ESA and Governor Parnell

Dear Governor Parnell:

You’ve now filed two lawsuits attacking the classification of Alaska animals as endangered species. You’ve asked the federal courts to reverse the classification of the Beluga Whales of Upper Cook Inlet as an endangered population. And you’ve asked the same thing regarding the Alaskan subspecies of the Polar Bear.

In both cases, you claim to be acting for the benefit of Alaskans. You claim that the classifications – specifically, the plans to protect the endangered species – will hurt Alaskans. Since the motivation for the lawsuits is to allow oil and gas extraction to proceed with less regulation, and since Alaska is the state suffering the most from the impacts of burning all that oil and gas, can we stop and think about this for a minute?

There are huge areas of China and Brazil that have lost their pollinating insects, including flies and beetles, so that now humans have to pollinate fruits and vegetables by hand using little dishes of pollen and paintbrushes. If that doesn’t make you nervous, what will? Besides, it is folly to think that we can destroy one species and ecosystem after another and not have it affect humanity. When we save species, we’re actually saving ourselves. We’re intricately tied to healthy, functioning ecosystems. But at a time when most folks – including you, apparently, Governor Parnell – have no idea how their food is produced, this is a tough sell.

I’m going to quote National Geographic photographer and writer Joel Sartore, speaking of an insect in his home state called the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle:

1) Save species and habitat to help save ourselves. To think that humans are not tied in tightly to the natural world is pure folly. In fact, we’re totally dependent on healthy, functioning ecosystems for our very survival, from the air we breathe to the food we eat to the water we drink. Notice that the frogs and bird species are thinning out? Those things are living monitors of the health of the earth. To think that we can escape their fate over the long haul is not realistic, to say the least.

2) We’re killing off the ark. All plants and animals, even the Salt Creek tiger beetle, are God’s creatures. Who are we to purposely kill off any of these creations? The Salt Creek tiger beetle is our local example of the massive wave of extinction now going on around the globe, all due to human activity and overpopulation.

3) Save it for education. Ever go on a field trip to a pond or a marsh in grade school or high school? Remember the thrill at seeing the wildlife there, from frogs and tadpoles to dragonflies to the teeming life found in a single drop of water when viewed under a microscope?

4) It’s about more than just a beetle. Saving the saline wetlands (or any ecosystem) benefits thousands of other animals, such as migrating ducks, geese, and shorebirds that use such critical habitat at various times of the year.

5) Small things lead to bigger ones. If people care enough to save something as seemingly trivial as a salt marsh and as tiny as a beetle, then they’ll surely care about the environmentally big things, like the destruction of ‘The Lungs of the World’, the Amazon rainforest. Cutting down rainforests leads to global warming. They’ll also think more about sustainable living, such as the kinds and amounts of chemicals they use on their lawns and pour down their drains, which end up being consumed by people downstream from their town.

6) As a famous biologist once noted, it is the last word in ignorance when a person asks ‘what good is it?’ We are not smart enough as a species to understand what parts are worth saving and what are not. Remember the story about a good tinker not throwing away parts until he fully understands what each does? We’re not even close to knowing how everything works, whether it’s the prairies, rainforest, oceans, the Arctic or even the last of the salt marshes in northern Lancaster County, Nebraska.

7) Let’s save endangered species simply because we care. The beetle is just one small part of the picture. The big issue is whether or not all of us care enough to preserve what we have left. Do we want to save species and habitats, or do we want to simply pave over and sterilize as much as we can in the name of economics? If you truly care about the environment, the last islands of natural habitat remaining are all precious, whether it’s a salt marsh, a virgin prairie, or a century-old cottonwood tree. To good stewards of the Earth, all are equally worth saving.

Add to Sartore’s points the fact that oil and gas extraction leads to more CO2, which leads to more global warming, which hurts Alaska earliest and hardest. Your motivation for your lawsuits isn’t in Alaska’s best interests, especially not in its middle-term or long-term interests. Sacrificing Beluga Whales and Polar Bears to allow us to further damage the fragile Alaska environment is counterproductive, ironic and stupid.

It’s also contrary to the Alaska Constitution, Article 8, Section 4:

Fish, forests, wildlife, grasslands, and all other replenishable resources belonging to the State shall be utilized, developed, and maintained on the sustained yield principle, subject to preferences among beneficial uses.

Fighting endangered species classifications to allow short term profit from oil and gas development is hardly managing for “sustained yield,” is it?

And if it’s inconvenient to have to protect these charismatic megafauna – critters that money-spending tourists travel thousands of miles to see – what will you do when the threatened critter is a tiny shrew, or an insect?

You see, Governor, you’re not smart enough – none of us is smart enough – to be able to understand how it all interconnects. And any time you find yourself allied with the oil industry on an issue involving the environment, you really need to look again.

/s/ Wickersham’s Conscience