Protecting endangered species under future climate change: From single-species preservation to an anticipatory policy approach

Anthropogenic climate climate change presents a unique challenge for endangered species policy and an opportunity for policy makers to develop a more predictive and robust approach to preserving the nation's biological resources. Biological and ecological reactions to shifting climate conditions and the potential feedbacks and synergistic effects of such changes may threaten the well-being of many species, particularly of those already in jeopardy of extinction. The United States Endangered Species Act of 1973 will fail to keep pace with increasing numbers of species needing protection as long as it remains focused on protecting species individually. The actmust not be abandoned, however; it holds tremendous promise for preserving biological diversity through a more proactive, anticipatory perspective. The current Endangered Species Act should be reinforced and improved by better integration of scientific expertise into habitat and community preservation listing decisions and recovery plan devlopment. Given the uncertainties surrounding long-term environmental consequences of human activities and resource use, a longer-term perspective must be integrated into all efforts to protect our biotic resources. Under appointment from the Graduate Fellowships for Global Change administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Ecducation for the US Department of Energy.     

A river might run through it again: criteria for consideration of dam removal and interim lessons from California

Resource managers are increasingly being challenged by stakeholder groups to consider dam removal as a policy option and as a tool for watershed management. As more dam owners face high maintenance costs, and rivers as spawning grounds for anadromous fish become increasingly valuable, dam removal may provide the greatest net benefit to society. This article reviews the impact of Endangered Species Act listings for anadromous fish and recent shifts in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's hydropower benefit-costs analysis and discusses their implications for dam removal in California. We propose evaluative criteria for consideration of dam removal and apply them to two case studies: the Daguerre and Englebright Dams on the Yuba River and the Scott and Van Horne Dams on the South Eel River, California.     

Critical habitat designation: Is it prudent?

The critical habitat provision of the US Endangered Species Act was believed by many to be a key feature of the Act. It was believed that this provision would benefit federally listed endangered and threatened species. However, only 23% of the listed species in the United States have their critical habitats designated. The current trend is to forego critical habitat designation because the federal government believes that the Endangered Species Act can protect most listed species without resort to the critical habitat provision. Required publication of critical habitat locations in theFederal Register may draw vandals and collectors to rare species. In other cases, existing habitat protection already provides adequate protection for species. In a few instances critical habitat changes over time and is difficult to delineate. Lastly, designating critical habitat is time consuming, delays species listing, and is controversial, detracting from the positive image of the Endangered Species Act.     

Arctic Climate Impacts: Environmental Injustice in Canada and the United States

The current and projected future physical impacts of climate change are most extreme in the northern latitudes. The indigenous peoples in the North American arctic and sub-arctic rely on the availability of natural resources in mixed subsistence economies for nutritional and cultural survival and thus experience disproportionate burdens with respect to our changing climate. Arctic climate impacts exemplify how global phenomena and activities can significantly affect people locally in remote regions. These impacts are largely consistent throughout the region, irrespective of national boarders; however, indigenous peoples in Canada are better positioned than those in the United States to shape policy in a way that would ensure their adaptation to climate change. Political and industrial activity on national and global scales can have significant environmental, social and cultural repercussions on the local scale in remote areas. Remedies for environmental injustice will thus require strong cross-scale political and institutional linkages.     

“Just Another Hoop to Jump Through?” Using Environmental Laws and Processes to Protect Indigenous Rights

Protection of culturally important indigenous landscapes has become an increasingly important component of environmental management processes, for both companies and individuals striving to comply with environmental regulations, and for indigenous groups seeking stronger laws to support site protection and cultural/human rights. Given that indigenous stewardship of culturally important sites, species, and practices continues to be threatened or prohibited on lands out of indigenous ownership, this paper examines whether or not indigenous people can meaningfully apply mainstream environmental management laws and processes to achieve protection of traditional sites and associated stewardship activities. While environmental laws can provide a “back door” to protect traditional sites and practices, they are not made for this purpose, and, as such, require specific amendments to become more useful for indigenous practitioners. Acknowledging thoughtful critiques of the cultural incommensurability of environmental law with indigenous environmental stewardship of sacred sites, I interrogate the ability of four specific environmental laws and processes—the Uniform Conservation Easement Act; the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act; the Pacific Stewardship Council land divestiture process; and Senate Bill 18 (CA-2004)—to protect culturally important landscapes and practices. I offer suggestions for improving these laws and processes to make them more applicable to indigenous stewardship of traditional landscapes.     

Conflict,controversy, and compromise: The Concho water snake (Nerodia harteri paucimaculata) versus the Stacy Dam and Reservoir

The Colorado River Municipal Water District (CRMWD) of Big Spring, Texas, planned to construct the Stacy Reservoir and Dam on the Colorado River near Paint Rock, Texas, yet needed a Section 404 permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers pursuant to the Clean Water Act. In 1986 the Concho water snake (Nerodia harteri paucimaculata) was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Much of its remaining range included the stretch of the Colorado River that would be flooded by the proposed dam. After initially rejecting CRMWD proposals for mitigation, and informing the Corps of Engineers that it would issue a jeopardy opinion regarding the 404 permit pursuant to Section 7 of the ESA, the US Fish and Wildlife Service reversed its stand. The final biological opinion stated that reasonable and prudent alternatives previously rejected as unfeasible would remove the threat of jeopardy. This paper concludes that experimental management techniques proposed by FWS to allow dam construction do not adequately ensure survival of the Concho water snake and an alternative water source should have been found.     

Perspectives on the landmark decision designating the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) as a threatened subspecies

Following an extensive legal battle challenging its original decision to not extend the protection of the Endangered Species Act to the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), the US Fish and Wildlife Service was ordered by the 9th District Court of Appeals to reassess the status of the owl. As a result of the revised analysis, the service proposed the northern spotted owl for threatened status throughout its range. Because of the complex biological issues involved and the perceived potential for economic disruption in timber-dependent communities of the Pacific Northwest, this proposal generated more controversy and interest than any previous one. In this article I discuss the rationale for the service’s decision, public involvement in the process, and the mechanisms now available to conserve the northern spotted owl and its habitat under the Endangered Species Act.     

Speaking of fire: reflexive governance in landscapes of social change and shifting local identities

ABSTRACT

The concept of reflexive governance has to a large extent emerged from an increasing recognition of the need to consider different meanings of nature in the environmental policy-making process. Yet, so far, little attention has been paid to creating conditions for reflexive governance among different actors in intercultural settings, particularly in the context of environmental conflict and strong cultural change among indigenous peoples. This paper reviews three participatory research projects carried out in the Gran Sabana in Canaima National Park, Venezuela, which facilitated dialogue among indigenous people regarding their conflicting views of fire, in part by developing community-wide critical reflections on processes of cultural change and identity formations. These experiences suggest that once marginalized environmental knowledge is publicly acknowledged within the context of endogenous cultural processes, indigenous people feel more confident to engage in dialogue with other actors, thus allowing the emergence of reflexive environmental governance.     

Assessing and Mitigating the Effects of Windblown Soil on Rare and Common Vegetation

Acting under the auspices of the US Endangered Species Act, we quantified wind erosion and its effects on rare and common plant species on a semi-arid military installation in Hawaii. Our goal was to develop management strategies, based on local data, to aid the conservation of rare and common indigenous plants and their habitats. We collected windblown soil coming off of roads and other disturbed soils to assess likely impacts to plants occurring at certain heights and distances from disturbed surfaces. We then subjected plants in a glasshouse to windblown dust treatments, designed from our field data to simulate erosion events, and evaluated the effect of these treatments on photosynthesis and survival. We also designed several field experiments to examine the in-situ effects of windblown soil and soil substrate on germination, growth rate, and survival of indigenous and nonindigenous plants. We conclude from these experiments that most direct effects of windblown soil to plants can be effectively mitigated by locating roads and training areas at least 40 m from sensitive plant habitats and through vegetation management to maintain at least 11% aerial cover on disturbed surfaces. Effects of soil type on germination, growth, and survival was species-specific, emphasizing the importance of species trials prior to, or during, rehabilitation efforts.     

Environmental Management and the New Politics of Western Water: The Animas-La Plata Project and Implementation of the Endangered Species Act

/ This paper explores the new politics of western water policy through an examination of the Animas-La Plata water project and implementation of the Endangered Species Act. It is suggested that the focus of western water programming has shifted from the source of distributed funds, the United States Congress, to the agencies originally created to deliver federal benefits because funding for new project construction has not been forthcoming. Under this new system, members of Congress continue to excite their constituents with promises of money for new project starts, while the administrative agencies perform the myriad duties needed to keep these projects alive. The result is that political objectives have replaced operational/management objectives in administrative processes. In this case, the author demonstrates how resource managers in the Bureau of Reclamation manipulated hydrological analysis to control administrative process, why their manipulation was unfair, and perhaps illegal, and why biologists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service accepted the analysis. While ostensibly protecting all interests, the result is that none of the objectives of federal water programming are achieved. KEY WORDS: Environmental management; Administrative politics; Water policy; Endangered Species Act; Animas-La Plata, Bureau of Reclamation     

Biodiversity laws: State experiences

The Western Governors' Association (WGA) includes both the public lands states with their issues and the plains states, which are 98% privately owned. WGA deals with most legislation affecting biodiversity, whether the effect is direct or tangential. It will probably not be possible, or desirable, for one entity to be in charge of biodiversity conservation. The Endangered Species Act, public lands laws, agricultural laws, water law, environmental laws, and funding legislation all affect biodiversity conservation and the responsibility for it. None of them on their own are enough, and most can cause harmful unintended consequences for biodiversity. The experience of western states in developing consensus principles for reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act provides an example of common-sense ways to improve management of biodiversity, notwithstanding the complexity and large stakes involved. The WGA's proposed changes call for increasing the role of states, streamlining the act, and increasing certainty for landowners and water users. To achieve sustainable conservation for biodiversity, the better question is not “Who is/should be in charge?”, it is “How do we get this done?” To answer this, we need goals, guidance, and bottom lines from federal laws, and management and oversight at the state level, but they all need to support local on-the-ground partnerships. Sustainable conservation requires the active participation of those who live there. WGA's experience in coordinating the Great Plains Partnership as well as its work with watershed efforts shed light on what to expect. Multilevel partnerships are not easy and require a different way of doing business. The ad hoc, sitespecific processes that result do not lend themselves to being legislated, fit into organizational boxes, or scored on a budget sheet. They do require common sense and a longterm perspective.     

Balancing Endangered Species and Ecosystems: A Case Study of Adaptive Management in Grand Canyon

/ Adaptive ecosystem management seeks to sustain ecosystems while extracting or using natural resources. The goal of endangered species management under the Endangered Species Act is limited to the protection and recovery of designated species, and the act takes precedence over other policies and regulations guiding ecosystem management. We present an example of conflict between endangered species and ecosystem management during the first planned flood on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon in 1996. We discuss the resolution of the conflict and the circumstances that allowed a solution to be reached. We recommend that adaptive management be implemented extensively and early in ecosystem management so that information and working relationships will be available to address conflicts as they arise. Though adaptive management is not a panacea, it offers the best opportunity for balanced solutions to competing management goals.     

Environmental and cultural changes under Chilean neoliberalism: an ethnography of forestry and the Mapuche in Valle Elicura

Dominant development discourses often proclaim promises of economic prosperity and global inclusion, while actually disenfranchising local cultures in the Global South from their traditional environments. In Latin America, and specifically Chile, development manifests itself through neoliberal economic policies implemented in the late twentieth century, while simultaneously creating political economies ripe for foreign and corporate exploitation. Using a political ecology framework, this ethnography presents a case study of the correlation between the development of Chilean neoliberalism and the lifeways of Mapuche indigenous peoples in the town of Valle Elicura, Chile. The findings reveal that natural resource extraction and ecological devastation to local forests by large, international logging companies result in environmental, cultural, and environmental-cultural transformations for this community. The local people who more closely rely on their surrounding environments to regulate and inform their transportation networks, basic life needs, and religion, among other applications, are forced to compete for resources with foreign corporations focused on profit. However, it is this short-term focus that threatens extinction for the traditional lifeways of the Mapuche peoples and many other marginalised communities of facing the demands of development.     

Pre‐Development Groundwater Conditions Surrounding Memphis,Tennessee: Controversy and Unexpected Outcomes

Reliance on groundwater resources by differing governing bodies can create transboundary disputes raising questions of ownership and apportionment as the resource becomes strained through overuse or threatened by contamination. Transboundary disputes exist at varying scales, from conflicts between countries to smaller disputes between intrastate jurisdictions. In 2005 within the United States, the State of Mississippi filed a lawsuit against its political neighbor and their utility, the City of Memphis and Memphis Light, Gas, and Water, for groundwater deemed owned by the State of Mississippi to be wrongfully diverted across the state line and into Tennessee by the defendants. The basis of the lawsuit was potentiometric maps of groundwater levels for the Memphis aquifer that showed under suggested pre‐development conditions no flow occurring across the Mississippi‐Tennessee state line, but subsequent historic potentiometric maps show a cone of depression under the City of Memphis with a clear northwesterly gradient from Mississippi into Tennessee. The suggested pre‐development conditions were derived from limited groundwater level observations between 41 and 74 years post‐development. A new pre‐development map is constructed using historic records that range 0‐17 years post‐development that shows the natural flow is northwesterly from Mississippi into Tennessee and transboundary groundwater quantities have actually decreased since pre‐development conditions.     

Towards sustainable management of natural ecosystems on farms? a New Zealand perspective

Many New Zealand farms still have large remnant indigenous forest patches. This paper discusses constraints and opportunities for the sustainable management of these remnants. First, the paper analyses why the specific ecological situation of the New Zealand vegetation poses severe constraints for sustainable management. Second, results from a case study are presented suggesting that analysis of farmers’ attitudes to remnant ecosystems might provide valuable data for improving existing environmental legislation. Finally, the possible management implications of the new Resource Management Act 1991 and Forest Amendment Act 1993 are discussed. It is argued that these Acts may bring to an end a thousand years of wilful and accidental destruction of New Zealand's natural environment.     

Environmental Harm: Political not Biological

In their fine paper, Evans et al. (2009) discuss the proposition that invasive non-native species (INS) are harmful. The question to ask is, “Harmful to whom?” Pathogens that make people sick and pests that damage their property—crops, for example—cause harms of kinds long understood in common law and recognized by public agencies. The concept of “harm to the environment,” in contrast, has no standing in common law or legislation, no meaning for any empirical science, and no basis in a political consensus other than might be drawn from the Endangered Species Act. As a generalization, the proposition that INS cause “environmental harm”—since this concept is empty of legal, scientific, and political meaning—must rest on definition, diktat, or diatribe. As Evans et al. suggest, however, the idea of “harm to the environment” is not always and certainly need not be arbitrary; it might gather significance in the context of a particular place through a political process that weighs economic concerns with cultural, religious, aesthetic, and other relevant beliefs, practices, and commitments that people who care about that place present. It is not clear, however, that adaptive management, which Evens et al. propose, will provide that democratic political process.     

Threatened and Endangered Species: At What Cost? The Corps of Engineers Looks at Expenditures and Priorities

Current political conditions, primarily budgetary uncertainty, and the related reluctance to make funding commitments for future generations, have raised questions about the costs of conservation and environmental protection that have not previously been asked. As Federal investments are scrutinized and budgets become ever more constrained, the costs associated with environmental requirements could begin to be of greater importance and to influence decisions on Federal projects. In response to concerns about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) spending under the Endangered Species Act (P.L. 93-205) (ESA), a limited investigation was performed to determine the accuracy of reported Corps expenditures. The investigation showed that, for particular groups of species, actual conservation costs for threatened and endangered species may be twice the amounts previously reported in the annual ESA expenditure reporting to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In light of this finding, the Corps has sought a means to provide more accurate and consistent reporting of expenditures for addressing threatened and endangered species. A Species Costs Template (template) has been developed to identify the types and magnitude of costs related to the ESA and to counteract the impediments (legal, institutional, and practical) to underreporting costs. The template will be used by the Corps for reporting ESA costs beginning with Fiscal Year 2005 (FY05) (reported in January 2006). Five broad categories of expenditures (effects determination costs, ESA protection and conservation costs, equipment costs, opportunity costs, and other species costs) are identified by the template.     

COOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT OF THE DUNGENESS WATERSHED TO PROTECT SALMON IN WASHINGTON STATE1

ABSTRACT: Over the last decade, the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe has formed partnerships with their neighboring county government, irrigation districts, property owners, and state and federal agencies in an effort to save the dwindling runs of Dungeness River salmon. Although considerable progress has been made to begin the recovery process, the watershed is included in recent listings of Pacific Northwest salmon under the Endangered Species Act. Under the coordination of an active watershed council, significant improvements have been made in water conservation and the protection of instream flows. Cooperation between the Tribe, irrigation districts and the Washington Department of Ecology resulted in a trust water rights agreement and the reduction of late summer water withdrawals by one‐third.     

Three Paradoxes of Habitat Conservation Plans

Habitat conservation plans (HCPs) are enabled under section 10(a) of the Endangered Species Act. The substantial increase since 1994 in the number of HCPs has motivated numerous critiques of nearly every aspect of HCPs. These critiques have overlooked several paradoxes that expose fundamental shortcomings of section 10(a) or its implementation. I refer to them as: the Trainwreck Paradox, the Jeopardy Paradox, and the Maximum Mitigation Paradox. The Trainwreck Paradox states that HCPs are needed to avert the listing of species as threatened or endangered, but federal listings are needed to motivate landowners to develop HCPs. The Jeopardy Paradox stems from the vague language of section 10(a) which allows an HCP to reduce the likelihood of a species’ survival and recovery but establishes no objective limit on the magnitude of reduction. The Maximum Mitigation Paradox argues that if a landowner provides maximum mitigation at the onset of an HCP, then there will be no financial resources for adaptive management in the future, but if resources are reserved for adaptive management, then the landowner is not mitigating to the maximum extent practicable as required by section 10(a). The purpose of this article is to explain these paradoxes of HCPs and discuss potential remedies.     

The Route to Best Science in Implementation of the Endangered Species Act’s Consultation Mandate: The Benefits of Structured Effects Analysis

The Endangered Species Act is intended to conserve at-risk species and the ecosystems upon which they depend, and it is premised on the notion that if the wildlife agencies that are charged with implementing the statute use the best available scientific information, they can successfully carry out this intention. We assess effects analysis as a tool for using best science to guide agency decisions under the Act. After introducing effects analysis, we propose a framework that facilitates identification and use of the best available information in the development of agency determinations. The framework includes three essential steps—the collection of reliable scientific information, the critical assessment and synthesis of available data and analyses derived from those data, and the analysis of the effects of actions on listed species and their habitats. We warn of likely obstacles to rigorous, structured effect analyses and describe the extent to which independent scientific review may assist in overcoming these obstacles. We conclude by describing eight essential elements that are required for a successful effects analysis.