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Rubber Dodo Awarded to Worst Human on the Planet
Well, that is, if you measure humans by their ability to help or hurt biodiversity. Today the third annual Rubber Dodo Award was bestowed by the Center for Biological Diversity upon Michael Winer, portfolio manager for the giant real-estate investment firm Third Avenue Management, or TAREX.
The CBD's Rubber Dodo memorializes the person who's done most to drive endangered species extinct. The 2007 winner was Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. In 2008, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin got the dishonor.
So what has heretofore unknown Michael Winer done to deserve the ignominy? Under Winer's leadership, says the CBD, TAREX has become the largest stockholder of companies driving the development of the largest private landholdings remaining in Southern California and Florida. These splendid lands also happen to be home to some of the highest numbers of endangered species in North America:
- In California, TAREX is pushing the Tejon Ranch Company to pave thousands of acres of federally designated California condor habitat.
- In Florida, TAREX is pushing the St. Joe Company to flood tens of thousands of acres of the Florida Panhandle with upscale developments.
According to Adam Keats, director of the CBD's Urban Wildlands Program:
"Under Winer’s money-obsessed leadership, TAREX has become the poster child for unsustainable, endangered-species-killing sprawl. He specializes in finding massive, remote estates far from urban centers and turning them into a sea of condos, malls, golf courses, and resorts. There is good reason that even Wall Street commonly calls TAREX a 'real-estate vulture'."
Ouch. A vulture-killing vulture.
In California, Winer is a driving force behind the Tejon Ranch Company’s bid to build two new cities 50 miles north of Los Angeles—likened to dropping a city the size of Boulder Colorado into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
What's at stake in Tejon? Oh, only 270,000 acres at the convergence of five geomorphic provinces and four floristic regions. Plus federally designated California condor critical habitat, home to 23 known types of plant communities, home to 20 state and federally listed species, a unique "oak laboratory" for more than a third of all California oak species.
The Center for Biological Diversity would rather see Tejon Ranch be preserved as a new national or state park and preserve, to protect a bounty of native plant and animal communities, cultural and historic features, and scenic vistas.
How about we offer a carrot? Name it the Michael Winer Corrective Karma National Park?
BTW, this leads me to one of my pet, oddball, make-the-world-better schemes. In thinking about the most environmentally-friendly way to dispose of ourselves after death, why not do like the Tibetans, who practise sky burials? In other words, make ourselves food for vultures, specifically, California condors. Michael Winer, when your time comes, could you lead the way, in a park named for you?
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Bear-Market Biodiversity
Think Wall Street's rollercoaster ride is scary? Imagine if stocks were species. That's what the future looks like in a warming world: a monster bear market robbing the world of its real riches. A new review published in Science addresses the question of whether the tropical forests and coral reefs of the tropics will have the most to lose as a result of...
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Road to Riches: Pipeline Through Paradise
There are more untapped oil and gas reserves in the Arctic than almost anywhere else in the world—and with the ice melting, the race to get to them is about to turn ugly.
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The Secret Plan to Gut the Endangered Species Act
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has posted a draft of a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. The proposed changes would accomplish administratively much of what the Bush Administration may have hoped to push through Congress before the Republicans were ousted in November. The 117-page document is likely the brainchild of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who,...
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Palin: Don't Save the Whales
As a fierce high school basketball player, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was dubbed "Sarah Barracuda," a nickname that was revived on the campaign trail last year, when she served as John McCain's enforcer. Now the "Barracuda" is picking a fight with one of the biggest mammals in the sea. Last week, the state of Alaska announced it plans to mount a legal challenge...
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What Invasive Species Are Trying to Tell Us
Carnivorous snails and the superpredator from the reef: The invasion has begun.
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More Than 1 in 4 US Birds Imperiled
How are America's birds doing after seven years of the antiGreens? Well, 178 species in the continental U.S. and 39 in Hawaii are in need of immediate conservation. That according to the 2007 Audubon WatchList. "We call this a 'WatchList' but it is really a call to action, because the alternative is to watch these species slip ever closer to oblivion," said Audubon...
The Center for Biological
The Center for Biological Diversity is a fringe organization that is the laughing stock of the mainstreen environmental organizations like Sierra Club, NRDC and Audobon. Call them eco-terrorists or flat out liars....the CBD is not even close to being mainstream. The Tejon Ranch conservation agreement will preserve nearly 90% of the 270,000 acres FOREVER. Talk about greedy? The CBD wants all of the 270,000 acres...and they don't want to pay a dime for it. NOT IN MY COUNTRY! This is the USA. The Center for Biological Diversity is EVIL. It's just a good thing that they are so far out of touch with reality that NOBODY listens to them. Opposing the Tejon Ranch conservation agreement is only going to make them more of a parriah in the enviro community. Way to go Keats!... you friggin nutcase! You are trying to ruin it for the rest of us who are really concerned about the environment. We will not let you succeed.
Sorry to disabuse you, but
Sorry to disabuse you, but the Center for Biological Diversity is a decidedly mainstream environmental organization with nearly a quarter million members and offices in 8 states and the District of Columbia. Their work is widely respected by the scientific community.
Julia Whitty, Environmental Correspondent, Mother Jones
Wrong you are! If they are
Wrong you are! If they are mainstream, then why are the Sierra Club, NRDC and several other true environmental groups disassociating with them on Tejon Ranch. It's because the CBD is an eco-terrorist organization that does not have a reasonable agenda.
Evil fringe?
TAREX is planning to pave 19,000 acres of federally designated condor "critical habitat" even though the Endangered Species Act prohibits the "destruction or adverse modification" of critical habitat. The proposal has prompted numerous former members of the federal Condor Recovery Team to object to TAREX's plan, asserting that it will undermine condor recovery.
Thus I'm not sure how why you characterize the Center as "fringe" for wanting the critical habitat preserved. It is both reasonable and directly supported by top condor scientists.
And evil? Good gracious, I expect Bielzibub would side with extinction, smog and traffic jams long before throwing in his lot with the Center for Biological diversity whose staff is more than a little fixated on saving the Creation.
Eco Barons to save Tejon
Note that while the Center for Biological Diversity used humor backed with lots of facts to call its opponents out via the Rubber Dodo award, critics on this blog descend into vicious, mindless name-calling. If you thinking that trying to protect endangered condors make one "fringe", "evil" or an "eco-terrorists" you've got some anger management problems to deal with.
For a long discussion of the battle to save Tejon Ranch, check out Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Edward Humes' new book, Eco Barons. The Center for Biological Diversity he describes is not only mainstream, but tough as nails, extremely effective, and likely the condors' last best chance of surviving. Kudos to Julia Whitty for keeping us informed about the evolving Tejon battle and Winer's part in pushing the massive development.
Oh please! That article by
Oh please! That article by Humes might as well have been written by the Center for Biological Diversity. What nobody seems to recognize is that EVERY reputable environmental organization supports the conservation agreement with Tejon Ranch. The science is in the record... the condor will be just fine. The CBD, is an outlier and now a parriah among mainstreem environmental groups. You cannot just listen to the CBD and the nonsense that they sprew forth. When you are proven wrong by the science and all of your former peers, then resort to personal attacks. Yeah, that's a great agenda.
Okay, gotta say, you lost me
Okay, gotta say, you lost me at "the condor will be just fine." Methinks you might just have a teensy weensy financial stake in the development of Tejon Ranch?
Julia Whitty, Environmental Correspondent, Mother Jones
Julia, I'm sorry if I lost
Julia, I'm sorry if I lost you. Maybe I should speak a little slower then. T h e c o n d o r w i l l b e j u s t f i n e . . . . .
You have obviously not read the environmental reports that are in the public record. If you are so inclined, you can read the EIR at http://www.co.kern.ca.us/planning/eirs.asp .... or you can just choose to take the word of CBD that the science is wrong. I for one choose to understand the facts, not the hyperbole.
Frank B.
The IUCN Red List—the
The IUCN Red List—the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global status of Earth's plant and animal species, compiled by thousands of scientists contributing their research—lists the California condor as "Critically Endangered," a condition unchanged in 15 years. Critically Endangered is the last in a cascade of listings before "Extinct."
Clearly, the California condor will not be "just fine." In assessing the condor, the Red List recaps just how unfine this species is doing:
"Gymnogyps californianus... dropped to an all-time low of just 22 birds by 1981, and in 1987, the species became extinct in the wild when the last of the six wild individuals was captured to join a captive-breeding recovery programme involving 27 birds. The population increased to 223 birds by August 2003, comprising 138 in captivity, and 85 reintroduced in California and northern Arizona. By December 2006, there were 130 wild birds at five release sites, including at least 44 that were over six years old (the age at which breeding commences at the very earliest). Breeding in the wild resumed in 2002, and by September 2005 17 attempts had been recorded, from which four offspring were still surviving."
The Red List proposes a variety of actions to help in the recovery of these last of the California condors, including maintaining suitable habitat.
Julia Whitty, Environmental Correspondent, Mother Jones
Great stuff...but have you
Great stuff...but have you read the EIR for Tejon Mountain Village? You keep dodging the real issue and spew facts and figures that mean very little. Numerous reputable condor "experts" have opined that the development will not harm the condor. Yes, the CBD has hired their own "experts" that refute what the other experts say. That's pretty typical. But the fact remains that every mainstream environmental organization has signed on to the Tejon Ranch conservation agreement. The only outlier is the CBD. They are simply out of touch with real science and reality.
Frank B
I would like to let you know
I would like to let you know that the Center for Biological Diversity is a decidedly mainstream environmental organization with nearly a quarter million members and offices in 8 states and the District of Columbia.
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Well Neil, thank you so much
Well Neil, thank you so much for that 411. So far, besides you fringies telling me that the CBD is mainstream, nobody seems to be able to explain why every other mainstream enviro group has parted ways with CBD. Seems to me that that makes CBD decidedly NOT mainstream. GET WITH IT PEOPLE! You can't just listen to what CBD tells you. They are the masters of hyperbole. You must do more than read their drivel. GET THE REAL FACTS AND MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS. STOP BEING LEAD BY THIS OUT-OF-TOUCH GROUP.
Exactly what I thought.
Exactly what I thought. Challenge the fringies with the fact that they really don't know the facts and they go silent. PLEASE GET THE FACTS BEFORE YOU SPOUT...or you will be no better than a lemming. Nothing worse that idiot followers that let someone else makeup their minds for them. Just because the CBD yells that the sky is falling, it doesn't mean you take it at face value.
FB