(by Maria Ruth) – Conservation activists know all too well the feeling of not making significant progress in the causes we believe in.
Remember Zeno’s paradox about motion? Zeno was a Greek philosopher (495-430 BCE) who offered up this mind-bending idea: Suppose someone wants to get from point A to point B. First they must move halfway between the two points. But before they get to halfway, they have to move a quarter of the way. Before they move a quarter of the way, they must move an eighth of the way. Continuing in this manner, reaching the goal—point B—is seen as an impossibility.
Getting to a Long-Term Conservation Strategy for the endangered Marbled Murrelet seems similarly impossible at times. The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has had an “interim” strategy in place since 1997 and has been working (more or less) to update it ever since. The strategy is part of a requirement that allows the DNR to harvest timber from state forest lands where these endangered seabirds nest.
As you may recall, the DNR first offered three concepts for a conservation strategy in 2012. In early 2016, we had six official alternatives to consider. Which we did. Many of you submitted letters and public comment cards supporting a seventh (unofficial) “conservation alternative.” By the end of 2017, there were eight alternatives on the table, including the DNR’s “preferred alternative” and a hybrid that integrated public comments.
In June 2018, the DNR announced its plans to release on September 4 a revised draft Environmental Impact Statement on this final set of alternatives. This would initiate a 60-day public comment period and actual forward movement toward an approved Long-Term Conservation Strategy.
Can you feel the progress?
As this issue of The Echo goes to press, our fingers are crossed for the September 4 release. However, it is likely we will find ourselves moving backwards. On July 19, the U.S. Department of the Interior (which oversees the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s implementation of the Endangered Species Act) proposed a set of rules to amend (read “weaken”) the ESA protections for listed species. This announcement triggered a 60-day public comment period on that amendment. The impact of this on the Marbled Murrelet is unclear, but it is likely that the long-overdue Long-Term Conservation Strategy for the murrelet may take longer to complete.
So Zeno lives on in Zinke, but stalwart Auduboners know that progress is possible and that goals are achievable, even if on some days we feel we are only a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth . . . of the way there. Onward!
Updates on the public comment period for the Long-Term Conservation Strategy will be available on the BHAS website and in Chapter Chirps.