After an unnecessarily long legal battle, the NRDC, Greenpeace, and the Center for Biological Diversity finally won some protection for the polar bear. Now listed as a federally "threatened" species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the new classification forces the current administration to recognize the negative impacts of global warming.
We, or better yet, I can only speculate as to why the administration is choosing to fight against protecting the polar bear. Perhaps it's to prevent any hindrance to drilling in Alaska's protected habitats, or maybe the administration is afraid that counting the polar bear as endangered would mean *gasp* enacting some sort of stringent legislation that could reduce global warming pollution.
Take a minute to read the press release below and if you haven't already, urge your Senator to support a strengthened Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.
Environmental Groups Win Protection for Polar Bear
Faced with Scientific Evidence on Global Warming, Court Order, and Public Pressure, Government Grants Polar Bear Endangered Species Act Listing Due to Global Warming
WASHINGTON (May 14, 2008) – Following a three-year legal battle to protect the polar bear from extinction due to global warming, three environmental groups won protection for the species with the announcement today that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is listing the polar bear as a federally "threatened" species.
The decision was issued in response to a 2005 scientific petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and was required by a Court order in a lawsuit brought by the groups to end the administration's delay in issuing a final Endangered Species Act listing decision.
While the polar bear listing is one of the administration's clearest acknowledgments to date of the urgent threat posed by global warming, the administration is simultaneously attempting to reduce the protections the bear will receive under the Endangered Species Act. It claims in the listing decision that federal agencies need not consider the impact of global warming pollution on the polar bear, and has also proposed a separate regulation reducing the protections the polar bear would otherwise receive.
"This decision is a watershed event because it has forced the Bush administration to acknowledge global warming's brutal impacts," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, and lead author of the 2005 petition. "It's not too late to save the polar bear, and we'll keep fighting to ensure that the polar bear gets the help it needs through the full protections of the Endangered Species Act. The administration's attempts to reduce protection to the polar bear from greenhouse gas emissions are illegal and won't hold up in court."
Polar bears live only in the Arctic and are totally dependent on the sea ice for all of their essential needs. Global warming is an overwhelming threat to the polar bear, already suffering starvation, drowning, and population declines as the sea ice melts away.
"The polar bear is already on thin ice. Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is a major step forward, but the Bush Administration has proposed using loopholes in the law to allow the greatest threat to the polar bear--global warming pollution--to continue unabated," said Andrew Wetzler, Director of the Endangered Species Project at NRDC. "If the key threats to the polar bear are not addressed soon, zoos will be the only place our grandchildren will be able to see a polar bear."
"The administration's inclusion of this language exempts the impact of global warming on the polar bear and would gut any protections the ruling would have provided," said Melanie Duchin, global warming campaigner for Greenpeace USA in Alaska. "Global warming threatens polar bears with extinction, so to exempt global warming pollution from the formula for protecting the species violates the spirit and intent of the ESA."
Each step in the listing process has required legal action to enforce the Endangered Species Act's deadlines for protecting species. The three groups first sued the Bush administration in December 2005, because the government had ignored their petition to protect the polar bear. As a result of that lawsuit, in February 2006, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that protection of polar bears "may be warranted," and commenced a full status review of the species. A settlement agreement in the case committed the Service to make the second of three required findings by December 27, 2007, at which time the administration announced the proposal to list the species as "threatened." By law, the administration was required to make today's final listing decision within one year of the proposal, or January 9, 2008. When the administration failed to comply with that deadline, the groups filed suit on March 10, 2008, to end the delay. On April 28, the District Court issued an order requiring the administration to issue a decision by May 15.
Scientists predicted and have now documented the grim impacts to polar bears as the Arctic warms rapidly. Shrinking sea ice drastically restricts polar bears' ability to hunt their main prey, ice seals. In the spring of 2006, scientists located the bodies of several bears that had starved to death. Reduced food availability due to global warming has also caused polar bears to resort to cannibalism off the north coast of Alaska and Canada. In September, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that, based on polar bear distribution and current global warming projections, two-thirds of the world's polar bear population would likely be extinct by 2050, including all polar bears within the United States.
The Arctic melt is also outpacing predictions. September 2007 shattered all previous records for sea ice loss when the Arctic ice cap shrank a record one million square miles - an equivalent of six times the size of California - below the average summer sea ice extent of the past several decades, reaching levels not predicted to occur until mid-century. Scientists already predict this year's sea ice minimum could shatter the record previously set in 2007. Several leading scientists now predict the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer by 2012.
Listing the polar bear guarantees federal agencies will be obligated to ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize the polar bears' continued existence or adversely modify their critical habitat, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be required to prepare a recovery plan for the polar bear, specifying measures necessary for its protection.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.
