[ OUR OPINION ]
WHILE significant portions of Hawaii lands have been proposed for designation as critical habitats for threatened and endangered species, there is little cause for alarm because such designations are directed only at federal agencies and at activity that may involve federal funds. Habitat plans don’t
warrant dire concerns
THE ISSUE The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes large portions of land in Hawaii as habitats for threatened and endangered plants.
Further, designations are not hard rules, but part of an adaptive process in which social and economic issues are weighed should federal-related projects or uses be desired for any site. Hunters, gatherers, outdoor enthusiasts and private property owners would not likely experience any effects of the designations.
That said, the habitats are crucial if we are to protect and restore Hawaii's endangered species, which number about 365 -- the most of any state in the nation. The 839,783 acres the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing for habitats cover 255 threatened or endangered plants in the islands. Although the amount of land is considerable, much of it lies in areas not suitable for development or held by the state and federal governments.
The designations may have some consequences for the military, which conducts training exercises primarily on Oahu and the Big Island and which has land holdings throughout the islands. However, the military may receive exemptions if it shows that benefits of its uses exceed the need for habitat designation. Further, it may set aside any and all environmental regulations by order of the secretary of defense should he or she determine that military uses are necessary for national security.
Michael Buck, forestry and wildlife division director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, objects to the designations, saying they include areas where endangered or threatened plants no longer exist. However, biologists and other scientists agree that restoration requires room for a species to spread beyond present boundaries. Further, plants thought to have been destroyed by degradation of habitat have been known to return. In Ewa, for example, the endangered red ilima, eliminated when sugar crops were planted, re-established itself after sugar cultivation ended.
As part of the process, the service is assessing the economic costs of its proposals. If land use restrictions are imposed because of habitat earmarks, urban development potential and property values losses could amount to millions of dollars. These must be weighed, just as the potential cost of a damaged ecosystem and the loss of part of the natural world must be regarded.
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STRUCTURAL changes in the FBI have been under consideration for months, but recent criticism of the agency's performance prior to Sept. 11 has brought them to the fore. The overhaul will be subject to skepticism until changes are evident in the bureau's debilitating culture. FBI’s culture needs
greatest overhaul
THE ISSUE The FBI is being restructured to make counterterrorism its top priority.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III says the agency's mission and structure will undergo fundamental changes intended to "redesign how we do our business." The bureau's priorities will change from combatting racketeering, narcotics trafficking, kidnapping and other interstate crimes to preventing terrorist activity. At issue is whether redrawing organizational charts and hiring more agents will achieve that goal.
Coleen Rowley, a Minneapolis-based agent and legal counsel, has complained to Mueller that headquarters blocked her attempt last August to obtain a warrant to search the laptop computer of Zacarias Moussaoui, now alleged to have been the potential "20th hijacker." Mueller's plan seems to increase some authority at the headquarters, but it also allows field offices to conduct intelligence investigations without waiting for Washington approval.
The FBI has been criticized for failing to link suspicions raised by agents in Minneapolis and Phoenix that could have alerted it to last year's terrorist attacks. The failure was not that agents had failed to recognize suspicious behavior but that headquarters had failed to make the connection. While Mueller's plan beefs up analysis at headquarters, it also increases the FBI's investigative authority.
That aspect stirs up memories of J. Edgar Hoover's Cointelpro program targeting civil rights and antiwar groups and including surveillance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Attorney General John Ashcroft has decided to relax guidelines imposed in the 1970s to restrict surveillance of religious and political organizations.
Those guidelines have required agents to show evidence of crimes before beginning counterterrorism investigations. The new guidelines will allow agents to search for leads or clues about terrorist activities in public databases or on the Internet without prior evidence of a crime. The FBI is re-entering an area where it should tread carefully.
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Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, Editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
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Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.comMary Poole, Editorial Page Editor, 529-4790; mpoole@starbulletin.com
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