in northern California's Klamath National Forest. Nathaniel Lawrence, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasizes that he argued the case "strictly on the grounds of using corridors to maintain biological diversity and intentionally ignored the menace to threatened and endangered species." This case, in short, transports biodiversity beyond the policy gridlocks forming around the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile, bioregionalism, a concept

long marginalized at the fringe of the environmental movement, has recently moved to the very center of the biodiversity debate. A California program called Natural Communities Conservation Planning (NCCP) aims to protect critical habitat "before it becomes so fragmented or degraded by development and other use" that its species require listing under an endangered-species program. The program is designed to save critical habitat and, at the same time, allow

"reasonable" economic activity and
development on affected land, much of
which is privately owned. The first
NCCP pilot program targets the Coastal
Sage Scrub ecosystem, which extends
from the Mexican border up the Pacific
Coast to Ventura County. Harboring the
California gnatcatcher and some 50
other threatened species, this ecosystem
demonstrates the advantages of multi-
species protection. NCCP's innovations
lie in the program's holistic approach to
biodiversity and its anticipatory
bias-that is, its attempt to stop incipient
problems before they become acute and
require institutionalized responses.
Experiments in protecting

biodiversity find sturdy underpinnings
in a growing library of scholarship on
the subject and in an expanding
number of students learning the
principles of conservation biology and
landscape ecology. In addition to E.O.
Wilson's volumes, the library now
includes significant contributions from
a wide range of experts, many of whom
can be sampled in Landscape Linkages
and Biodiversity, published in 1991 by
Defenders of Wildlife. A

comprehensive textbook, Landscape
Ecology by Richard T.T. Forman and
Michel Godron, has been available
since 1986. Biodiversity experts have
also formed the International
Association for Landscape Ecology.
Followers of this discipline perform
"gap analyses" to generate digital maps
that identify both species-rich areas and
other ecosystems inadequately
protected by existing reserves.

As the frog massacre on the British
motorway demonstrates, many
species-not just those officially
inscribed as endangered species-are
now extremely vulnerable. They are at
risk from depletion of stratospheric
ozone, enormous growth in human
populations and economic activity,
global warming, droughts, fires,
pollution, disease, and other
environmental shocks. British
authorities, realizing that biological

systems require margins of safety, finally tunneled under the motorway to reconstitute the ancient "frogway." Thanks to enlightened management, Jimmy Walker photo. the frogs are safe again, and their

critical role in the maintenance of
biological diversity continues. ◊

RESOURCES

by Wesley Marx

ou might not think that two Pennsylvania farmers could help watermen in the Chesapeake Bay harvest more shellfish. But Joe and David Garber, by carefully applying fertilizer to their Spring Lawn Farm, are helping to demonstrate how we can achieve sustainable use of our great water bodies.

The goal of sustainable use is critical. From generation to generation, our bays and coastal waters have provided an economy and a way of life for millions of people. They have helped to enrich our lives and to define the communities in which we live. Who can imagine a Baltimore without Chesapeake Bay, a Seattle without Puget Sound, a Chicago without Lake Michigan?

However, when we use our great water bodies as cheap all-purpose dumps, we can wind up with shellfish quarantines, seafood health advisories, and closed summer beaches. Nationwide, there are 2,100 health advisories for fish contaminated by toxic chemicals, according to a 1991 National Academy of Sciences report, Seafood Safety. Overfishing,

(Marx is the author of The Frail Ocean: A Blueprint for Change in the 1990s and Beyond (The Globe Pequot Press, 1991). He served on National Research Council panels on marine monitoring and on coastal science and policy.)

development, and pollution threaten "to destroy the harvest of wild a shellfish ... throughout the nation's coastal areas," according to a 1990 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Salmon runs in California and the Pacific Northwest are in serious decline as upstream dams and canals divert river flows. Our great water bodies can become, in the words of the accountants, "non-performing assets."

To keep our great water bodies fit to perform, we have invested funds in the last two decades to clean up discharges from our sewage treatment plants. However, as the Chesapeake Bay region has learned, controlling pollution at the "end of the pipe" is not enough to ensure the goal of sustainable use. Progress in cleaning up sewage discharges has been offset by the occurrence of slimy algal blooms in the bay. These dense, greenish blooms cut off light to critical seagrass beds or submerged aquatic vegetation. The blooms, as they decay, deplete lifegiving dissolved oxygen for finfish. Nutrient-rich loads of nitrogen and phosphorous feed these destructive blooms. Phosphate detergent bans and nutrient removal in sewage plants will not suffice to roll back these destructive blooms, which are nurtured by livestock wastes and farm fertilizers from the vast bay watershed. More than a decade ago, scientists warned that the bay would continue to

the District of Columbia, in partnership with EPA, signed an agreement in 1987 to cut nutrient loads to the bay by 40 percent by the year 2000. Pennsylvania provides technical and financial aid to farmers like the Garbers who develop nutrient management plans to minimize runoff of manure and artificial fertilizers.

Maryland is working to enlist virtually every citizen in the bay cleanup. To help reduce soil erosion to the bay, thousands of Marylanders planted 1.4 million trees during Earth Month in 1991. To help companies reduce toxic discharges to the bay, the state sponsors special workshops on how to change to environmentally compatible manufacturing processes. To help fund such efforts, more than 300,000 citizens bought special "Treasure the Chesapeake" vehicle license plates.

Is the bay saved? Hardly. Its worldfamous oyster population is seriously depleted. Nitrogen levels remain too high. Phosphorous levels are dropping and some seagrass beds are recovering, but even this progress may be offset if another impact converging on our coastal regions is not controlled. The bay watershed population will grow 20 percent by 2020, and a recent report notes "unmanaged new growth has the potential to erase any progress made in bay improvements, overwhelming past

and current efforts." Environmental groups are closely scrutinizing new development proposals. Maryland and Virginia have both established commissions to recommend growth management strategies. Clearly,

taller smokestacks. Pollution prevention can make economic sense to farmers and manufacturers as well. In Wisconsin, Green Bay Packaging, Inc., finds it is more cost effective to recycle its wastewater than to meet

To be effective, the watershed approach also must take into account what is happening in the air above. Up to 30 percent of the nitrogen loads in the Chesapeake Bay is aerial fallout from regional smokestack and auto exhaust emissions. Nearly 90 percent of the toxic PCBs that enter Lake Superior and make large lake trout unsafe to eat comes from aerial fallout. International agreements may be needed to control this aerial assault. While DDT cannot be used in the United States, this persistent toxin continues to enter the Great Lakes system because of airborne sources as far away as Mexico.

Coupling the watershed approach with the concept of pollution prevention can yield economic as well as environmental benefits. By shifting to reducing pollution at the front end, we can reduce the need to build bigger sewage plants, larger landfills, and

to the Lower Fox River. In learning to reduce fertilizer runoff, farmers in Pennsylvania have discovered that they have been applying more fertilizer than their fields can absorb. "By applying less, the farmers can save both money and our waterways," notes Victor Funk of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Soil and Water Conservation. By shifting to water conservation, drip irrigation, and wastewater recycling, cities and farming communities in California can reduce the need to divert river flows from salmon rivers.

A watershed approach must be able to bridge traditional political boundaries and foster interagency coordination. To do this, Congress directed EPA to form the National Estuary Program (NEP). An estuarine region can use an NEP grant to fund a broad-based management conference and develop a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Program (CCMP). So far, EPA has designated 18 estuaries for the NEP. In 1991, Puget Sound was the first region to have its CCMP approved by EPA. One priority goal: stepped up control

of nonpoint pollution sources

responsible for closing some 40 percent of the sound's commercial shellfish beds. By treating storm runoff and expanding its chemical source control program, one paper mill in Tacoma, Washington, is eliminating more than one million pounds of potential chemical pollutants each year.

The CCMP for the San Francisco Bay and Delta system envisions a major recovery of salmon runs and freshwater wetlands-but only if standards are adopted to ensure adequate freshwater inflows to the estuary ecosystem. EPA has stated its intent to set such standards if California does not act by 1993. In 1992, Congress passed a bill supported by the Bay Institute and other environmental groups that requires the federal Bureau of Reclamation to help restore salmon runs damaged by its dam projects in California.

Rimmed by wetlands, seagrass beds, and mangrove forests, the Gulf of Mexico sustains 40 percent of the nation's commercial fish catch by volume. However, severe pollution

and habitat loss are now overtaking this magnificent water body. Nearly 60 percent of the shellfish beds are subject to repeated health closures. Under the Gulf of Mexico Program, the five Gulf of Mexico states are cooperating with EPA to develop regional action agendas for nutrient loads, habitat loss, toxics, marine debris, and public health threats. The Soil Conservation Service has established a plant center at Golden Meadows, Louisiana, to supply wetlands plants to community groups working to restore coastal wetlands.

Eventually, much of the continental United States will have to cooperate if these initiatives are to succeed. The Mississippi River, which empties into the gulf, drains two-thirds of the continental United States. Nutrients in the massive river discharge trigger oxygen-depressing blooms in the gulf and contribute to a 3,000-square-mile "dead zone" off the coast of Louisiana and Texas. To help mobilize the broad public support that will be needed to protect the gulf from such piecemeal destruction, Congress designated 1992 as the "Year of the Gulf of Mexico."

Given the current budget crunch at all levels of government, there will be a temptation to stint on protection of our great water bodies. However, such "savings" will be illusory. The marine fishing industries, both seafood and recreation, contribute more than $24 billion annually to the U.S. economy, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The more fishing grounds we lose to pollution, habitat loss, and uncontrolled growth, the more jobs and businesses we jeopardize.

By managing our water bodies for sustainable use, we can restore jobs and business opportunities while reducing the current need to import half of our seafood supply. Native Americans learned how to use salmon and other living marine resources without depriving their children of the same opportunity. We must provide the same opportunity to our children. Says Bill Frank, Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission in Washington: "Care for nature, for without her your children will not survive." ◊

Copyright, Mike Brisson photo.

RESOURCES

by John Adams

he United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio last June changed history. For those of us in public interest groups who work for environmental protection in the United States, it changed the entire context of our work and it changed fundamental ground rules.

Sustainable development is an ideal that many of us have cherished for a very long time. Now that the largest gathering of heads of state in history has confirmed a need that we saw all along, it would be easy for us simply to congratulate ourselves. But Rio is far from being merely a cause for celebration. It also conferred responsibility-the responsibility to live up to ideals that we ourselves promoted, and the responsibility to make sure this new international agreement becomes a real commitment instead of only words on paper.

Rio set a new standard by which the work of U.S. environmental organizations should be measured. We must all reexamine our programs and priorities in light of the ideals of Rio and ask whether we are in fact doing our utmost to achieve a sustainable society in this country.

(Adams is Executive Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental advocacy organization headquartered in New York City.)

First, there is choice of priorities. Rio forces us to ask hard questions. Are we in fact devoting our resources to the primary problems obstructing sustainability in the United States? Are we setting goals that we could defend before the assembled delegates of Rio and the nongovernmental

organizations that participated? Could we defend them not just as important local concerns or as issues that we have traditionally addressed, but as priorities of global significance?

The cardinal global problems are the greenhouse effect, loss of species and habitat, and imbalance of population and resource consumption. The United States bears special responsibility in each of these areas. We are the primary emitter of greenhouse gases, with an average per capita energy consumption many times that of the nations of the Southern Hemisphere. We criticize the destruction of tropical forests and loss of tropical species, but we have destroyed all but 5 percent of the original forest cover of the 48 coterminous states, and we continue to drive countless ecosystems towards extinction. And we cannot in good faith ask the nations of the South to engage in family planning if we remain unwilling to address the other side of the coin, our own grossly outsized rate of resource consumption.

Unless the U.S. environmental community devotes substantial resources to these problems, in a

deliberate program focused on creating a sustainable society, we cannot claim to be meeting the standard we ourselves helped set at Rio. It is our task to push the envelope by creating far-reaching solutions. We need to continue our work on energy-efficiency incentives, but we also need to secure a carbon dioxide tax. We need to preserve the Endangered Species Act, but also to move beyond it with large-scale ecological planning. We need to keep promoting recycling, but also to change the most basic attitudes towards resources of all kinds in this country, so that cleaner and cleaner technologies are developed and waste becomes taboo.

To reach goals like these, we must do more than work on issues one by one. The U.S.government has formally committed itself to sustainable development. It is up to us in the environmental public interest community to make sure that this phrase, which is so poorly defined, is made specific and applied to every area of governmental activity and government-regulated activity.

We must work for the creation of a federal mechanism with broad authority to review U.S. obligations under Agenda 21. The United States is the leading international proponent of a free market system, yet we have never faced up to the fact that at home we provide heavy subsidies for massively destructive practices.