For Immediate Release: March 13, 2007

Contact: , Director of Public Relations, American Bird Conservancy, 202/234-7181 ext. 216

Chevron Abandons Plans for LNG Plant in Biodiversity Hotspot
Ruling May Help Xantus’s Murrelet

(Washington, D.C.) Chevron has announced it will no longer pursue its plan to construct a massive liquid natural gas docking facility on the Coronado Islands, an area rich with wildlife just south of the U.S. border.

“This is a big win for endangered wildlife,” said George Fenwick, President of American Bird Conservancy. “A facility that would have been devastating for the Xantus's Murrelet, will now not be built.”

The Xantus's Murrelet is currently under consideration for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and is extremely sensitive to disturbance and light pollution. The Coronado Islands are home to the largest remaining breeding colonies of the species. Eleven miles south of the U.S. border, the islands provide critical nesting habitat for six threatened or endangered seabird species and ten other species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), announced on January 25 that it would continue an investigation into whether Mexico violated its own laws in approving the proposed liquefied natural gas facility next to the Coronado Islands, a biodiversity hotspot.

In the ruling, the Secretariat of the Commission called for an investigation into whether the Mexican government properly considered alternatives to the project and sufficiently analyzed the impacts of the facility on endangered species. The original petition was submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity, American Bird Conservancy, Greenpeace Mexico, Island Conservation, Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, Los Angeles Audubon, Pacific Environment, and Wildcoast. The CEC’s announcement and finding are available at http://www.cec.org/news/details/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=2744.

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American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is the only 501(c)(3) organization that works solely to conserve native wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. ABC is a membership organization that is consistently awarded a top, four-star rating by the independent group, Charity Navigator.