The Interior Department's proposal to protect 48 of Hawaii's rare plants and animals pushes the Bush administration over the halfway mark in fulfilling its pledge to add 71 species to the endangered list by year's end. The plan also betters the administration's overall average of 9.5 per year for listing species, a low figure when compared to the first President Bush's 59 per year and Bill Clinton's 65.
Though boasting that the plan would assign 43 square miles as critical habitat for the species, all but 1,646 acres had already been designated for protection for other species. Despite characterizing the proposal as a new "holistic approach," the strategy had been developed and put into practice by the Clinton administration, but largely ignored through the past seven years.
Nonetheless, the good news is that two Kauai honeycreepers that are close to extinction, 45 endemic plants and a type of fly found nowhere else on Earth may have a chance for survival in the stretch of land from the Na Pali Coast through the northwestern region of the island.
A final decision on the proposal will await a yearlong study, leaving the akikiki, whose population in 2005 numbered fewer than 1,300, and the akekee, with 3,500 individuals counted last year, unprotected for that period.
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http://www.starbulletin.com/editorials/20081003_Species_protection_better_late_than_never.html
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