While often used for such projects, more creative use has been made by units of local government that have zoning or similar land use authority. Countywide habitat conservation plans in California, Texas, Utah, and elsewhere have made possible the issuance of a single permit that authorizes all development activities that are consistent with local zoning ordinances, as well as the integration of conservation and development over a period of many decades. For local governments and local landowners to be able to rely on such permits, they needed assurance that a plan, once approved, would be stable and would not be revised each time new information surfaced about the needs of listed species or the impacts of permitted development on listed species.
The FWS and the NMFS acknowledged the legitimacy of the need for permittee assurance by announcing a no surprises policy—that the services would not revisit permits and require additional mitigation in the face of unforeseen circumstances. That innovative assurance, though controversial at the time, 29 has been highly successful at motivating both local governments and landowners to pursue habitat conservation plans and their associated incidental take permits.
Those plans have made possible the establishment of thoughtfully designed systems of conservation reserves, while at the same time facilitating all manner of development activities. Habitat conservation plans have also fostered a practice known as conservation banking. This practice grew out of a realization that conservation measures would need to offset the effects of foreseeable future development on listed species. Rather than wait to implement compensatory mitigation measures when development occurs, conservation banking permits mitigation ahead of development, thus providing development interests with a ready-made mitigation option.
Significantly, conservation banking became a way for entrepreneurial landowners to turn rare species on their land into assets and a means of generating income, rather than liabilities. By investing in conservation of those species and generating mitigation credits that the FWS and the NMFS recognized, conservation bankers could generate income for themselves while providing development interests with a preapproved means of meeting their mitigation obligations.
Through this innovative financing mechanism, scores of conservation banks have been established and used to protect habitat essential to species conservation. If those activities attracted an endangered species to their land or expanded the number or distribution of a species that was already present there, the likely result for landowners was new land use restrictions to avoid any taking of the affected species.
To resolve this dilemma, in the mids, the FWS aggressively promoted what are called safe harbor agreements. Landowners have responded favorably to this approach. For the red-cockaded woodpecker, the endangered species for which safe harbor agreements were first developed, there are now statewide agreements in eight states in which hundreds of forest landowners who collectively own hundreds of thousands of acres of forest participate. Although safe harbor agreements were a novel idea, an amendment to the ESA was not required to bring them about.
Instead, it only took the creativity to fashion an innovative application of a provision that had been part of the law since its inception in In authorizing safe harbor agreements and the permits that effectuate them, the FWS recognized that enabling private landowners to manage their land to attract or increase an endangered species would enhance the survival of those species.
While the jury is still out for many safe harbor agreements, the agreements for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker have resulted in demonstrable benefits. Red-cockaded woodpecker numbers have increased rangewide in response to recovery and management programs, from an estimated 4, active clusters in to 6, in On private lands, more than 40 percent of the known red-cockaded woodpeckers are benefiting from management approved by the FWS through memorandums of agreement, safe harbor agreements, and habitat conservation plans.
The success of safe harbor agreements in incentivizing beneficial management for listed species led to the development of somewhat analogous agreements for so-called candidate species—seriously declining species formally recognized by the FWS as warranting proposed listing but lacking sufficient funds to do so.
While landowners and others have no legal duty to protect or avoid harming candidate species, they often share a desire to keep candidate species from needing to be listed. However, a familiar dilemma can arise: If landowners, for example, seek to help conserve a candidate species on their land and that species nevertheless becomes a listed species, then landowners may face greater land use restrictions because of their earlier voluntary efforts, which helped preserve or expand a given population.
The administrative solution was the establishment of a new program that offered a candidate conservation agreement with assurances CCAA. Landowners who enter into a CCAA agree to undertake specified conservation measures on their property for a candidate species. The assurance landowners get in return is that if the species is later listed, they will not be required to do more than already agreed to under their agreement. A variety of landowners have embraced CCAAs.
Indeed, in instances such as the case of the Upper Missouri River population of the Arctic grayling, there have been enough landowners willing to enroll in CCAAs to persuade the FWS that these species did not in fact need to be listed as endangered or threatened species. A final example of administrative flexibility in ESA implementation concerns the prohibitions that apply to threatened species.
For endangered species, the act includes an extensive list of automatic prohibitions against taking, importation, exportation, sale in interstate commerce, transport in interstate commerce, and more. Instead, Section 4 d of the ESA authorized the FWS to prescribe such regulations as it deemed necessary and advisable for the conservation of a threatened species.
Notwithstanding this statutory discretion, for many years the FWS applied a uniform set of prohibitions to most threatened species that were nearly identical to those that applied automatically to endangered species. Specifically, critics argue that it allows the FWS to list some more controversial species with few protective prohibitions, making the long-term conservation of the species much more uncertain.
While the act requires federal collaboration with the states, many states believe that they should play a much greater role in determining what species should be given priority for ESA listing reviews; in determining if a species should be listed or delisted; and in designating critical habitat and developing recovery plans.
On its face, this effort to expand the working relationship and information-sharing between the FWS, the NMFS, and the states is positive. In fact, many states lack the capacity—both staffing and funding—to engage in ESA activities and, historically, have invested significantly less money in the conservation of listed species.
At present, most states simply lack the financial resources to be able to step up and effectively replace the diminished federal investment in species conservation and recovery. The successful effort to conserve the greater sage-grouse across its remaining state range offers many lessons to inform future efforts to conserve fish and wildlife species long before they reach the threshold that requires listing as threatened or endangered under the ESA.
The greater sage-grouse conservation effort was comprehensive, coordinated, and collaborative, addressing the conservation needs of the sage-grouse on public and private lands through the combined effort of state and federal conservation agencies, private landowners, public land users, and other stakeholders.
Early engagement among these partners built a level of trust and a means of communicating to ensure that the views and concerns of all parties were considered in developing the strategy. The strategy was designed and implemented at the landscape level to address the habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement needs of the greater sage-grouse across its remaining range.
The foundation for the greater sage-grouse conservation strategy was the best available science generated by a team of sage-grouse experts from the states and the FWS that identified threats to the species and strategies for addressing them.
Added scientific analysis was provided by the U. Endangered Species. Learn about the life-saving efforts that led to celebrated comebacks. A groundbreaking bipartisan bill aims to address the looming wildlife crisis before it's too late, while creating sorely needed jobs.
More than one-third of U. We're on the ground in seven regions across the country, collaborating with 52 state and territory affiliates to reverse the crisis and ensure wildlife thrive. Uniting all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in a rapidly changing world. Inspire a lifelong connection with wildlife and wild places through our children's publications, products, and activities.
In 4 seconds , you will be redirected to nwfactionfund. The National Wildlife Federation. What is an "Endangered Species"? Why We Protect Them The Endangered Species Act is very important because it saves our native fish, plants, and other wildlife from going extinct. When deciding whether a species should be added to the Endangered Species List, the following criteria are evaluated: Has a large percentage of the species' vital habitat been degraded or destroyed?
Has the species been over-consumed by commercial, recreational, scientific or educational uses? Other incredibly rare species likely to benefit from similar programs this year include the Sumatran rhino Dicerorhinus sumatrensis and maybe even the rarely seen saola Pseudoryx nghetinhensis. Next year could be the year we rediscover this species and work toward breeding it. The year has just barely begun, but experts warn us that the opportunity to make a difference on these issues is already running short.
We need to put aside political differences and work together to do something about this catastrophic situation — and quickly. Which of these threats to wildlife and endangered species do you worry about most in the coming year — or which additional threats do you think also need to be discussed?
Share your thoughts online using the hashtag Wildlife The Tapanuli orangutan could go extinct this year. Photo: Tim Laman CC 4.
Share: Facebook. So with that rough bit of recent history, what does hold? Here are some big issues that experts say we should be watching in Climate Chaos Of course, climate change will continue to threaten species around the world in A forest is cleared for a new road. Right now he and his team pore over satellite images by hand, looking for signs of new disturbance—not an easy prospect when images vary by surface, shadowing and other factors.
Laurance has issued a call for help to develop a software tool to automate the road-discovery process. Without that, conservation—and species—will lose ground every day. Many of the experts we spoke with expressed hope that the tight deadline will result in some good, quick land and water protection that could protect countless species, but cautioned that these efforts should be watched carefully to make sure they truly protect key habitats and that they offer connectivity between disparate species populations.
The oceans will also be a big part of the Aichi targets. A Host of Other Issues. Here are a few more factors predicted to play a big role in First, we continue to learn more about how plastic waste affects wildlife and the environment. Most recently, a study found that percent of sea turtles had plastic or microplastics in their digestive systems. With more and more plastic being produced every day , this will be a major focus of research and conservation the coming year.
Meanwhile many experts also expressed fear about emerging diseases, like those affecting bats , frogs and salamanders. Right now this activity is all illegal, but that could change in the blink of a pen stroke. Finally, as habitats shrink and poaching and other threats take their toll, a growing number of species are likely to benefit from last-gasp captive breeding, either to boost their wild populations or to keep them alive once their habitats have disappeared.
The red wolf and Florida grasshopper sparrow captive-breeding programs may save those species from extinction in Other incredibly rare species likely to benefit from similar programs this year include the Sumatran rhino Dicerorhinus sumatrensis and maybe even the rarely seen saola Pseudoryx nghetinhensis.
Next year could be the year we rediscover this species and work toward breeding it. The year has just barely begun, but experts warn us that the opportunity to make a difference on these issues is already running short.
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