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March 1995
Disappearing Act: The Future of the Endangered Species Act

By Kathleen Casey

 

 

It’s natural to be aghast at acts that inflict direct pain on an individual — human or animal. We cringe at the pictures: a trapped fur-bearing animal, a deer’s limp body slumped over a 4x4; the branding of a cow’s face. These images force a reaction, and, possibly, action.

Yet there’s a tendency in human nature to lose sight of an atrocity when it becomes once or twice — or many times — removed from the actual harm done. The danger becomes less immediate, less dramatic; the action less urgent. But activities that may appear harmless are degrading ecosystems and killing life on an unimaginable scale.

There’s a crisis, but no drama.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is our most powerful safeguard against the complete pillage of our wilderness areas in the United States, and we are going to lose it soon. Congress is hacking away at our dying Act from every side. From cutting funding, to dismantling the Federal system and leaving authority up to the states, there is little the Republicans want to leave laying around.

The Act, they say, causes many problems. Developers, ranchers, oil drillers, miners, water-hungry municipalities, loggers, manufacturers and farmers, may be inconvenienced. The provisions in the Act make their lives complicated because it does not allow them to indiscriminately pollute, dam rivers, tear down forests etc. So, the ESA is unpopular.

Currently, legislators are developing very creative avenues around the safety net the rest of us humans rely on for clean air, water and wild places. Congress has already passed “non-funded mandates,” which leaves authority over decisions and financing to already-burdened states. In many cases, many ecosystems do not conform to state boundaries.

With the proposed policies, listing a species as endangered (which would result in preventing further damage to its habitat and in developing a rescue plan), would be so complicated, the animal would probably be extinct long before the paperwork was processed. Policies such as “takings”, where landowners would be compensated for any significant loss to the value of their property as a result of evoking the ESA, would bankrupt any government. We would be paying polluters not to pollute.

Another brainstorm is to have all applications to list a species be “peer reviewed” by the community’s industry leaders. Their motivation for acting is already low, but will be even more diminished if the results of the cost/benefit analysis affect their bottom line negatively. Their capability for measuring the value of a species such as a mollusk or prairie grass or mouse is questionable. How does that fit onto a balance sheet?

The result of these attacks on the Act is simple: extinction. Plain and simple, we will start seeing species disappear at a much higher rate. Their food supply, water and shelter will be stolen from under them. Flight and migration routes will be closed. They will be poisoned from pollution. The loss of a few can lead to an even faster extinction of other species as the system becomes unbalanced and starts to unravel. Much as we try to deny it, we are a part of the fabric that will be sabotaged.

Just as it is morally wrong to slaughter an animal for fur or meat; we do not have the right to alter the planet and end the existence of a multitude of plants, animals, and micro-organisms.

We are in a race against time — call or write your Congressperson right now! For more information call the Sierra Club Endangered Species Working Group at Gail Colin-Goldstein, 718-575-4165. The Planet needs you.

Kathleen Casey works for the Sierra Club of New York City.

 


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