NAFTA Environmental Commission Documents U.S. Failure to Enforce Migratory Bird Law Against Loggers

April 23, 2003

Washington, D.C. – NAFTA’s environmental commission issued a report today that outlines the failure of the United States to enforce U.S. laws against loggers that prohibit the killing of migratory
birds. After reviewing two cases in which loggers killed migratory birds or destroyed their eggs and nests, the commission concluded that the failure to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was “consistent with the federal government’s record to date of never having enforced the MBTA in regard to logging operations.”

The commission prepared its findings after the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), on behalf of eight other organizations from Canada, Mexico, and the United States, provided evidence that the United States completely fails to enforce the MBTA against loggers as a matter of national policy. For example, the Director of the Fish & Wildlife Service has declared that the Service “has a longstanding, unwritten policy” not to enforce or even investigate incidents involving logging operations that result in the killing of migratory birds or destruction of their nests and eggs.

In the report, the United States acknowledges that logging activities kill birds and destroys eggs in violation of the law and admits that it has never sought to prosecute violations of the MBTA against loggers. “The implications of the commission’s findings are clear: each year the United States allows loggers to kill hundreds of thousands of migratory birds and destroy their eggs in violation of the migratory bird law,” said Chris Wold, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School who initiated the submission on behalf of the petitioners.

Although petitions provided evidence of a longstanding, widespread pattern of non-enforcement, the United States, with Canada and Mexico, narrowed the scope of the petition to an investigation of only two examples provided by petitioners for illustrative purposes. “While the United States illegally narrowed the scope of the investigation to two examples provided for illustrative purposes, this narrow focus merely exposed the weakness of federal enforcement efforts,” noted Anne Perrault, an
attorney for CIEL. “The two examples showed how the state of California could identify and prove violations of the MBTA, something that the federal government views claims is too difficult”, Perrault continued.

Moreover, the two examples demonstrated that a regulatory regime to regulate logging and conserve migratory birds is possible. “The irony of the U.S. decision to avoid scrutiny of its nationwide policy of non-enforcement is that it permitted the commission to uncover an entire regulatory regime that harmonizes conservation of migratory birds with commercial logging interests,” Wold said. “While the United States tried to portray our petition as the ‘Spotted Owl on Steriods’ – an effort to ban all logging – our goal has always been to identify strategies to simultaneously promote conservation and permit logging. We believe that commission’s findings provide a means to begin serious discussions with the United States to accomplish that goal.”

For more information contact: Chris Wold in Portland Oregon at (503) 768 6734; (wold@lclark.edu) or Anne Perrault in Washington, DC, at (202)785-8700 (aperrault@ciel.org).

For previous information regarding this subject, please see Migratory Birds & NAFTA Submissions: United States Tries to Change Trade Rules, dated 30 October 2002.