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<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV>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).</DIV>
<DIV>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. </DIV>
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<DIV><A href="http://post-gazette.com/pg/03363/255819.stm">http://post-gazette.com/pg/03363/255819.stm</A></DIV>
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<DIV>>>...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.<<</DIV>
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<DIV>Here's an additional article looking more critically (and negatively) at the economic impacts of critical habitat designation.</DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.agecon.ucdavis.edu/outreach/areupdatepdfs/UpdateV6N6/V6N6_3.pdf">http://www.agecon.ucdavis.edu/outreach/areupdatepdfs/UpdateV6N6/V6N6_3.pdf</A></DIV>
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<DIV>and one explaining in Q/A fashion the mechanisms of critical habitat implementation.</DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://library.fws.gov/Pubs4/alabama_sturgeon_crithab.pdf">http://library.fws.gov/Pubs4/alabama_sturgeon_crithab.pdf</A></DIV></BODY></HTML>