ENVIRONMENTAL legislation passed by the US house of representatives last week will have dire consequences for endangered species. It shifts the balance away from protecting them in favour of giving private landowners more rights to do as they please, conservationists say.
The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, was a pioneering piece of environmental legislation (see 鈥淐urrent Act鈥�). 鈥淚t was the first of its kind,鈥� says Ginette Hemsley, vice-president for species conservation at the WWF-US in Washington DC. 鈥淎t that time no other country in the world had really made an effort to put together a comprehensive law to deal with protecting species and their critical habitats.鈥� The act has served as a model for several other countries, including Australia, Canada, Mexico, Paraguay and Singapore.
But now the Act鈥檚 critics are using what they portray as its disappointing track record to attack it. Of the more than 1300 species listed as threatened or endangered, nine became extinct, and only 10, including the American alligator (pictured), have recovered sufficiently to be removed from the list. Almost half are still in decline (see Pie Chart). 鈥淭he Endangered Species Act is in desperate need of an update,鈥� says Richard Pombo, a Republican congressman from California, who is introducing the revision.
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But these numbers do not tell the whole story. By the time a species ends up on the endangered species list, it is already in dire trouble. The first priority for conservationists is to prevent further losses 鈥� and they appear to have done that for many species. Between 1990 and 2002, just over half of 1020 threatened and endangered species were either stable or improving, according to a recent analysis by Timothy Male and Michael Bean of the group Environmental Defense (Ecology Letters, vol 8, p 986). It鈥檚 a good record, they argue, considering that the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees endangered species recovery, is chronically short of time and money.
We should not expect many species to have recovered, because this will often take decades, says John Kostyack, senior attorney with the US National Wildlife Federation in Washington, DC. Indeed, Male and Bean鈥檚 analysis also shows that the longer a species has been protected by the ESA, and the more money spent on its recovery, the more likely it is to be improving (see Graphic).
For many of the ESA鈥檚 critics though, the real issue is the restrictions it places on landowners鈥� development plans. Landowners are rumoured to surreptitiously 鈥渟hoot, shovel and shut up鈥� endangered species on their land, eradicating them before they come to official notice. 鈥淭he fact that in many cases private landowners are punished for having endangered species on their land is to some extent true, and that鈥檚 a real shame,鈥� says Thomas Sisk, an ecologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. 鈥淚t provides disincentives for landowners to manage their land in a way that encourages the recovery of endangered species.鈥�
Pombo says the goal of his revision is to win over landowners by cutting through red tape and giving them incentives to protect species (see 鈥淧roposed Act鈥�). Even some of the bill鈥檚 opponents praise the parts that provide for such incentives. But the bill鈥檚 flaws far outweigh its benefits, they say. In particular, conservationists object to the provision that means a landowner鈥檚 development plans are approved by default if the FWS fails to evaluate them within 180 days. 鈥淚n other words, the penalty for not meeting the deadline is the species gets no protection,鈥� says Bean.
Another controversial provision would make the government compensate landowners if they are prevented from developing their land in order to protect a species. Supporters of this aspect of the revision argue that it is unfair for private landowners to pick up the tab for the public good of protecting endangered species. But critics say Pombo鈥檚 bill goes too far by requiring compensation for both out-of-pocket losses and potential future losses. This would tempt landowners to propose the most costly and environmentally damaging schemes they could devise in order to win the maximum compensation, Bean says.
The true cost of these changes may not be measured in dollars though. At present, the threat that a project could be shut down completely often leads developers to modify their plans to have less impact on an endangered species. 鈥淭here are many, many potential train wrecks where impacts were avoided because of the potential for the ESA being invoked,鈥� Sisk says. The revised act would give developers much less incentive to compromise.
But a glimmer of hope remains for conservationists, as the proposed changes are yet to pass into US law. They must first be signed off by the senate.