Good News! Rancher

Wins Against Environists!

 

The court ordered an environist group to pay $600,000 to an Arizona rancher!

 

In January, a Tucson jury found the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), a well-known radical environist group, guilty of making “false, unfair, libelous and defamatory statements” against Jim Chilton, a fifth generation southern Arizona rancher. The jury awarded Chilton $100,000 in actual damages and $500,000 in punitive damages for the defamation he and his family business suffered because of a two-page press release and 21 photographs posted on the Center’s website in July 2002. The release and photos, regarding Chilton’s 21,500-acre grazing allotment northwest of Nogales, were deemed to be false and misleading

“This case is more about the truth than about money,” said Chilton. “After all expenses have been covered, I am going to donate all the remaining money to the Arizona Cattle Growers Association to be used for the truth and responsibility for cattle grazing issues.”

The suit was filed, according to Chilton, because he wanted to challenge the way the CBC does business. “They don’t use science, they use scare tactics,” said Chilton. “They also use endangered species as surrogates to obtain their own goals and to raise money.”

The jury agreed with Chilton’s claim that the Center made false statements in a news advisory and used misleading photographs in an unsuccessful effort to block renewal of Chilton’s grazing permit. The jury also cited that the Center did not accurately describe the condition of the grazing allotment.

“It’s not very common for a rancher to sue an environmental group. But in this case, they attacked my client personally and misstated the facts,” said Kraig Marton, Chilton’s attorney.

The lawsuit named not only the CBD but also some of its current and former employees: Martin Taylor, author of the release; Shane Jimerfield, the Web site designer who posted it; A.J. Schneller, who was responsible for some photos and captions, and Kieran Suckling, the Executive Director of the Center who, Marton says, set the tone for making the false statements. According to last year’s annual statement, the CBD has an annual budget of $2.9 million, and assets of $2.4 million.

(Resource Roundup appreciates Mr. Chilton taking the time and money to challenge CBD. We hope that anyone who has a chance of winning in court against groups like this will go for it. For more information about the lawsuit, contact Kraig Marton at 602-570-3510.) 

 

More Good News! Klamath River

Salmon Protections Ruled Illegal!

 

Klamath farmers and businesses were driven to bankruptcy by a fish that even the court now agrees should never have been put on the Endangered Species list.

 

In January, federal Judge Michael Hogan ruled that coho salmon in the Klamath River Basin region have been illegally listed as a ‘threatened species’ under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). According to the ruling, the federal government violated the ESA when it failed to consider hatchery fish in its assessment of coho in southern Oregon and northern California rivers.

ESA protection of coho in the Klamath River was a significant factor in the government’s devastating decision to shut off irrigation water to Klamath Basin farmers in the spring of 2001. “This victory came too late for the farmers who where pushed into bankruptcy and the businesses that were forced to close to protect fish that were never endangered,” said Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) attorney Russ Brooks. “Our rivers and streams are teeming with salmon, yet the Klamath community was practically destroyed because of environmental politics run amok... If NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) does not accept the reality that the ESA does not distinguish between wild and hatchery fish before it issues its new hatchery policy, we will wind up back in court,” he added.

The case, Grange v. National Marine Fisheries Service, had been stayed by Judge Hogan pending environists’ now-failed attempt to appeal PLF’s landmark victory in Alsea Valley Alliance v. Evans (2001). In that case, Judge Hogan held that the government had illegally listed coho along the Oregon coast as ‘threatened’ when it excluded hatchery coho from fish counts. In January’s ruling, the judge left the illegal listing in place while the agency completes the review of west coast salmon listings, which it agreed to undertake as a result of its loss in Alsea. In June, 2004, NOAA proposed a new hatchery policy, but simultaneously announced that it would result in the relisting -- not delisting -- of west coast salmon and steelhead populations.

Judge Hogan indicated that if a federal agency took a specific enforcement action on behalf of the illegal listing which caused harm, those harmed could go to court and ask to have the federal action stopped. “As long as the federal government complies with the ruling that the listing is illegal, there won’t be a problem. But if they try to cut off the water again or take some other similar action, we’ll be back in court,” Brooks said. In addition, if NOAA enacts its proposed policy (scheduled to be published in June, 2005) and continues to distinguish between hatchery and naturally spawned fish, PLF plans to file ‘a sweeping lawsuit challenging all 26 salmon listings.’

 

Pacific Legal Foundation, Bellevue, Washington, is a leader in efforts to reform the ESA and raise awareness of the Act’s impact on people. For more information, visit www.pacificlegal.org. 

 

Greenpeace Goes Red

 

Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, had some not-so-kind words for his former colleagues during an interview with Roger Bate of Techcentralstation.com. Moore told Bate the organization he helped found in 1971 strayed from its mission of a science-based organization to one that now promotes a plainly left-wing philosophy. He left the organization in 1986 because “it [Greenpeace] lost its science and logic and became driven by something else: an anti-corporate, anti-globalist agenda.”

Moore says the shift started in the 1980’s and culminated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 when “an influx of peace activists and Marxist ideologues into the green movement destroyed the remnants of a science-based agenda.” They are consumed with “maintaining problems” so their “solutions” can further a “leftist political agenda.” Bate writes that “Dr. Moore’s allegation that the greens have run away from science is reinforced in nearly every single green campaign today.”

(Source: www.libertymatters.org) 

Cattle Grazing Harmless to Environment

 

A study by a University of Nevada research team has concluded livestock grazing does not harm the environment. The scientists studied ungrazed enclosures that had been in place since the Taylor Grazing Act was established in 1934 and compared them to outside areas grazed by cattle and sheep. The study, which was conducted from 2001 to 2002, determined there were few differences between the two areas.

That bit of news may give cattle-haters heartburn. “Advocates for the removal of livestock often do not provide scientific evidence of long-term damage from properly managed livestock grazing,” said Barry Perryman, assistant professor of animal biotechnology at the University of Nevada, Reno. “On the other hand, livestock grazing supporters have little documented evidence of grazing having any beneficial effect on the land.”

Perryman explained that while there are few major differences between grazed and ungrazed rangelands, the enclosed areas contained more cheatgrass, a very undesirable and highly flammable, invasive weed. The study may provide substantial help to ranchers who have a legal right to graze livestock. “From an ecological standpoint, we can argue if we remove the grazing infrastructure from public rangelands, we would see some adverse consequences,” Perryman continued. “We’d see less variety and too much ground cover... as well as more cheatgrass and the potential for more range fires.”

(Source: www.libertymatters.org)

 

We Already Knew It:

Wood is Good!

 

A study prepared by the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, a non-profit group of 15 research universities, has concluded that wood is a more environmentally-sound building material than either steel or concrete. The $1 million study revealed that a typical wood frame house in cold Minnesota uses 17% less energy than steel construction and 16% less energy than a concrete structure. In steamy Atlanta, researchers found that a concrete house used 16% more energy and caused 31% more global warming potential than did a similar wood building. Further, for those concerned about global warming, the study indicates “[T]he growth of wood in renewable forests works to ‘sequester’ and remove carbon from the atmosphere, and fewer carbon emissions are created in the processing needed to produce wood products than their steel and concrete counterparts.”

(Source: www.libertymatters.org)