CONSERVATION CORNER

Environmental Defense Begins Back From The Brink Campaign

by James L. Cummins

Thirty years after the Endangered Species Act (ESA) made protecting America's wildlife a national concern, we can take heart in some dramatic recoveries. The bald eagle and peregrine falcon are soaring through today's skies, and the gray wolf has returned to areas like Yellowstone National Park. But despite this progress, many other species have yet to find the road to recovery.

The vast majority of endangered wildlife in the United States is found on privately owned lands, where the landmark ESA prevents direct harm to species and ensures their habitats are protected but does little to encourage - and sometimes inadvertently discourages - the actions needed to recover them. In short, the law's defensive strategy has proved insufficient to bring species back from the brink. Thus, survival for most at-risk plants and animals rests in the hands of private landowners.

The goal of Environmental Defense's new Back from the Brink campaign is to restore habitat for 15 endangered species and put them on the clear path toward recovery in the next ten years. This multi-year effort requires on-the-ground restoration projects, significant funding, the willing participation of private landowners and the support of conservation-minded Americans. It will hinge on the cooperative approach to conservation that Environmental Defense's experts have made famous across the country.

According to Robert Bonnie, Environmental Defense's Deputy Director of the Ecosystems Restoration Program, "It's important to understand the difference between protecting and restoring endangered species habitat. Some species, like the bald eagle recovered thanks to effective protection - the destruction of their habitat was halted or practices that harmed the species were banned. But for the vast majority of endangered wildlife, the damage has been done. Their habitat is shrinking or has been degraded to dangerous levels. The recovery of the wildlife relying on these habitats hinges on thorough and effective restoration."

The red-cockaded wood pecker and the gopher tortoise are two species in Mississippi that Environmental Defense has targeted to recover and remove from the endangered list.

Both gopher tortoises and red-cockaded woodpeckers need open park-like forests, preferably longleaf pine. Historically, natural wildfires shaped their habitat by burning the understory and leaving the fire-resistant pine canopy intact. Without these fires that periodically cleared the woodpecker habitat before Europeans settled in the area, habitat must be managed in a way that mimics the historic clearing in order for these species to thrive.

James L. Cummins is Executive Director of the Mississippi Fish and Wildlife Foundation in Stoneville, Mississippi. Known as "Wildlife Mississippi," the Foundation is a non-profit, conservation organization founded to conserve, restore and enhance fish, wildlife and plant resources throughout Mississippi. Their web site is www.wildlifemiss.org.