Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability 1

to take away private property rights and restrict industriesfrom having access to rich biological and mineralresources found on public lands. Many of these peoplebelieve that the ESA puts the rights and welfare of endangeredplants and animals above those of people.Many opponents of the ESA also contend that ithas not worked and has caused severe economic lossesby hindering development on private land that containsendangered or threatened species. Since 1995, effortsto weaken the ESA have included the followingsuggested changes:■ Make protection of endangered species on privateland voluntary.■ Have the government compensate landowners if itforces them to stop using part of their land to protectendangered species (the regulatory takings issue).■ Make it harder and more expensive to list newlyendangered species by requiring government wildlifeofficials to navigate through a series of hearings andpeer review panels.■ Eliminate the need to designate critical habitats becausedeveloping and implementing a recovery planis more important. And designating critical habitats isa lengthy, complex, and costly process that delays developmentof recovery plans. Also, dealing with lawsuitsfor failure to develop critical habitats takes upmost of the limited funds for carrying out the ESA.■ Allow the secretary of the interior to permit a listedspecies to become extinct and to determine whether aspecies should be listed.■ Allow the secretary of the interior to give any state,county, or landowner permanent exemption from thelaw.Other critics want do away with the ESA entirely.But since this is politically unpopular with the Americanpublic, most efforts are designed to weaken the actand reduce its already meager funding.Should the Endangered Species ActBe Strengthened? The Other Sideof the StoryAccording to most conservation biologists, theEndangered Species Act should be strengthenedand modified to develop a new system to protectand sustain the country’s biodiversity.Most conservation biologists and wildlife scientistsagree that the ESA has some deficiencies and needs tobe simplified and streamlined. But they contend thatthe ESA has not been a failure (see Case Study, below).They also contest the charge that the ESA hascaused severe economic losses. Government recordsshow that since 1979 only about 0.05% of the almost200,000 projects evaluated by the USFWS have beenblocked or canceled as a result of the ESA. In addition,What Has the Endangered Species Act Accomplished?Critics of the ESAcall it an expensivefailure becauseonly 37 speciesCASE STUDY have been removedfrom theendangered list. Fourteen of thesespecies recovered, 8 became extinct,and the rest were removed because oftechnical errors or discovery of newpopulations.Most biologists agree that the actneeds strengthening and modification.But they disagree that the acthas been a failure, for four reasons.First, species are listed onlywhen they are in serious danger ofextinction. This is like setting up apoorly funded hospital emergencyroom that takes only the most desperatecases, often with little hopefor recovery, and saying it should beshut down because it has not savedenough patients.Second, it takes decades for mostspecies to become endangered orthreatened. Thus it usually takesdecades to bring a species in criticalcondition back to the point where itcan be removed from the list. Expectingthe ESA—which has beenin existence only since 1973—toquickly repair the biological depletionof many decades is unrealistic.Third, the most important measureof the law’s success is that thecondition of almost 40% of the listedspecies is stable or improving. A hospitalemergency room taking onlythe most desperate cases and thenstabilizing or improving the conditionof 40% of its patients would beconsidered an astounding success!Fourth, the federal endangeredspecies budget was only $58 millionin 2005—about what the Departmentof Defense spends in a littlemore than an hour or 20¢ a year perU.S. citizen. To supporters of theESA, it is amazing that so much hasbeen accomplished in stabilizing orimproving the condition of almost40% of the listed species on a shoestringbudget.Yes, the act can be improved andfederal regulators have sometimesbeen too heavy-handed in enforcingit. But instead of gutting or doingaway with this important act, biologistscall for it to be strengthenedand modified to help protectecosystems and the nation’s overallbiodiversity.Some critics say that only 20% ofthe endangered species are stable orimproving. If correct, this is still anincredible bargain.Critical ThinkingShould the budget for the EndangeredSpecies Act be drastically increased?Explain.244 CHAPTER 12 Sustaining Biodiversity: The Species Approach