DLNR: CNMI to say no to proposed ESA listing

The Department of Lands and Natural Resources is drafting a “position letter” for the governor’s signature on the proposed listing of 23 Marianas species under the Endangered Species Act. This letter, according to acting secretary Richard Seman, will represent a “unified front” against the proposed listing as it is now but would recommend that a majority of the species be taken off and separated from the original five candidate species for the ESA.

Seman said they have briefed the governor, the Legislature, and the island’s different mayors on the issue.

Rota holds 11 of the 23 proposed species, and according to Seman, would be the island that is “impacted the most should [the listing] go through.”

“The 17 [species] were add-ons that we felt did not provide us sufficient time to fully review and assess those individual species, whether they do warrant listing or not,” he told Saipan Tribune yesterday.

But Seman also indicated that the problem might not just lie with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife that proposed the listing, but with the larger framework of the ESA as a law and how its application may not bode well for the smaller islands of the CNMI.

He called the ESA a “once-size-fits-all” kind of legislation.

“We shouldn’t be treated the way they protect other species in the [United S]tates—simply because they have larger land areas that can be used to mitigate [impact], whereas here, every little land that [the species] are present is a large land that we are losing.”

“To use that type of system here…it overwhelms us,” he said.

He believes the ESA should be utilized so species are treated differently on a case-to-case basis.

The Marianas reed warbler is an example of this, he said. According to Seman, the reed warbler is not endangered because of its low number in population, but it is believed to be found only on Saipan.

“Because of its uniqueness, and how it’s only found in one place—according to the ESA—it warrants protection. But if you look at the reed warbler it has since adapted to tangan tangan, which is not its original habitat. Tangan tangan is widespread now,” he said.

Because of this, he claimed that over half of projects proposed on island could be slowed down by protections for the reed warbler.

He said there should a different kind of formula on how the CNMI saves or protect the species, he said.

“If USFW Service Ecological program are the people who are facing this kind of situations on a regular basis, I believe they are the ones that can convey this kind of concern to the U.S. Congress for a necessary amendment to the Endangered Species Act. The [ESA] needs to amended to be more responsive to the type of species we are trying to protect,” he added.

But when asked about this in a recent interview, USFW deputy supervisor Kristi Young clarified that the Service is not allowed to lobby Congress for an amendment.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service has no ability to push for those things,” she said.

She said what their agency has control over are the law’s regulations. “Most laws are very vague,” she said, “So the agency that is assigned that law writes regulations. So that’s where we have authority.”

“We have been proposing changes on how we implement critical habitat. We have been proposing the definition of ‘adverse modification,’ which has a lot do with consultation with federal agencies, and there are other ones in the works that haven’t been proposed yet. That’s how we…modify how we meet the purposes of the Act through our own work,” she said.

Young said since she has been at the Service in 1992 there have been no major changes to the law. Its major changes happened in the ‘70s, she said.

The last amendment to the ESA, according to the Service website, was in 2004.

The ESA is over 40 years old.