CONSERVATIONISTS OPPOSE CHANGES TO ENDANGERED LIST

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tuesday January 19 2010

CONSERVATIONISTS demanded on Monday that the Canarian Parliament throw out a proposal to alter the archipelago's endangered species list.

by JAMES TWEEDIE

The Canarian Federation of Animal and Plant Protection Associations (FECAPAP) delivered a letter to the regional parliament in the capital Santa Cruz stating their rejection of the new Canarian Catalogue of Endangered Species, due to be voted on in February.

The federation called an extraordinary assembly on January 8, which unanimously passed a motion condemning the proposed removal of several species from the catalogue.

An accompanying press statement said that the federation “does not understand why, at the point where we find ourselves, with such worrying loss of biodiversity and environmental deterioration that we are suffering, they [the parliament] adopt measures that deepen the evils that we must halt.”

It continued: “We want to make clear our total disagreement with the serious setback that this proposed law represents.”

FECAPAP demanded instead that the regional government implement all measures necessary to conserve animal and plant life, which it said was “vital for our only world to have a future.”

It called for the promotion of an endangered species list “ratified and driven by the scientific community”

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