The chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign and Federal Relations believes the federal government\u2019s recent decision to list 23 species under the Endangered Species Act is bad policy, saying it ignores science on the ground and will impact the limited opportunities for land development on Rota, Tinian, and Saipan.<\/p>\n
Sen. Arnold Palacios (R-Saipan) said he is disappointed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which proposes and finalizes the ESA listing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a cause of concern when our own national concerns are dictating policy that\u2014to some local scientists\u2014are based on sketchy and even bad science,\u201d Palacios said in an interview.<\/p>\n
The CNMI Department of Land and Natural Resources has disagreed with the listing of several species under the Endangered Species Act\u2014particularly plant species on Rota\u2014asserting that \u201cno evidence\u201d has shown that they warrant listing.<\/p>\n
Scientists under the local Division of Fish and Wildlife do not believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has met the burden of proof to warrant the listing.<\/p>\n
Palacios, a former DLNR secretary and has worked under DFW, said the listing will have a \u201clasting impact\u201d on the community, especially on Rota, where many of these plant species are found. While the Service has not yet designated \u201ccritical habitat\u201d for these species, this is expected.<\/p>\n
Palacios explained that if a local CIP project were to use federal funds, they would have to do an environmental impact assessment. If the project occurs where the plant species are found, federal law enforces the \u201csetting aside of public lands for species.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Palacios notes that there is no federal land on Rota to be set aside, just public lands.<\/p>\n
He called the mitigation process a \u201cback-door policy to set aside land in perpetuity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere seems to be a new paradigm in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [in] not really caring what the community\u201d thoughts are\u2014\u201cthese are people who live with these species, they are the ones on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they also have to have a buy-in.\u201d<\/p>\n
When U.S. Fish and Wildlife first proposed the listing and held public hearings on Saipan, community members, scientists, and local officials balked at the proposal.<\/p>\n
Kristi Young, USFW deputy field supervisor, told Saipan Tribune in February that once a species is proposed for listing, it \u201cdoesn\u2019t automatically guarantee\u201d listing. Another official assured they would seek the \u201cbest available scientific data\u201d and \u201crely on the locals\u201d like farmers and scientists for their input.<\/p>\n
But DLNR and DFW said in February that their surveys found \u201cno evidence\u201d for the listing of plant species like the Dendrobium guamense, Bulbophyllum guamense, Tuberolabium guamense, Nervilia jacksoniae, Maesa walkeri, and Solanum guamense.<\/p>\n
Palacios says the Service has made the public hearings and meetings \u201ca formality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAn administrative formality,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd this was always an intention on their part to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign and Federal Relations believes the federal government\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1584,598,1585,3196],"class_list":["post-211892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dfw","tag-endangered-species-act","tag-esa","tag-wildlife-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}