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Settlement Agreement Protects Endangered Florida Panthers
“Our hope is that this agreement has permanently stopped the unchecked expansion of damaging off-road vehicles (ORVs) in Big Cypress Preserve,” said Jaclyn Lopez, a Florida attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “At a minimum, it will halt these damaging activities until the completion of a full assessment of their impacts on Florida panthers and other endangered wildlife, as well as sensitive waterways and the wild character of this irreplaceable natural gem.”
“We are happy to finally reach a resolution that will close these illegal trails and have an immediate and positive effect on the invaluable resources and wildlife of Big Cypress, and look forward to working with the NPS as they move forward with ORV management efforts,” said Sarah Peters, a program attorney with WildEarth Guardians.
According to Matthew Schwartz, executive director of South Florida Wildlands Association,“this settlement returns Big Cypress to the resource-protective vision that NPS had when it issued the ORV Management Plan in 2000, and returns key safeguards to the Preserve’s unique hydrological, soil, vegetative, and wildlife resources.”
This settlement comes after environmental organizations succeeded in several legal challenges against increased ORV use in the Preserve. For example, in July 2012, a federal judge set aside the Park Service’s unauthorized increase in ORV trails in the Preserve’s Bear Island Unit after ruling that the 30-fold expansion in trails violated environmental laws and the Park Service’s own ORV management plan. In 2013, the plaintiffs in this case filed suit over similar violations of environmental laws and the ORV management plan concerning massive ORV expansion in two other units of the Preserve (referred to as the Corn Dance and Turner River Units), where the Park Service had increased the miles of trails where ORVs may go by nearly 100 percent and 60 percent,respectively. The new settlement agreement resolves the latter lawsuit, with the Park Service closing all of the ORV trails disputed in the lawsuit, and bringing the Preserve’s ORV trail system back within the mileage limits adopted by the Park Service in its governing ORV management plan that was issued in 2000 and which reached full implementation in 2011.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, South Florida Wildlands Association and WildEarth Guardians are represented by the Washington, D.C. public-interest environmental law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 775,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization with more than 2.1 million members and supporters nationwide. In addition to creating opportunities for people of all ages, levels and locations to have meaningful outdoor experiences, the Sierra Club works to safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places.
South Florida Wildlands Association is a Florida nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of habitat and wilderness in the Greater Everglades.
WildEarth Guardians, with more than 43,000 members and supporters across the country, works to protect and restore wildlife, wild places, and wild rivers.