CONSERVATION CORNER
Endangered Species Act Can be Improved
by James L. Cummins

Since the Endangered Species Act was signed by Richard Nixon in 1973, over 1,300 species have been listed as threatened or endangered, yet only 10 have recovered and taken off the list. During that same period, 35 listed species have been found to be extinct. If our health system had this success rate, we would need to change it.

The fundamental problem is that, unlike most of our important environmental laws that were passed in the mid-1970s, the well-intentioned Endangered Species Act sometimes results in not only hostility on the part of the landowner, but damage to the species needing protection. Ability of government to control how property is used can make an enemy out of even the most harmless of birds, plants or other species. In addition, the Act does not place an emphasis on recovering populations to get them off the list, or out of the hospital, so to speak.

Therefore, few tools for recovering species are available under the Act. While habitat protection is important, it should properly be part of an overall recovery program that, among other things, would consider what habitat should be protected, restored and enhanced, and of that, how much is necessary, or if habitat is even the limiting factor in recovery. Lacking that, litigation and the courts replace careful, peer-reviewed science in the decision-making process. This takes protection and recovery out of the hands of fish and wildlife managers and places it in the hands of lawyers.

Since private property provides habitat for 90 percent of threatened or endangered species, we must address the issue of conservation on these lands while recognizing their economic value to society. This can be done by providing incentives, including tax-based ones, to landowners close to existing populations. The Act should include the flexibility to forge solutions that both recover species and protect the private landowner.

The Act could also be improved to do more to keep species from becoming endangered or threatened in the first place, like providing greater emphasis and flexibility in controlling invasive species. Damage to habitat by invasive species has contributed to the decline of 42 percent of those species that are endangered or threatened.

We must also give the Act the flexibility to pull more state and federal agencies together in cooperative efforts to protect species. Our state and national fish hatcheries need to be utilized. Small tweaks in the Army Corps of Engineers' maintenance programs have allowed it to greatly benefit species along the Mississippi River. Similar opportunities exist with other agencies in other ecosystems.

Our current one percent success rate in recovering species is not good enough. We can do better. Congress should update and modernize the Endangered Species Act.

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.