[MPWG] (part of) the necessary course

[Cafesombra at aol.com]

The following url is for a general article on the U.S. Endangered Species Act 
but an interesting point is made; the creation of designated "critical 
habitat" works despite the Bush (and Clinton) administration's arguments to the 
contrary.
The real question though is, does it "work" if people will fight against it 
tooth and nail to maintain private property rights (or more accurately, to 
maintain the right to disturb destroy dismember or otherwise manipulate wild 
things for money).
The plants always come last in these discussions (in fact upon his retirement 
last year Senator Hansen tried to put forward a bill removing plants entirely 
from the Endangered Species Act, which didn't happen, along with removing all 
military lands from its consideration, which Bush is still fighting for).  
Perhaps in the end private and non-profit (NGO) efforts to create *botanical 
sanctuary* will be our best hope. 

http://post-gazette.com/pg/03363/255819.stm

>>...two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports submitted to Congress in June 
compared species with critical habitat designations to those without them and 
found species with the habitat designations were more than twice as likely to 
be improving as those without it. The findings, which were not announced or 
distributed by the Department of Interior, mirrored those in a 1999 Fish and 
Wildlife Service report.<<

Here's an additional article looking more critically (and negatively) at the 
economic impacts of critical habitat designation.
http://www.agecon.ucdavis.edu/outreach/areupdatepdfs/UpdateV6N6/V6N6_3.pdf

and one explaining in Q/A fashion the mechanisms of critical habitat 
implementation.
http://library.fws.gov/Pubs4/alabama_sturgeon_crithab.pdf
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