11 March 2008
- United States — Greenpeace, the Center
for Biological Diversity and the NRDC have
filed a lawsuit against the Bush Administration
for missing its legal deadline to issue
a final decision on whether the polar bear
should be listed as a threatened species
under the Endangered Species Act due to
global warming.
The lawsuit seeks a
court order to compel the administration
to issue the final decision immediately.
Greenpeace activists returned to the US
Department of Interior yesterday, designating
the building as a ‘critical habitat for
oil lobbyists’.
Highlighting the repeated
delays and deception with the listing process,
the Department of Interior has used the
time to press ahead with plans to lease
29 million acres of prime polar bear habitat
for oil drilling.
A fifth of the remaining
Arctic polar bears depend on Chukchi Sea
ice in their hunt for food, yet new oil
leases are opening up in the area and oil
companies are lining up to obtain licences
to drill.
Bear essentials
Rising Arctic temperatures
are reducing both the extent and duration
of the sea ice, forcing polar bears to spend
more time on land away from vital food supplies.
The disappearing ice is particularly hard
on breeding females, who must feed both
themselves and their cubs.
In some areas, polar
bear birth rates have dropped by up to 15%
in the last decade.
Some climate models
predict that the Arctic could be completely
ice-free in summer by 2030. While, the US
Geological Survey issued a report in September
2007 warning that, if current global warming
projections continue, two-thirds of the
world’s polar bears will likely be extinct
by 2050.
Drilling for oil in
the Chukchi Sea will also subject polar
bears to the threat of oil spills and other
industrial disturbances. But, it doesn’t
stop there – once the oil is burned, it
will exacerbate global warming, and that
in turn will accelerate the melting of the
Arctic sea ice.
Bear facts
With grim statistics
and timelines like this, it’s hard to understand
why polar bears aren’t already being protected.
Being listed as a “threatened” species under
the US’ Endangered Species Act (ESA) will
ensure that any action carried out, authorised
or funded by the United States government
does not jeopardise polar bears’ continued
existence or adversely modify their critical
habitat.
So, forming a coalition
with the Centre for Biological Diversity
and the Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC), we initiated the ESA process for
the polar bear back in February 2005, calling
for it to be listed under the Act due to
global warming. It was time to throw the
polar bears a desperately needed lifeline.
Under the ESA, a listing
process of no longer than two years must
be followed. Together with the Center for
Biological Diversity and the NRDC, we sued
the Bush Administration in December 2005
when it missed the first deadline in this
process. In February 2006, in response to
our lawsuit, the US Fish and Wildlife Service
announced that the protection of polar bears
“may be warranted,” and began a full review.
A settlement agreement
in the case committed the Service to make
the second of three required findings in
the listing process by December 2007. At
this time, the Service announced its proposal
to list the species as threatened and had
one year to make the final listing decision.
To date, the US government
has received more than 670,000 messages
in support of protecting the polar bear,
including letters from eminent polar bear
experts, climate scientists and US Congress
members – a record number of comments in
support of an Endangered Species Act listing.
The legal deadline to
make the final decision to list the polar
bear was January 9, 2008. It is now two
months overdue. That’s why we’re going back
to the courtroom. There’s no more time for
delay – the US must list the polar bear
as a threatened species and take those steps
to ensure that it is fully protected.
The US needs to act
now – cancelling oil-drilling leases in
the Chukchi Sea and immediately implementing
plans for deep cuts in US global warming
pollution.
