Trump continued his reckless assault on environmental protection in Washington, D.C., climate leaders from around the world made history in San Francisco this fall. Thousands of delegates to the Global Climate Action Summit—representing cities, states, tribes, nations and businesses and advised by groups like NRDC—announced more than 500 new commitments to reduce climate-destroying pollution. Instead of casting a pall over the proceedings, Trump’s subservience to Big Oil and Big Coal served to inspire bolder action in defense of the planet. The message to Trump was clear: We’re getting this done without you. The summit, coming at a critical midpoint between the signing of the Paris climate accord and the next major goal-setting milestone set for 2020, reflected a global movement undeterred by Trump’s propolluter policies. California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, raised the bar internationally with a
groundbreaking law that commits the state to 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. New Jersey revealed plans for the single biggest state solicitation of offshore wind capacity to date. Other American state and local leaders announced major investments in renewable energy as well as new standards to limit intensely climate-polluting hydro fluorocarbon gases (HFCs), used in air-conditioning and refrigeration. Los Angeles, Mexico City and other metropolises representing a total of 450 million people pledged to go carbon neutral by 2050. Six states in India launched plans to help protect people from heat waves, and new resources were dedicated to mitigating the effects of climate change on our oceans. Business came up big, too. Companies including IKEA and Sony announced new carbon-cutting commitments, and an investor group representing $32 trillion in assets launched an agenda to accelerate climate investments. This post-Paris progress on climate comes at a
pivotal moment. President Trump is pushing a dirty rewrite of the Clean Power Plan and attacking clean car standards—just as the latest United Nations report warns that we can prevent runaway climate disaster only by taking “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented action.” “Despite Trump’s efforts to torpedo this ship, we’re moving forward, and we won’t be turned around,” says NRDC President Rhea Suh.
Peoples Climate March in San Francisco
S P E C I A L R E P O RT
The environmental campaigns and victories featured in Nature’s Voice are all made possible through your generous support. You can help NRDC defend the environment by making a special contribution. NRDC.ORG/GIVE
NRDC Challenges Sham Permit Process for Mine Tens of thousands of Members have joined NRDC in demanding that the Trump Administration call off its rubber-stamp approval process for the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska. The public outcry follows on the heels of the administration’s outrageous decision to ignore the overwhelming opposition of local Native and fishing groups to the colossal open-pit copper and gold mine as well as the scientific findings that led President Obama’s EPA to propose tough restrictions effectively blocking such mines in Bristol Bay. The EPA cited the “catastrophic” risks a mega-mine would pose to the region’s world-class runs of wild salmon. In contrast, the Trump Administration paved the way
for Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals to submit a permit application that NRDC Western Director Joel Reynolds describes as “grossly deficient” and has fast-tracked the application for review—with a target approval deadline that is, tellingly, before the next presidential election. “Northern Dynasty’s permit application is preposterous, entirely lacking a credible plan to keep billions of tons of contaminated mining waste from destroying Bristol Bay’s salmon runs, among other serious risks,” says Reynolds. “If the Trump Administration refuses to heed the growing public outcry against its sham permit process, we’ll see them in court.”
CLIMATE MARCH © ROBERT ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/NRDC; BRISTOL BAY © COPYRIGHT ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2018
G O O D N EWS
CA M PA I G N U P DAT E
TRUMP’S “WILDLIFE CONSERVATION” COUNCIL SHOOTS TO KILL T “The council is a sham, and it’s illegal.
That’s why we’re suing to shut it down.”
easier to bring those animals’ heads, hides, tusks and other body parts back to the United States,” says Zak Smith, director of NRDC’s Wildlife Trade Initiative. “The council is a sham, and it’s illegal. That’s why we’re suing to shut it down.” Fifteen of the council’s 17 members are trophy hunters, and the majority have ties to either the National Rifle Association or the trophy hunting group Safari Club International—both of which have sued past administrations to expand the list of countries from which hunting trophies can legally be imported. One council member, Chris Hudson, was president of the Dallas chapter of the Safari Club in 2014 when the group sparked an enormous
public backlash after it auctioned off a permit for $350,000 to kill a critically endangered black rhino in Namibia. Another member, Cameron Hanes, has posted on social media, “It is because of hunters that our wildlife thrives,” advancing the much-disputed theory that the five- and six-figure hunting fees paid by wealthy Americans help to conserve the very animals they seek to kill. No fewer than four council members served as official hosts for the inaugural-related “Camouflage & Cufflinks” gala, yet Zinke failed to appoint a single wildlife scientist or other conservation expert. Among the animals that often rank high on trophy hunters’ wish lists are African species that are
already facing extreme pressure from poaching, habitat destruction and other threats. An explosion in the international market for ivory, for example, spawned a crisis of elephant poaching over the past two decades, while rising global demand for giraffe body parts such as hides and hunting trophies has helped drive the decline in the animal’s population by 40 percent over the past 30 years. “For animals already at high risk of extinction in the wild, we should be reducing stressors, not adding stressors like trophy hunting,” says Smith. Indeed, NRDC has been at the forefront of the fight to protect vulnerable species in Africa and elsewhere from the threats posed by wildlife trafficking. We’ve advocated at international forums such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to prevent any weakening of the global ban on the trade in rhino horn and to bolster protections for other imperiled wildlife. In 2016, we successfully prevailed on President Obama to enact a near-total ban on the U.S. ivory trade, and we won similar bans to shut down the trade at the state level in California, New York and Hawaii, the top three ivory markets in the country. And we’re poised to sue the Trump Administration over its failure to respond to our petition to add giraffes to the federal endangered species list. “Even as we press forward to fight for much[Continued on next page.]
ELEPHANTS © DAVID CLODE; GIRAFFES © SHERROD PHOTO; LION © ANDREW DEER
here’s little doubt that when America’s trophy-hunting elite gathered in Washington, D.C., for a “Camouflage & Cufflinks”– themed bash in January 2017, they were in a celebratory mood. True, the newly inaugurated president whom they were there to honor, Donald Trump, isn’t an enthusiastic hunter himself, but his sons Donald Jr. and Eric are. In fact, the brothers were named honorary co-chairs of the post-inaugural event, and an early version of the gala’s invitation promised that, for a contribution of $500,000 or more, guests not only could have their picture taken with President Trump but could opt for a multiday hunting excursion with one or both of the sons as well. The offer was dropped after the invite was leaked to the press and a public outcry ensued. Nevertheless, the event heralded a new era of insider access, enabling the trophy hunting lobby to advance its extreme agenda at the expense of some of the world’s most iconic—and increasingly imperiled—wild animals. Before the end of the year, Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, who as a congressman had himself received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the trophy hunting industry, established the so-called International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC). If the PRsavvy name seemed to imply a legitimate cross-section of qualified experts chosen to advise the Trump Administration on scientifically sound conservation policy, the reality was anything but. The federal law that governs the establishment of such advisory groups requires that they be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented” and not “inappropriately influenced by . . . any special interest.” In blatant defiance of the law, Zinke stacked the council almost exclusively with representatives of the trophy hunting and firearms industries. “Almost everyone appointed by Zinke to the council has a vested interest in making it easier to hunt and kill threatened and endangered species, such as elephants, giraffes and lions, and to make it
needed protections for wildlife like giraffes, we must stay vigilant and defend the protections we’ve already won,” says Smith. NRDC is currently in court in both New York and California, fighting attempts by special interests to repeal the landmark bans on the ivory trade in those states. After the Trump Administration tried to quietly weaken protections for elephants and lions in late 2017 by allowing U.S. hunters to begin importing trophies of those animals from Zimbabwe, NRDC raised a public outcry. The administration beat a hasty retreat, only to put a stealth process in place that allows the import of trophies on a case-bycase basis—and it appears all too likely the IWCC will be weighing in on some of those decisions. The potential for such behind-the-scenes influence is one reason why NRDC is challenging the Trump Administration’s illegal establishment of a trophy hunting council masquerading as a conservation group. “Africa’s extraordinary wildlife faces enough threats without the U.S. government providing the cover of credibility to trophy hunters peddling the self-serving notion that killing endangered species helps conserve them,” says Smith. “If we have to battle in federal court to get our government to consult real wildlife conservation experts, we’re happy to do so.”
TAKE ACTION
nrdc.org/trophyhunting
CLOSING IN ON A BAN
A court ordered Trump’s EPA to finalize a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which can harm the developing brains of children. An appeal is pending.
Your Membership Support of NRDC Made a World of Difference in 2018!
Thanks to your generous donations, here are some of the landmark environmental victories we won, in and out of court, over the past year.
Please help us win even more victories in 2018 by making a tax-deductible contribution at NRDC.ORG/VICTORIES
MASSIVE COAL GRAB FOILED
MONSANTO FALLS IN COURT
CONSUMERS TO SAVE BILLIONS
FUEL STANDARDS WITH TEETH
ROUND-ONE WIN OVER KXL
CA MAKES CLIMATE HISTORY
A MARINE MONUMENT SAVED
PRUITT FORCED OUT AT EPA
PEBBLE MINE TAKES A HIT
Our lawsuit blocked the Interior Department’s climatewrecking plan to offer up 80 billion tons of coal for leasing on public lands in Montana and Wyoming.
Carmakers who disregard climate-saving fuel economy standards will face stiff penalties, thanks to an NRDC-led court victory over Trump’s Department of Transportation.
NRDC obtained a court decision upholding the designation of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, a national marine monument under attack by the fishing industry.
A California court rejected Monsanto’s latest effort to remove glyphosate, used in its Roundup weed killer, from the state’s public list of cancer-causing chemicals.
Our lawsuit forced the Trump Administration to conduct a new review of the tar sands pipeline’s route. The fight continues on multiple legal fronts.
NRDC led the charge to oust the scandal-plagued, antienvironment EPA chief, rallying citizens in a massive Fire Pruitt! campaign that helped prompt his resignation.
After NRDC sued, a court ordered Trump’s Energy Department to publish four illegally delayed energy efficiency standards that will save consumers $8 billion—pending appeal.
It’s the law: California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, guided by decades of NRDC climate advocacy, committed to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045.
Under intense pressure from NRDC and local groups, a major potential investor in Alaska’s Pebble Mine abandoned its plan to back the disastrous project.
HANDS/FRUIT © ISTOCK; LANDSCAPE © PAT & CHUCK BL ACKLEY/ALAMY; ROUNDUP © LUKE SHARRET T/BLOOMBERG VIA GET T Y IMAGES; AIR CONDITIONER © ISTOCK; CARS © TRAMINO; KXL PROTESTER © MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/WASHINGTON POST VIA GET T Y IMAGES; GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE © KYLE GLENN; ANEMONE © COURTESY OF NOAA OKEANOS EXPLORER PROGRAM, 2013 NORTHEAST U.S. CANYONS EXPEDITION; PRUIT T © GAGE SKIDMORE; GRIZZLY BEAR © BLICKWINKEL/AL AMY
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The global fight to save the world’s struggling whale populations got a tremendous boost in September at the biennial meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which convened in Florianopolis, Brazil. “In terms of articulating and advancing a strong, forwardlooking conservation agenda for whales, this was hands-down the best IWC meeting since I started attending a decade ago, and arguably the best in a generation,” says Taryn Kiekow Heimer, deputy director of NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project and the sole representative from a nongovernmental organization to be part of the official U.S. delegation.
Formed in 1946 to set international whaling quotas in response to decades of overhunting, the IWC ultimately imposed a full-fledged moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, which remains in effect. Yet the commission has long been buffeted by the outsize influence of a minority bloc of nations that want the moratorium lifted, led by Japan, which continues to flout the ban by conducting whale hunts under the guise of “scientific research.” At this year’s IWC meeting, Japan mounted its most aggressive effort to date to lift the moratorium and usher in a return of legal commercial whaling, only to see its bid voted
down by an overwhelming majority of member nations. Instead—and by an equally impressive margin—the commission voted to adopt a declaration asserting the IWC’s responsibility to ensure the recovery of the world’s whale populations to preindustrial levels, specifically reaffirming the importance of the mora torium while condemning any lethal “research” methods. What’s more, the commission adopted several other landmark resolutions aimed at addressing key threats to whale survival. Those threats include lost or discarded fishing gear in which whales can become entangled and extreme underwater noise generated by human activity— from oil and gas exploration to deafening sonar—which can cause permanent injury to whales and even kill them. “There remains a great divide in the commission between the pro-conservation majority and the minority of pro-whaling nations,” says Kiekow Heimer. “Increasingly, though, the relatively few countries like Japan that want to legalize commercial whaling are finding themselves out of step with the rest of the world.”
While EPA Stalls, the World Moves to Save Bees By Dan Raichel, staff attorney, NRDC Pollinator Initiative
So here’s an all too familiar story: As the rest of the world moves to address a global environmental crisis, the Trump EPA does . . . nothing. That’s exactly what happened in August when, after Europe and Canada moved to significantly restrict use of bee-toxic neonics, the EPA quietly pushed back its timetable for a decision on its own review of the pesticides. As many know, bees and other pollinators are in trouble—with honeybee populations tumbling for more than a decade and wild pollinators, like monarch butterflies and the rusty patched bumblebee, flirting with extinction. And that’s bad news not just for pollinators but for our food security, economic production in rural communities and the
survival of native plants and wildflowers across the country that depend on our more than 4,000 species of wild bees. While many factors contribute to the current crisis, the growing scientific consensus points toward a long-suspected culprit— neonic pesticides. Neonics, which are among the insecticides most toxic to bees and other insects, are also the most widely used. And because they can remain in the environment for years, they can continue to harm or kill beneficial insects long after they’ve been applied. By now, much of the world has caught on—with Europe recognizing the clear risks to bees and aquatic insects, and Canada likewise finding that many neonic uses endanger
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pollinators. In the spring, Europe voted to ban outdoor uses of the three major neonics. Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency has recommended a similar course of action. EPA’s latest delay of its own neonic review decisions is unacceptable. The decisions—which could provide lifesaving protections for pollinators—were originally slated to be completed this year but have been pushed back until at least 2019. With more pollinators dying every day and the science on neonics’ environmental harms already clear, the time for waiting is over. NRDC will continue fighting in court, building legal pressure on the Trump Administration to rein in beekilling neonics.
DAN RAICHEL © REBECCA GREENFIELD FOR NRDC; SPRUCE © ROBERT L. POTTS/BRAND B; SNOWY OWL © STEVE BLOOM IMAGES/ALAMY; MINKE WHALE © JURGEN FREUND/ALAMY
Countries Rally to Protect Whales and Uphold Commercial Whaling Ban
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