环保组织介入诉讼 为怀俄明州大艾草松鸡栖息地保护辩护
怀俄明州 Laramie County 的 Cheyenne，西部流域项目组织与生物多样性中心10月19日宣布，已向法院提交动议，要求介入一起石油行业诉讼并请求驳回该诉讼，为怀俄明州大艾草松鸡的栖息地保护辩护。
这起诉讼的原告是西部能源联盟与怀俄明州政府，被告为联邦土地管理局（BLM），请求法院确认特朗普政府最新版怀俄明州大艾草松鸡管理计划合法。两家环保组织指出，原告并不指控 BLM 违法，只是要求法院为其合规背书，这类「友好诉讼」可能意在让政府与原告达成和解、使新计划免于被推翻。代表环保组织的 Advocates for the West 律师 Andrew Missel 表示，不能通过起诉朋友来让法官为朋友背书。
环保组织表示，特朗普政府近期批准的管理计划修正案削弱或取消了此前的栖息地保护措施，包括工业开发密度限制、牲畜啃食草量上限，以及油气井、道路和输电线路与松鸡繁殖筑巢敏感区之间的选址距离要求。组织称，大艾草松鸡是土地健康的敏感指示物种，其数量持续下降与过度放牧和油气开发侵入栖息地有关。另有多个环保联盟已就该修正案在蒙大拿联邦地区法院提起诉讼。
Conservation Groups Move to Intervene in Lawsuit Over Wyoming Sage Grouse Habitat Plan
In Cheyenne, Laramie County, Wyoming, Western Watersheds Project and the Center for Biological Diversity announced on October 19 that they have filed motions to intervene in, and dismiss, an oil industry lawsuit, seeking to defend habitat protections for the greater sage grouse in Wyoming.
The plaintiffs in the case — the Western Energy Alliance and the state of Wyoming — ask a court to affirm the Trump administration's latest greater sage grouse management plan for Wyoming, with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as defendant. The conservation groups say the plaintiffs do not allege the BLM broke the law and instead seek court confirmation that the Bureau complied with the law, which they argue may serve as cover for a settlement shielding the new plan from lawsuits seeking to overturn it. Andrew Missel, an attorney with Advocates for the West, which represents the groups, said a party cannot sue its friend to get a judge to say how great the friend is.
The groups said recent plan amendments approved by the Trump administration weaken or remove habitat protections that formerly imposed limits on the density of industrial development, amounts of grass removal by livestock, and where oil and gas wells, roads and powerlines could be sited in relation to sensitive sage grouse breeding and nesting habitats. They said sage grouse, a sensitive barometer of land health, have continued to decline because of excessive livestock grazing and encroachment of oil and gas fields into their most sensitive habitats. Separate conservation challenges to the amendments are pending in federal court in Montana.
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图片来源：图：大艾草松鸡（资料图）。照片：Wikimedia Commons（公共领域）。A greater sage-grouse (file photo). Photo: Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
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