Search Results

Coral Law under Threat

Irus Braverman

in Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink

In chapter 4, “Coral Law under Threat,”the pendulum swings back to despair. The chapter documents the focus of contemporary legal regimes—in particular, the U.S. Endangered Species Act—on threat and ... More

In chapter 4, “Coral Law under Threat,”the pendulum swings back to despair. The chapter documents the focus of contemporary legal regimes—in particular, the U.S. Endangered Species Act—on threat and endangerment, exposing how ill-equipped this law is for dealing with coral species and also with the sheer scale of their “super wicked problem.” Here, federal administrators provide insight into the processes by which listing and delisting decisions take place, their deliberations about coral classification providing a fresh perspective on the correlations between law and science. While the frustrations with existing legal regimes, as well as the fraught relationship between scientists and lawyers, invoke a sense of despair, some also see hope on the legal horizon. Two such hopeful instances are the emerging international regulation of climate change and the signals of possible receptiveness by U.S. courts to the assertion of constitutional rights to a healthy environment.Less

The Endangered Species Act and Marine Species Protection in the Climate Change Era

Alexis K. Segal

in Climate Change Impacts on Ocean and Coastal Law: U.S. and International Perspectives

As mounting impacts from climate change strain our remaining fragile marine species and ecosystems, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has emerged as a primary regulatory vehicle to enhance protection ... More

As mounting impacts from climate change strain our remaining fragile marine species and ecosystems, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has emerged as a primary regulatory vehicle to enhance protection of marine species and habitat. Despite indisputable science showing climate change impacts to corals, many of which are the result of anthropogenic influence, climate change has played only a small role in ESA protection of this critical indicator species of our oceans. Historically underutilized in the marine context relative to terrestrial species and habitat, there is polarizing debate as to whether the ESA is properly equipped to protect our most valuable and vulnerable ocean resources in light of changing climate and issues such as ocean acidification, warming temperature, current flow, pollution, and weather patterns. This chapter discusses the unique aspects, including advantages and disadvantages of protecting marine species and environs through ESA provisions in sections 4, 7, and 10.Less

Litigation, Regulation, and International Law as Law and Policy Drivers in the United States

Cinnamon Piñon Carlarne

in Climate Change Law and Policy: EU and US Perspectives

This chapter examines how public and private actors are using litigation, regulation, and international law to influence federal climate policy. It begins by reviewing past and present climate change ... More

This chapter examines how public and private actors are using litigation, regulation, and international law to influence federal climate policy. It begins by reviewing past and present climate change litigation in the US to suggest the role of litigation in shaping federal climate policy. It then explores the varied ways in which domestic and foreign citizens are attempting to use existing domestic legal and regulatory regimes and international legal mechanisms to compel the US federal government to limit domestic greenhouse gas emissions. The chapter concludes by examining how domestic and international efforts to use litigation and regulation coupled with on-going sub-federal legal and political initiatives influence climate policy in the US.Less

Conversion Arguments: Land Use Regulation

N. Scott Arnold

in Imposing Values: Liberalism and Regulation

This chapter articulates arguments for and against the regulatory regimes implicit in the Endangered Species Act (on endangered flora and fauna) and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (wetlands ... More

This chapter articulates arguments for and against the regulatory regimes implicit in the Endangered Species Act (on endangered flora and fauna) and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (wetlands regulation). It finds that the best arguments in favor of these regulatory regimes are public goods arguments, which were disposed of in Chapter 6. By contrast, there are good conversion arguments against both of these regulatory regimes.Less

Introduction

in Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology

In 1973, the U.S. Congress approved one of the most sweeping environmental initiatives in American history: the Endangered Species Act. The goal of this ambitious new law was to stem the rising tide ... More

In 1973, the U.S. Congress approved one of the most sweeping environmental initiatives in American history: the Endangered Species Act. The goal of this ambitious new law was to stem the rising tide of extinction that had swept away more than a thousand plants and animals since the beginning of the seventeenth century. The post-World War II period, particularly the late 1960s and 1970s, witnessed a remarkable environmental awakening in the United States and the West more broadly. While the Endangered Species Act undoubtedly rode the crest of the postwar environmental movement, it would be a mistake to see the measure solely as a consequence of that movement. Academic natural history experienced transformation and growth in the century leading up to the Endangered Species Act. This book recognizes the central role that naturalists have played in American wildlife conservation and the protection of endangered species. It provides a long view on their sustained and substantial efforts to discover, problematize, and respond to the issue of extinction over a roughly two-century period leading up to the Endangered Species Act of 1973.Less

The Impact of Marine Invasive Species on Endangered Species Protection Efforts in a Changing Ocean Environment

Eric V. Hull

in Climate Change Impacts on Ocean and Coastal Law: U.S. and International Perspectives

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted to promote the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and to preserve their critical habitats. Invasive species continue to ... More

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted to promote the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and to preserve their critical habitats. Invasive species continue to compromise the effectiveness of the ESA. Today, more than 40 percent of all species listed on the endangered species list have been or continue to be significantly impacted by invasive species within their range. For marine protected species, the impacts are significant. Invasive species established in U.S. waters have altered critical habitats and trophic dynamics, decreased juvenile recruitment through increased predation on native species, increased parasitism, altered genetic diversity, decreased species resilience, impaired nutrient cycling and altered water quality, and have reduced marine biodiversity. This chapter addresses the application of the ESA to a rapidly changing marine environment, with emphasis on how current responses to marine invasive species and climate change may affect implementation of the ESA to marine species.Less

The Legal Status of Greater Sage-Grouse: Organizational Structure of Planning Efforts

San J. Stiver

in Greater Sage-Grouse: Ecology and Conservation of a Landscape Species and Its Habitats

Declining Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) populations and habitat trends warranted concern for their long-term viability by state and provincial wildlife management, land management ... More

Declining Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) populations and habitat trends warranted concern for their long-term viability by state and provincial wildlife management, land management agencies, and conservationists by the mid-1990s. Management authorities reacted to these trends by enhancing conservation efforts, adjusting hunting seasons, redirecting funding, and entering into cooperative agreements for coordinated management. Additionally, an assessment of sage-grouse population trends and habitat was prepared, as was a range-wide conservation strategy. Concern about sage-grouse and sagebrush population declines also caused citizens, non-governmental organizations, and industry to respond significantly by beginning or cooperating in conservation activities that benefit sage-grouse and sagebrush habitats. This chapter summarizes existing petitions filed to list Greater Sage-Grouse under the United States Endangered Species Act. The purpose is to document laws, regulations, policies, executive orders, judgments, findings, conservation planning and efforts, organizations, industry, and governments that frame the conservation status of greater sage-grouse.Less

Sea-Level Rise and Species Survival along the Florida Coast

Jaclyn Lopez

in Climate Change Impacts on Ocean and Coastal Law: U.S. and International Perspectives

This chapter describes how the Endangered Species Act can help us plan for species conservation in light of sea-level rise. The Act’s section 4 requirement to designate suitable, unoccupied upland ... More

This chapter describes how the Endangered Species Act can help us plan for species conservation in light of sea-level rise. The Act’s section 4 requirement to designate suitable, unoccupied upland habitat can help in proactively identifying and managing upland habitat for species retreat as rising seas and increasing storms threaten coastal species’ habitats. The chapter discusses how section 7 of the Act ensures that federal agency actions to not jeopardize species or adversely modify their habitats applies to federal programs such as the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), and can be helpful in preventing construction in flood plains and species’ coastal habitats.Less

Creating Wild Capital from the Ecosystem Services Model

Barbara K. Jones

in Wild Capital: Nature's Economic and Ecological Wealth

By failing to assign nature value in our current Anthropocene, the opportunity costs of diminishing biodiversity are not recognized in the marketplace, leading to significant negative consequences ... More

By failing to assign nature value in our current Anthropocene, the opportunity costs of diminishing biodiversity are not recognized in the marketplace, leading to significant negative consequences for both nature and humanity. Polluting water, destroying habitats, or exterminating species should each lessen nature’s value, but if nature has never been assigned a value, that loss is not recognized and development becomes the default. The words “wild capital” remind us that nature should be viewed as an asset like any other, and that in doing so we are better equipped to appreciate its long-term worth. Since the ecosystem services model (ES) ties together the ecological, social, and economic needs of human well-being, it is well situated to assign nature value and from that make a case for nature as natural capital. To assist in policy decisions, ES has offered a path based on the language of economics, making it appealing to economists, while to conservationists, it has turned an argument about the negative effects of development on wildlife into a more fruitful dialogue about how beneficial conservation is for human well-being. ES is also compatible with efforts at sustainability and the goals of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.Less

Conclusion

in Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology

For more than two centuries now, naturalists have been grappling with the problem of extinction. However, how they framed and responded to that problem have both changed fundamentally during that ... More

For more than two centuries now, naturalists have been grappling with the problem of extinction. However, how they framed and responded to that problem have both changed fundamentally during that time. During the decades following the publication of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, a series of seismic scientific shifts not only established that the natural world had experienced profound transformations in the past but also catapulted the study of extinction to front and center within natural history. Until the 1920s, American wildlife conservation focused almost exclusively on the plight of vulnerable individual species, particularly those birds, mammals, and fish considered economically valuable. With limited success, ecologists pushed to broaden this concern to threatened associations of organisms, an approach more in keeping with their interest in the relationship between living things and their environment. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 offered a powerful mandate for the preservation of endangered species, while placing the federal government at the center of a systematic, comprehensive program to rescue them.Less

Florida’s Endearing Manatees

Barbara K. Jones

in Wild Capital: Nature's Economic and Ecological Wealth

By assigning economic value to the manatee, the costs and benefits associated with conserving and protecting them and their habitat can more effectively compete in the marketplace. Just as the ... More

By assigning economic value to the manatee, the costs and benefits associated with conserving and protecting them and their habitat can more effectively compete in the marketplace. Just as the Endangered Species Act assigned value to social benefits or Eleanor Ostrom demonstrated how governing the commons could turn public goods into private ones, assessing the measurable benefits of a resource makes both environmental and economic sense. The manatee’s charisma, combined with a recognized economic value, has helped us maintain a better relationship with the species and moved the manatee and its habitat to the frontlines of Florida’s conservation agenda. Their increased numbers and expanding human fan base have made them the face for improving ecosystem biodiversity and water quality, as well as encouraging better land use decisions along Florida’s rapidly developing coastline. Effective branding by well-respected institutions like Save the Manatee Club and The Ocean Conservancy has made saving the manatee a cause that transcends the local and hopefully has made co-existing with the gentle giants in their habitat something each one of us will readily choose to do.Less

Amphibian Conservation Needs

Edward D Koch and Charles R. Peterson

in Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species

For fifteen years, the authors have been working together to understand and conserve amphibians in the northern Rocky Mountain and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States. Based on their ... More

For fifteen years, the authors have been working together to understand and conserve amphibians in the northern Rocky Mountain and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States. Based on their observations, it appears that many herpetologists are unaware of or poorly informed on management needs and opportunities for conserving amphibian species. Because of this lack of awareness and a relative lack of attention paid by herpetologists to serving specific research and management needs, many natural resource managers lack the sound scientific information and experience needed to conserve amphibians and their habitats. Citizens have created many tools for conserving species that are often unfamiliar to research scientists, many conservationists, and even some managers. This chapter presents some ideas and examples of opportunities to promote amphibian species conservation, based on the authors' experience of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Pacific Region and at Idaho State University. It examines the challenge posed by boreal toads with respect to taxonomy and management. It also provides an overview of conservation planning according to the Endangered Species Act of 1973.Less

NEPA, the ESA, and the Tradeoffs of Interagency Coordination

Alejandro E. Camacho and Robert L. Glicksman

in Reorganizing Government: A Functional and Dimensional Framework

An analysis of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) comparing it to analogous provisions in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) illustrates the value of a careful exploration of interagency ... More

An analysis of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) comparing it to analogous provisions in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) illustrates the value of a careful exploration of interagency coordination-not only the choices that exist for policymakers in deciding the extent to which regulatory authority should be coordinated, but also how policymakers should assess such allocations on a function-by-function basis. Both statutes rely on mechanisms for coordinating certain functions of federal agencies. The chapter argues that NEPA would likely have been more effective if it had extended coordination obligations to information distribution, compliance monitoring, and possibly even project implementation. It suggests that the ESA illustrates one form that formal interagency coordination of implementation and post-decision monitoring might take. The chapter ultimately argues that policymakers should consider the tradeoffs of interagency coordination and independence on a function-by-function basis.Less

Federalization of Land Use Control in Hawai‘i: Clean Air, Clean Water, Species Protection, and Environmental Impacts

David L. Callies

in Regulating Paradise: Land Use Controls in Hawai'i

This chapter discusses how the federal government injected itself into environmental law in a series of statutes passed in the 1970s. These new environmental laws with their significant land use ... More

This chapter discusses how the federal government injected itself into environmental law in a series of statutes passed in the 1970s. These new environmental laws with their significant land use implications were dubbed as “The Federalization of land use controls.” From a land use perspective, the most important of these laws are the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. In some instances, Hawaiʻi’s state environmental laws go even further. For example, as interpreted in a series of Hawaiʻi Supreme Court decisions, the Hawaiʻi Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) law has been so broadly construed that any land use project that so much as touches state land triggers a time-consuming, expensive EIS review.Less

Conservation Systematics: The Bufo boreas Species Group

Anna M. Goebel

in Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species

This chapter describes how systematics and taxonomy can better address conservation issues in both theoretical and utilitarian ways. It begins with a discussion of organismic diversity and how ... More

This chapter describes how systematics and taxonomy can better address conservation issues in both theoretical and utilitarian ways. It begins with a discussion of organismic diversity and how systematics and Linnaean taxonomy have failed to meet the needed description and quantification of diversity for conservation purposes. It then argues that recognizing diversity is more critical than recognizing species, and suggests how diversity can be incorporated into systematics using measures of phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic taxonomy. Finally, the chapter suggests three utilitarian ways that conservation systematics can incorporate diversity into management and politics: set priorities for conservation; reconstruct the Endangered Species Act of 1973; and mitigate loss of total diversity by a procedure that identifies acceptable losses. To illustrate problems and solutions, the chapter uses examples from North American bufonids, especially the western toad (Bufo boreas) species group.Less

Interpreting and estimating the value of ecosystem services

Lawrence H. Goulder and Donald Kennedy

in Natural Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services

This chapter examines philosophical bases for ecosystem service value and explores ways of measuring such value. In exploring the philosophical bases of value, it lays out competing approaches and ... More

This chapter examines philosophical bases for ecosystem service value and explores ways of measuring such value. In exploring the philosophical bases of value, it lays out competing approaches and brings out some ethical issues underlying the choices among them; it also contrasts value-based and rights-based approaches to decision-making about ecosystem protection. In exploring various measurement approaches, the chapter discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the alternatives, and indicates which approaches are best suited to the different types of value conferred by ecosystem services. It provides case studies revealing how these concepts and methods apply to specific settings.Less

EDF, Barely an Organization, Getting Its Act Together

Charles F. Wurster

in DDT Wars: Rescuing Our National Bird, Preventing Cancer, and Creating EDF

The late 1960s and early 1970s was a world of increasing political unrest on many fronts. In January 1969, Richard Nixon replaced Lyndon Johnson as president. Public ... More

The late 1960s and early 1970s was a world of increasing political unrest on many fronts. In January 1969, Richard Nixon replaced Lyndon Johnson as president. Public support for the war in Vietnam was diminishing and there were widespread antiwar demonstrations. Environmental awareness and concerns were rapidly increasing. Air and water pollution were increasingly severe. A huge oil spill dumped 100,000 barrels of crude oil onto the beaches of Santa Barbara, California. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire. Students buried automobiles on college campuses. Lake Erie could no longer support fish. The great whales were being killed in record numbers. People were apprehensive about pesticides. The Bald Eagle, national symbol, was disappearing. The first Earth Day was launched in 1970. Responding to this public outcry, the National Environmental Policy Act passed Congress almost unanimously and became law on January 1, 1970; the Clean Air Act became law in 1970, the Clean Water Act in 1972, and the Endangered Species Act in 1973; and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act was rewritten in 1972. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had appeared in 1962 and generated a sizable public reaction, but pesticide policies had changed very little by 1970. This was the milieu in which EDF sought to pursue its goals of a national ban on DDT and the development of environmental law. Reaching those goals would require a much more substantial organization than EDF was in 1969; at that time it was little more than a board of trustees with plenty of ideas but no staff, no office, and almost no money. Most of those trustees were going about their normal lives with EDF concerns more like a hobby than a profession. Their dedication was strong and very real, but a strategic game plan was barely in sight. There were additional impediments when compared with today’s world. Forty-five years ago communications barely resembled what we have now. Most television sets were black-and-white with small screens and large bulky bodies, although color TV was arriving slowly. There were no computers or cell phones. Less

The New Liberal State

Jefferson Decker

in The Other Rights Revolution: Conservative Lawyers and the Remaking of American Government

During the period of liberal reform known as the Great Society, the US government expanded its regulation of the nation’s economy in an effort to protect the environment and protect consumers from ... More

During the period of liberal reform known as the Great Society, the US government expanded its regulation of the nation’s economy in an effort to protect the environment and protect consumers from dangerous or unhealthy products. This new regulatory state differed from earlier regulatory states, in that it was broad (in the sense of subjecting many more businesses and individuals to regulation), but weak (in the sense that relatively few bureaucrats regulated large numbers of people). It also relied much more heavily on lawyers and litigation in order to fulfil regulatory mandates without spending large amounts of federal money. And, for that reason, it provoked controversy. When, for example, the Disney Corporation’s plans to build a multi-million dollar ski resort in Californa’s Mineral King Valley was blocked by a series of lawsuits, business interests became concerned. How, they asked, could the courts shut down a project that had been approved by those branches of government that answered directly to voters? Had the “public interest,” as represented by membership groups and their lawyers, supplanted the private interests of individuals and business as the typical litigant in the U.S. legal system?Less

The Green’s Gambit

Benjamin Hale

in The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature

This chapter argues that reasons are underdetermined and often left out of value-based discussions of nature. The chapter offers a rough sketch of Kantian moral theory – particularly the first two ... More

This chapter argues that reasons are underdetermined and often left out of value-based discussions of nature. The chapter offers a rough sketch of Kantian moral theory – particularly the first two formulations of the Categorical Imperative – to suggest that the primary charge of environmentalism ought to be that of encouraging deeper justification of actions. It utilizes the Endangered Species Act, the argument from ecosystem services, and the case of a stolen kidney to suggest that cost-benefit analysis and related methodologies are insufficient for addressing the broad ethical considerations of environmentalists.Less