• U.S. Signs Firefighting Agreement with Mexico
  
• Mining Royalties to States Up $300 Million
  
• UPS Highlights Environmental Bottom Line
  
• Environmental Groups Brief Supreme Court in Florida Water Case
  
• Forest Service Sued for Forcing Grizzlies into Extinction Vortex
  
• California Family Safeguards Guatemala's Mirador Basin
  
• Redford Opens NRDC's Sustainable Showcase Office
  
• Mantis Shrimp Fluoresce to Signal One Another
  

U.S. Signs Firefighting Agreement with Mexico

The pact enables fire fighters and their equipment to cross the border and help fight wildfires in both countries up to 10 miles on each side of the border, and authorizes cooperation on other fire management activities outside the zone.

"The recent experience in Southern California reinforces the need to work together to manage fires," said Norton. In October, wildfires that spread from Los Angeles south to the Mexican border claimed 18 lives, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and blackened hundreds of thousands of acres.

This agreement first established in 1999, was renewed during the U.S.-Mexico Bi-national Commission meeting hosted by the U.S. Department of State.

"I am pleased this signing will result in further exchanges of resources and continued training," said Cardenas, "as well as the protection and preservation of species in critical habitats along the border."

This Wildfire Protection agreement was a topic of discussion for the Natural Resources Working Group that includes Interior, SEMARNAT, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Many of the activities of the Natural Resources Working Group are focused on the U.S.-Mexico border, where rapid industrialization and population growth have increased pressures on natural resources.

The U.S. and Mexico are strengthening their land management cooperation by continuing a training and small grants program called Wildlife Without Borders-Mexico. Since it began in 1994, the program has attempted to conserve over 60 species of international concern, 30 Mexican reserves, and has provided training for over 6,000 people.

As a direct result of an agreement signed at the last Bi-national Commission meeting held in Mexico City in November 2002, the National Park Service (NPS), and the National Commission on Natural and Protected areas (CONANP), have engaged in several joint training courses on inventory and monitoring techniques and invasive species management.

Secretaries Norton and Cardenas have asked the NPS and CONANP to finalize a proposal for a new sister park designation for 2004. Currently, the U.S. and Mexico have sister park arrangements in place for three areas:

• Big Bend National Park and Maderas Del Carmen Flora and Fauna Protection Area and Santa Elena Canyon Flora and Fauna Protection Area, Mexico.

• Organ Pipe National Monument and El Pinacate y Gran Desierto Biosphere Reserve and Alto Golfo de California y Delta del Rio Colorado Biosphere Reserve, Mexico.

• Chiracahua National Monument/Coronado National Memorial and Ajos-Bavispe National Forest Reserve and Wildlife Refuge, Mexico.

A sister park relationship normally consists of exchanges of technical information and, if practical, short term personnel exchanges. A formal written bilateral agreement is not usually required to initiate a sister park relationship, and how a sister park relationship is pursued largely depends on the resources available to the two parks to support it, according the the National Park Service.

Mining Royalties to States Up $300 Million

The $1.019 million distributed to states during the fiscal year that ended September 30 compares with Fiscal Year 2002 payments to states that totaled $716.3 million.

“These revenues are particularly important to many states today,” said MMS Director Johnnie Burton. In many cases, Burton said, states share their revenues with individual counties which apply that money to a variety of local needs ranging from school funding to infrastructure improvements.

In Fiscal Year 2003, the state of Wyoming led all states by receiving more than $467 million as its share of revenues collected from mineral production on federal lands within its borders, including oil, gas and coal production.

New Mexico was second with more than $297 million, while Colorado was third with $53.9 million. Other states sharing revenues included Utah with more than $50.6 million; Louisiana with $30.7 million; Montana at $25.5 million; California with more than $25.4 million; and Texas, which received more than $17 million.

The Minerals Management Service is the federal agency responsible for managing the nation’s oil, natural gas, and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf in federal offshore waters. It also collects, accounts for, and disburses mineral revenues from federal and American Indian lands. Those revenues totaled more than $6 billion in 2002 and nearly $128 billion since the agency was created in 1982.

Revenues collected by MMS from federal onshore and offshore leases are distributed to the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands; to the National Historic Preservation Fund and the Reclamation Fund; to individual states where the leases are located; to the U.S. Treasury; and to Indian Tribes and individual allottees.

Earlier this month the MMS ordered several oil and gas companies to pay about $2 million in additional oil and gas royalties to American Indian tribes and individual Indian mineral owners from production on their lands in 2001.

MMS uncovered the additional royalties as part of a routine government audit, called a compliance review, that examines royalty payments made by oil and gas companies drilling on Indian lands. When the amount paid by the companies differs with the MMS compliance review, the agency orders the companies to pay the difference.

During last year's compliance review, MMS found $1.6 million in additional royalties were due from oil and gas produced from Indian lands.

“We work very hard to assure that the oil and gas royalty payments we receive for Indian tribes and allottees are paid correctly,” said Lucy Querques Denett, MMS associate director for minerals revenue management. “We dedicate considerable resources and time in identifying royalty underpayments as quickly as possible.”

UPS Highlights Environmental Bottom Line

"Moving forward, the health of globalization - and its worldwide acceptance - will be conditioned on how well multinational business leaders address the economic, environmental and social implications of their actions," said Mike Eskew today in a keynote address to the 2003 Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) Conference.

Eskew said opponents of globalization who claim that multinational corporations care only about profits are seeing only part of the story. It is sustainable business practices that will ease public concerns about globalization, he said, releasing the first UPS Corporate Sustainability Report.

Called "Operating in Unison," the report provides a detailed look at the company's impact on communities worldwide. The report includes performance measurements and establishes sustainability goals that the company is committed to meeting by 2007 on its 100th anniversary.

"As a company with 360,000 employees, 88,000 vehicles and 2,850 facilities worldwide, we realize that UPS has a significant impact on society, the global economy and on the environment," said Eskew. "We believe our stakeholders have a right to know where we stand on our sustainability efforts, where we're headed and how we plan to get there."

Key points in the report include water, energy and fuel usage in UPS operations, and alternative fuel vehicle deployment.

UPS has created a single, integrated transportation network maximizing the company's ability to move goods by ship, rail, aircraft and truck that Eskew says has helped to reduce the environmental impact of UPS operations.

He described the company's recent announcement of a $600 million investment to re-engineer its domestic package network. Data accompanying each package integrates its journey with all the other shipments using new technologies expected to save 14 million gallons of fuel annually, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 130,000 metric tons and reduce miles driven by more than 100 million per year.

UPS expects to save $600 million annually deployment of the new system in more than 1,000 package centers is completed by 2007.

The annual BSR conference brings together 1,000 business people from more than 30 countries. To demonstrate sustainability, greening procedures have been integrated into the production of all conference materials.

Conference brochures, catalogues and programs are printed on non-chlorine bleached, 100 percent recyclable and at least 50 percent post-consumer waste paper using non-toxic inks. All materials associated with conference events, including paper, plastic, aluminum and tin, glass bottles, corrugated boxes, wire coat hangers, and sterno fluid are recycled. Reusable tablecloths, napkins and non-disposable dinnerware are used.

Environmental Groups Brief Supreme Court in Florida Water Case

The environmental groups filed a friend of the court brief in the case, South Florida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe, a suit whose outcome could weaken federal protections for the nation's waters, including the imperiled Florida Everglades.

The case before the Supreme Court will explore whether the core protections of the Clean Water Act apply to South Florida Water Management District's practice of pumping huge quantities of polluted stormwater uphill from a collection canal in a developed area into a natural wetland area in the Everglades. The river sized flow of stormwater contains phosphorus and other pollutants.

The water management district is arguing that it does not need a Clean Water Act permit because the pump conveys polluted water, but doesn't add pollutants to the water.

The environmental groups' amicus brief argues that the very essence of the Clean Water Act's point source permit program is to address the "conveyance" of pollutants. Exempting conveyance from permitting would open the door to serious degradation of cleaner waterbodies by pollutants diverted from more polluted ones.

In addition to the brief filed by Earthjustice's Washington, DC, office on behalf of National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, American Rivers, National Audubon Society, National Parks Conservation Association, and World Wildlife Fund, Earthjustice attorneys in the Tallahassee office filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of Florida environmental groups on Friday.

The district court and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians and Friends of the Everglades, an environmental group, holding that pumping dirty stormwater into the Everglades is a discharge of pollutants under the Clean Water Act, and therefore requires a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

The South Florida Water Management District has appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Each side says a ruling in its opponent's favor could add barriers to environmental protection of the Everglades. The management district says that the lower federal court’s "misinterpretation of the law" and could substantially increase the regulatory burden and cost for public water management agencies across the country.

“We’re already well on the way to cleaning up the Everglades. Yet today’s progress could be diverted – or even reversed – if the law is wrongly applied, and if new procedures are added to existing regulations,” said Nicolas Gutierrez, the chairman of the water district, which is an agency of the state of Florida.

“Unless the lower court’s misreading of the law is overturned," he said, "there will be serious national consequences for the environment and the economy. Taxpayers everywhere would face vastly higher costs – and public water management agencies nationwide would face drastically more complicated tasks if the Supreme Court approves this form of overregulation.”

"People who care about our nation's precious waters have to stand up to protect them, because the federal government has already sided with the polluters," said Howard Fox, managing attorney for Earthjustice's Washington DC office, who is representing the seven environmental groups. "Allowing diversion of dirty waters into clean ones, without Clean Water Act safeguards, is a misguided lowest common denominator approach."

Because many water districts collect polluted surface waters and divert them into cleaner waters, says Fox, the approach advocated by the district holds broad implications for the reach of the country's primary water pollution control law, affecting wetlands, lakes and rivers around the United States.

"If the South Florida Water Management District's and the Bush administration's position prevails in this case, serious environmental threats from interbasin water transfers such as invasive species, urban and industrial runoff and agricultural pollution could become epidemic across the country, jeopardizing waters important to fish, birds, and other wildlife," said Jim Murphy, water resources counsel at the National Wildlife Federation.

"This case is critical to restoration of the Everglades," said Bob Irvin, director of U.S. conservation for World Wildlife Fund. "Only by providing clean water, at the right times of the year in the right amounts, can the River of Grass, and the wildlife that depends on it be restored. Government agencies involved in Everglades restoration should comply with the Clean Water Act and all other environmental laws, not seek to avoid them."

“As a public agency," said Sheryl Wood, general counsel for the water management district, "environmental protection is our legal mandate and our highest priority. But this section of the law was never envisioned by Congress to apply to public water management agencies who supply drinking water and restrain floodwaters. Clearly, Congress intended this part of the law to apply to industrial polluters who add dangerous pollutants to the nation’s water."

Forest Service Sued for Forcing Grizzlies into Extinction Vortex

In a brief filed in Federal District Court in Missoula, the environmental group claims that on the Kootenai, Lolo and Idaho Panhandle National Forests activities timber sales and new road building continue to be authorized within grizzly bear habitat, and grizzly bears continue to die despite a court order requiring the Forest Service to amend the forest plans for two of these forests.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies had earlier sued the Forest Service, resulting in a March 2001 settlement agreement in which the Forest Service agreed to amend the Forest Plans for the Idaho Panhandle and Kootenai National Forests. The alliance says this process would address grizzly bear management, and specifically the high road densities on these forests.

The Forest Service agreed to issue a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) by February 1, 2002, and work "expeditiously" to issue a Record of Decision. Federal District Judge Donald Molloy approved the agreement on March 20, 2001, retaining jurisdiction "for enforcement against material breach of this agreement."

The Forest Service added the Lolo National Forest to the analysis and completed the EIS in March 2002, but over 20 months later, despite promises of action, the agency has still not signed a Record of Decision or finalized the amendments.

"Litigation is always our last resort for conflict resolution," said AWR Executive Director Michael Garrity. "We thought we had a deal, but the Forest Service has delayed for almost two years. By failing to reduce the massive network of roads, the Forest Service is directly threatening the grizzly bear in the Cabinet-Yaak/Selkirk with extinction."

In 1999, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) estimated only 46 bears remained in the Selkirk Mountains, and just 30 to 40 in the Cabinet-Yaak. Due to small numbers and continued impacts to habitat, FWS concluded in 1999 that these two populations are in danger of extinction.

When populations become too small, they can enter into an irreversible decline, known as an "extinction vortex." Scientists have found that extinction risk for grizzly bears becomes severe whenever populations are less than 50.

Much grizzly bear research has focused on the impacts of roads and road densities on grizzly bear habitat use and survival. Grizzly bears generally avoid open and closed roads, resulting in habitat loss, and forest roads may represent five times the mortality risk compared to remote, backcountry areas.

The alliance says the most serious threat to grizzly bear survival is the over 26,000 mile road network on the Kootenai, Idaho Panhandle, Lolo, and Colville National Forests.

Over the past twenty years, 77 percent of the human-caused grizzly bear mortalities in the Cabinet-Yaak/Selkirk occurred within 500 meters of an open road, the alliance points out.

The FWS goal for human caused mortality in the Cabinet-Yaak/Selkirk is zero. Over the past 10 years there has been an average of 2.0 grizzly bear deaths per year in the Cabinet-Yaak and 2.5 in the Selkirk.

The alliance calls recent trends "alarming," as 28 grizzly bears have died since the 1999 FWS assessment found these populations are in danger of extinction.

Garrity, a professional economist, said, "The Forest Service can create many jobs by restoring this area rather than building more roads in this critical grizzly bear habitat."

California Family Safeguards Guatemala's Mirador Basin

The active ingredient is funding, what the Goldman Fund is calling a "catalyst grant" of $315,000. The funds will go to the Global Heritage Fund (GHF) and the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES).

The GHF/FARES project seeks to create an ecologically sustainable and economically viable preserve in the Mirador Basin. It is the heart of Central America's last major rainforest and also the site of the largest concentration of religious and civic buildings left from the ancient Mayan civilization, where the two largest pyramids in the Americas are located.

In the past 10 years, logging, slash and burn agriculture, poaching and uncontrolled settlement in the wake of Guatemala's civil war has left intact only 36 percent of the Maya Biosphere Reserve where the Mirador Basin is located.

"This novel approach is our best hope to protect one of the last remaining rainforests for the future, and preserve one of the world's extraordinary civilizations from the past," said Richard Gamble, executive director of the Goldman Fund.

The Goldman grant will establish the first professional Park Service, an 84 person team of park rangers and visitor services personnel for law enforcement, administration, nature, wildlife and archaeological conservation. The Mirador Basin Park Service is a joint program with the Guatemalan government, Tikal National Park and FARES.

"Our foundation is thrilled to make the first major contribution," Gamble said. We think this project is an innovative, realistic and wise investment."

The basin's 600,000 acres of forest, rivers, lakes, swamps and flooding savannahs are inhabited by 40 threatened wildlife species, 200 native and migratory birds, 300 species of trees and 2,000 different flora. It is one of the largest jaguar habitats in the world.

Recognizing that ecological and archaeological devastation is swift, permanent and irreversible, GHF and FARES are working in partnership with the Guatemalan government and private and community groups to gain permanent protection for the Mirador Basin.

At the same time they intend to turn the area into a new economic force for Guatemala, of the same scale as Tikal National Park, which today generates over $200 million in tourism revenues.

The project is intended to provide jobs for the indigenous neighbor communities of the basin. “We expect Mirador Basin to generate over 1,200 new jobs for the people of the Peten, Guatemala in the next five years, a major boost for the local economy which is today based solely on logging, looting, poaching of wildlife and subsistence agriculture,” said Jeff Morgan, executive director of Global Heritage Fund, “while at the same time saving forever some of the most important biosphere, wildlife habitat and archaeological sites of the Maya world.”

In the first year, local community members will take on the job and classroom training, while working with trained professionals from Tikal National Park and the U.S. Park Service.

U.S. Park Service International Programs under the Interior Department is providing personnel for approved programs. They new funding will support travel expenses for eight U.S. Park Service directors and program leaders.

Redford Opens NRDC's Sustainable Showcase Office

"Using advanced but off-the-shelf technology, this building shows it's possible to protect our natural environment, achieve greater energy independence, and also save money," said Redford, a member of NRDC's Board of Trustees since 1975.

The project was managed by Tishman Construction Corporation of California, whose chairman and CEO, Daniel Tishman, is also an NRDC Trustee.

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 550,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and now the new Southern California office in Santa Monica.

The NRDC chose the 1920s era structure in Santa Monica's pedestrian center to take advantage of existing services like transit and to avoid building on undeveloped land.

The building was redesigned to conserve water and energy and showcase environmentally sound materials. Only recycled or recyclable materials were used in the new offices, and 98 percent of the materials left over from dismantling the original building and constructing the new one were reused or recycled.

The building uses 60 percent less water than a standard building of its size by capturing and filtering rain, shower and sink water to irrigate landscaping and flush toilets.

It reduces electricity consumption 60 to 75 percent by maximizing natural light and using efficient fixtures and appliances, task lighting, dimmable electronic ballasts, occupancy sensors and extra insulation.

The building meets 20 percent of its electricity needs through rooftop photovoltaic solar cells.

The 15,000 square foot structure includes The David Family Environmental Action Center and The Leonardo DiCaprio e-Activism Zone, scheduled to open officially in January.

"As NRDC commits increased resources to protecting the health of Southern California's people and fragile ecosystems, the regional office for our outstanding staff is a living, breathing example of environmental responsibility," said Adams. "At the same time, the Environmental Action Center and e-Activism Zone on the first floor will help inspire and make it easy for people to become involved with urgent global issues."

The new office is being considered by the U.S. Green Building Council for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Version 2 Platinum green building rating, the highest possible level of sustainable design, and may become the first structure in the United States to achieve this status.

Redford sees the project as a source of inspiration for other organizations. "As more buildings in the U.S. follow suit," he said Thursday, "we'll protect substantially more natural resources and significantly lessen our dependence on foreign sources of oil."

Mantis Shrimp Fluoresce to Signal One Another

The shrimps' characteristic spots are easy to see in shallow water but only dimly visible 40 meters (131 feet) down, so on the ocean floor the crustacean's spots fluoresce yellow-green to enhance their prominence in the darkness.

Fluorescence occurs when a pigment absorbs one color of light, in this case blue, and emits a different color, such as yellow-green. Though fluorescence in marine animals is common, this is the first documented case of fluorescence used in signaling in the sea.

"If you look at this animal in shallow water or in bright white light, you pick out this set of yellow-green spots it uses in species recognition, and probably in mating as well - it's a typical signal that says, 'Here I am, I'm a Lysiosquillina glabriuscula,'" said marine biologist Roy Caldwell, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

"But this animal also occurs at 40 meters, where there's no yellow light for that pigment to reflect, so that species-specific signal should be gone. But when you go down to 40 meters and you look at it, the yellow spot is still there."

Caldwell and coauthors Charles Mazel of Physical Sciences Inc. in Andover, Massachusetts, Thomas Cronin of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, reported their findings in a brief note in the November 13 "Science Express," a rapid electronic publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"The case we have made is one of the best cases yet for understanding fluorescence in the underwater world," said Mazel, who discovered the fluorescing mantis shrimp using an underwater lighting and video system he developed and markets through a company he founded, NightSea, a subsidiary of Physical Sciences Inc.

Though the team reports on only one species of stomatopod, L. glabriuscula, a 22-centimeter (8.5-inch) crustacean that occurs throughout the western Atlantic, from the Carolinas to Brazil, fluorescence is apparently a common characteristic of many other species of these crustaceans.

Human eyes use three visual pigments in color vision, each of which responds to light of a different color by sending signals to the brain, which recreates a richly colored world.

Some stomatopods, however, have at least eight pigments sensitive to various visual wavelengths and three more sensitive to ultraviolet light. Plus, they have four filters that tune those visual pigments, and they see two or three planes of polarized light.

"It's been blowing us away for years how complex the stomatopod visual system is," Caldwell said. "There's no question this is the most complex eye in the animal kingdom. It has the same capability in the ultraviolet alone that we have in normal light. The mystery is, why do they need such a complex eye?"

"Based on our recent work, these animals have a lot more to see than we thought," Caldwell said. "Their signals are just a lot more complex than we ever imagined, because they have these detection systems that we don't have. They have polarized light signals we can't see, and now we find they have fluorescence signals we barely see.

"In fact, we show that one set of receptors in this stomatopod eye is specifically tuned to look at that yellow-green wavelength and pick out that signal," he said.

How animals use fluorescence in signaling their own or other species is an area only now being explored, Caldwell said. Marshall last year showed that in some parrots, fluorescence in their feathers plays a role in behavior.

The authors note that fluorescent signal enhancements are used by humans as well, both in ambient illumination such as traffic safety cones and highlighter pens and with ultraviolet augmentation as in shop window displays and tattoos for the disco.

The research was supported by the National Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, as well as the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the Australian Research Council and Lizard Island Research Station.