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

Applying Endangered Species Act Protections to Desert Fishes: Assessment and Opportunities

Matthew E. Andersen and James E. Brooks

in Standing between Life and Extinction: Ethics and Ecology of Conserving Aquatic Species in North American Deserts

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a powerful tool for species conservation since its passage. Protections from the ESA have reduced the likelihood of extinctions for many species, yet ... More

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a powerful tool for species conservation since its passage. Protections from the ESA have reduced the likelihood of extinctions for many species, yet conservation actions have rarely led to full recovery for aquatic species. Expectations for ESA effectiveness are challenged by competing conservation needs among rare species, competition for resources such as water, and funding needs that can be rarely met. The most comprehensive of any species protection legislation in the world, the ESA is vilified by some as an example of federal overreach because its habitat protection provisions may slow development or appear in conflict with state rights. Habitat protection provisions of the ESA are particularly important to desert fish conservation, especially when a species is restricted to a single or few habitats. ESA implementation options have evolved over its 45-year history to be more flexible, resulting in collaborative approaches among agencies, stakeholders, and private individuals. If ESA implementation is to continue to support desert fish conservation, it seems likely that flexible, collaborative approaches will be necessary; however, it is also likely that future drought and water shortages will be obstacles to future conservation efforts.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

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

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

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

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

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 Limits of Secretariat Influence:: CITES and the Protection of Commercially Exploited Aquatic Species

Sikina Jinnah

in Post-Treaty Politics: Secretariat Influence in Global Environmental Governance

This chapter explains why the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Secretariat, an otherwise influencial secretairat, failed to influence political outcomes in this case. ... More

This chapter explains why the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Secretariat, an otherwise influencial secretairat, failed to influence political outcomes in this case. The chapter illuminates the CITES Secretariat's efforts to manage overlap with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on issues surrounding commercially-exploited aquatic species. The CITES Secretariat was unable to influence overlap management decisions because states’ preferences were moderately solidified and the Secretariat's overlap management functions were easily substitutable with those of FAO. The chapter highlights the limits of principal-agent models for describing state-secretariat relationships and demonstrates how secretariats can actively work to shape state preferences, even though they are not always successful in doing so.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

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

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

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

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

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

The Battle to Conserve Aquatic Species in Lands of Water Scarcity Continues

Jack E. Williams and David L. Propst

in Standing between Life and Extinction: Ethics and Ecology of Conserving Aquatic Species in North American Deserts

Water was a critical fuel for post-World War II economic and population growth in the North American west and its appropriation for human use brought new challenges to aquatic organisms that had ... More

Water was a critical fuel for post-World War II economic and population growth in the North American west and its appropriation for human use brought new challenges to aquatic organisms that had evolved in harsh environments but were little prepared for extensive alteration of fragile arid-land aquatic systems. There was little regard for native fish species if they had no immediate and tangible worth to humans. But an increasing awareness by resource managers and academics of the plight of this vanishing fauna spawned the Desert Fishes Council in 1969. With passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, additional impetus for conservation of native aquatic organisms was provided. Published in 1991, The Battle Against Extinction summarized progress and issues in arid-land native fish conservation through about 1990. Since then, new technologies, evolving strategies, and a changing climate provide new opportunities and exacerbate lingering issues, including uncertain political support for conservation. How persistent conservation problems are addressed and resolved will determine the fate of numerous arid-land aquatic organisms.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

Politics, Imagination, Ideology, and the Realms of Our Possible Futures

Christopher Norment

in Standing between Life and Extinction: Ethics and Ecology of Conserving Aquatic Species in North American Deserts

The future of southwestern aquatic habitats and their native species is uncertain, due to possible impacts of climate-induced drought, population growth, and over-utilization of scarce water ... More

The future of southwestern aquatic habitats and their native species is uncertain, due to possible impacts of climate-induced drought, population growth, and over-utilization of scarce water resources, but also to politically and ideologically motivated attacks on the Endangered Species Act, and federal land management and regulatory authority. However, a potentially more profound danger is the development of a “post-truth” culture that accepts the notion of “alternative facts” and distrusts science. Such attitudes will make it difficult to develop effective approaches to counter likely, future droughts in the American Southwest, and consequent threats to regional aquatic biodiversity. Crafting a sustainable future for the Southwest and its native species and ecosystems will require a robust scientific understanding of the region’s natural variability and system complexity, advances in public policy and management, and evaluating the role that wealth plays in affecting decisions about allocating and managing natural resources. However, it also will require effective political action, and that a critical mass of people transcend blinding ideology, convention, and human short-sightedness. Finally, progress demands that we imagine the realms of our possible futures, and consider the historical context of past, present, and future efforts to protect regional aquatic biodiversity in the American Southwest.Less

Biological Diversity

Bryan G. Norton

in Toward Unity among Environmentalists

As a philosopher who has written on the subject of endangered species policy, I am asked from time to time to join a panel discussion on “the value of biological diversity.” Consider a ... More

As a philosopher who has written on the subject of endangered species policy, I am asked from time to time to join a panel discussion on “the value of biological diversity.” Consider a representative example: At the National Forum on Biodiversity, a 1986 conference organized by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academy of Sciences, I shared the platform with three resource economists and one ecologist. Everyone on the platform agreed that biological diversity has great value; the discussion focused on the question, can that value be quantified in dollar terms? I quickly perceived that I was in the middle of a polarized situation. The economists were there to demonstrate the efficacy of their methods for representing the value of wild species as dollars; the ecologist scoffed at these attempts as irrelevant at best and, at worst, as a symptom of moral depravity. Hovering in the background of discussions like this are celebrated examples such as that of the snaildarter and the Tellico Dam. In that case, the Supreme Court halted work on an almost-completed dam because it would have flooded the only known habitat of the snaildarter, a three-inch member of the perch family. The politically tortured case of the tiny snaildarter illustrates the dilemma environmentalists face in defending biological resources. Environmentalists initially opposed the Tennesee Valley Authority’s plans to dam one of the last free-flowing stretches of the Little Tennessee River because it would destroy white-water canoeing, flood natural ecological systems, and destroy anthropologically important Indian burial sites. Environmentalists made little headway, initially, as the bureaucratic processes ground forward and construction of the dam was begun. Then, in early 1976, in a dramatic development, biologists discovered a hitherto unknown species, the snaildarter, living in the waters upstream from the dam. Since the snaildarter spawned in shallow, fast-moving waters, the dam threatened to wipe out a distinctive form of life. Environmental economists, anxious to use their quantificational tools, saw the Tellico Dam as a case in which assigning a dollar value to a threatened species might tip the scales in an aggregation of costs and benefits of proposed projects. Less