Integrating Climate Change into Habitat Conservation Plans Under the U.S. Endangered Species Act

Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) are an important mechanism for the acquisition of land and the management of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. HCPs have become a vital means of protecting endangered and threatened species and their habitats throughout the United States, particularly on private land. The scientific consensus that climate is changing and that these changes will impact the viability of species has not been incorporated into the conservation strategies of recent HCPs, rendering plans vulnerable biologically. In this paper we review the regulatory context for incorporating climate change into HCPs and analyze the extent to which climate change is linked to management actions in a subset of large HCPs. We conclude that most current plans do not incorporate climate change into conservation actions, and so we provide recommendations for integrating climate change into the process of HCP development and implementation. These recommendations are distilled from the published literature as well as the practice of conservation planning and are structured to the specific needs of HCP development and implementation. We offer nine recommendations for integrating climate change into the HCP process: (1) identify species at-risk from climate change, (2) explore new strategies for reserve design, (3) increase emphasis on corridors, linkages, and connectivity, (4) develop anticipatory adaptation measures, (5) manage for diversity, (6) consider assisted migration, (7) include climate change in scenarios of water management, (8) develop future-oriented management actions, and (9) increase linkages between the conservation strategy and adaptive management/monitoring programs.     

Habitat Conservation Plans Under the U.S. Endangered Species Act: The Legal Perspective

Habitat Conservation Plans under the federal Endangered Species Act have become an increasingly popular tool for resolving conflicts between land development and species conservation. Their primary purpose, however, is legal and regulatory rather than biological. They are what landowners must prepare in order to obtain a permit to "take" animals listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as threatened or endangered. Unfortunately, many professionals involved in the HCP process aren't sufficiently cognizant of the legal and regulatory functions and the purposes and limitations of HCPs. I provide an overview of the regulatory structure of the ESA, the role HCPs play in that structure, and the specific legal requirements associated with HCPs. I then discuss the practice of crafting an HCP and the most common issues that arise in the process. Finally, I assess several very fundamental current problems with the HCP program, problems that threaten to undermine the HCP program to such a degree as to end its utility to landowners and thereby end the tremendous conservation opportunities the HCP program represents.     

Snail Darters and Sacred Places: Creative Application of the Endangered Species Act

Rather than exploring how indigenous people have been alienated from resources by environmental policies, this paper explores how indigenous peoples have worked with environmental organizations to use the broad protections provided by environmental laws to protect cultural resources. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, along with other concerned groups, partnered with environmentalists in opposing the destruction of the endangered snail darter’s critical habitat by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Tellico Dam. The dam had been opposed by a shifting alliance of Cherokees, local farmers, trout fisherman, and environmentalists since it was announced in 1963. A previous lawsuit by this coalition delayed the project from 1972 to 1974 under the National Environmental Policy Act. The Endangered Species Act provided this coalition with a powerful tool for opposing the destruction of burial grounds and sacred village sites throughout the lower Little Tennessee River valley. The coalition of environmental organizations, Cherokees, and others was ultimately unsuccessful in stopping the dam from being built, but was successful in establishing a strict precedent for the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit also created a space for the Eastern Band to negotiate for the return of Cherokee remains and halt the removal of any additional burials. In this situation, the strategic support of environmental regulation enabled the Eastern Band to exert some degree of control over the fate of cultural resources in the valley, and also demonstrates the significant role American Indian peoples played in one of the seminal events of the environmental movement during the 1970s.     

A Crosswalk from the Endangered Species Act to the HCP Handbook and Real HCPs

The U.S. Departments of Interior and Commerce published the HCP handbook in 1996 to guide the issuance of incidental take permits (ITPs). The HCP handbook lists six guidelines and provides many others throughout the text. However, the guidelines sometimes contradict the intent of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and some are vague due to their use of improperly defined terms, such as ecosystem, region(al), net benefits, and habitat types. A proposed addendum provides little improvement to the HCP handbook. The guidelines in the HCP handbook could be prepared to better match those that scientists would expect from the language of the ESA. Three HCPs met only 3-10% of the 39 guidelines I would expect based on the ESA, and they met only 7-20% of the 30 guidelines in the HCP handbook. Based on a recent legal decision on the Alabama Beach Mouse HCP, ITP applicants are expected to follow the guidelines in the HCP handbook. The three HCPs I reviewed are vulnerable to similar legal decisions. However, many of the guidelines in the HCP handbook are inconsistent with the ESA. Therefore, I recommend that the HCP handbook be revised so that it is consistent with the ESA and with academic standards in the use of scientific methods. The guidelines need to be more explicit to be operationally consistent. Such a revision would provide ITP applicants and all the stakeholders with much more certainty in the outcome of the process. In lieu of a revised HCP handbook, I recommend that ITP applicants prepare their HCPs using the standards presented in Smallwood and others (Environmental Management, 1999, 24:421-435), thereby giving their HCPs a strong scientific foundation.     

Impending Recovery of Kirtland's Warbler: Case Study in the Effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act

Dendroica kirtlandii ). This particular recovery program actually began before passage of the federal ESA, when biologists alerted the Michigan Department of Natural Resources of the perilously low population of this bird, which only breeds under jack pine (Pinus banksiana) trees in Michigan. By the time an ESA Recovery Team was formed for this bird in 1975 (the first such team created under the ESA), a legacy of consensus and interagency cooperation was well established. This has led to successful efforts at habitat management and control of its nest parasite, the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater). While the Kirtland's warbler is not yet recovered, its population is near an all-time high, and its recovery is possible within the next decade. When (and if) this happens, it will be clearly attributable to this successful model of federalism for natural resources management.     

The meaning of the National Environmental Policy Act within the U.S. Forest Service

We conducted a survey of 3321 Forest Service employees involved in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) followed by five focus groups to investigate agency views of the purpose of agency NEPA processes and their appropriate measures of success. Results suggest the lack of a unified critical task for Forest Service NEPA processes and that employees' functions relevant to NEPA influence their views of its meaning. Compared to other agency personnel, members of interdisciplinary teams who carry out most day-to-day NEPA-related tasks placed greater emphasis on minimizing negative environmental and social impacts, satisfying multiple stakeholders and avoiding litigation and appeals. Line officers, who typically serve as the decision makers following NEPA processes, placed greatest emphasis on efficient implementation and least emphasis on minimizing impacts. Advisory personnel placed greatest emphasis on effective disclosure of analyses and decision-making. We discuss the structural origins of these differences as well as their implications.     

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     

Serving the Common Interest in U.S. Forest Policy: A Case Study of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act

In the United States, the common interest often is conceived as a by-product of the pluralist, interest-group-driven democratic process. Special interests dominate in many political arenas. Consequently, we have lost the language, vocabulary, and ability to talk about the common interest. The way to reverse this trend is to develop and practice with new tools that allow us to articulate what we mean by the common interest in specific contexts. In this article, we leveraged the literature on procedural, substantive, and pragmatic decision making to illustrate how they work together to demonstrate whether and how the common interest was served in three case studies of Healthy Forests Restoration Act implementation on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. In two of the cases we found that the common interest was mostly served, while in the third case it was not. Our results raise questions about the ability of procedural criteria or substantive criteria alone to determine effectiveness in decision making. When evaluated together they provide a more complete understanding of how the common interest is or is not served.

珍稀濒危植物保护政策初探

本文根据我国珍稀濒危植物的保护现状和管理工作中存在的问题,系统地探讨了加强我国珍稀濒危植物和野生植物资源保护的政策措施。文中提出一系列具体、有效的政策构思,以及建立政府有关主管部门对珍稀濒危植物协调管理的体制等。     

Order 636 and the U.S. natural gas industry

An intent of the U.S. Federal Regulatory Commission's Order 636, promulgated in April 1992, was to promote competition and efficiency in the transportation sector of the natural gas industry. Additionally, the Order altered the roles of the traditional players in the industry by increasing not only their options for purchase and sale of natural gas, but also their risks. Increased options have the potential of increasing competition and efficiency, not only in the transportation sector, but also in the distribution sector. This paper examines impacts of Order 636. Using annual, aggregate, U.S. price data, a Wilcox rank sum test is employed to test for statistically significant differences between the pre- and post-636 eras. Results indicate median revenues attributable to the transportation sector have declined since the implementation of Order 636.¹ Although there are naturally a number of factors that may affect transportation revenues, the decline in median price can be attributed, at least in part, to increased competition, increased efficiency, or both. At this level of aggregation the effects can not be segregated. Results also indicate that although decreased costs of transportation have at least partially been passed on to final consumers, local distribution companies have not significantly altered their business practices when dealing with customers.     

美国废水治理发展与展望

文章介绍了美国废水治理过程中环保法规和主要水处理技术的发展,阐述工业废水治理的发展及其前景。     

Estimating maquiladora hazardous waste generation on the U.S./Mexico border

Maquiladoras, manufacturing plants that primarily assemble foreign components for reexport, are located in concentrations along the northern frontier of the US/Mexico border. These plants process a wide variety of materials using modern industrial technologies within the context of developing world institutions and infrastructure. Hazardous waste generation by maquiladoras represents a critical environmental management issue because of the spatial concentration of these plants in border municipalities where the infrastructure for waste management is nonexistent or poor. These border municipalities contain rapidly increasing populations, which further stress their waste handling infrastructure capacities while exposing their populations to greater contaminant risks. Limited empirical knowledge exists concerning hazardous waste types and generation rates from maquiladorsas. There is no standard reporting method for waste generation or methodology for estimating generation rates at this time. This paper presents a method that can be used for the rapid assessment of hazardous waste generation. A first approximation of hazardous waste generation is produced for maquiladoras in the three municipalities of Nogales, Sonora, Mexicali, Baja California, and Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua, using the INVENT model developed by the World Bank. In addition, our intent is to evaluate the potential of the INVENT model for adaptation to the US/Mexico border industrial situation. The press of border industrial development, especially with the recent adoption of the NAFTA, make such assessments necessary as a basis for the environmental policy formulation and management needed in the immediate future.     

Examining Flood Frequency Distributions in the Midwest U.S.1

Villarini, Gabriele, James A. Smith, Mary Lynn Baeck, and Witold F. Krajewski, 2011. Examining Flood Frequency Distributions in the Midwest U.S. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(3):447‐463. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2011.00540.x Abstract: Annual maximum peak discharge time series from 196 stream gage stations with a record of at least 75 years from the Midwest United States is examined to study flood peak distributions from a regional point of view. The focus of this study is to evaluate: (1) “mixtures” of flood peak distributions, (2) upper tail and scaling properties of the flood peak distributions, and (3) presence of temporal nonstationarities in the flood peak records. Warm season convective systems are responsible for some of the largest floods in the area, in particular in Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Spring events associated with snowmelt and rain‐on‐snow are common in the northern part of the study domain. Nonparametric tests are used to investigate the presence of abrupt and slowly varying changes. Change‐points rather than monotonic trends are responsible for most violations of the stationarity assumption. The abrupt changes in flood peaks can be associated with anthropogenic changes, such as changes in land use/land cover, agricultural practice, and construction of dams. The trend analyses do not suggest an increase in the flood peak distribution due to anthropogenic climate change. Examination of the upper tail and scaling properties of the flood peak distributions are examined by means of the location, scale, and shape parameters of the Generalized Extreme Value distribution.     

美国排水系统污水溢流问题

2004年8月26日,美国环保署(EPA)正式向国会提交了一份关于解决污水溢流问题的研究报告,报告内容侧重于合流管网溢流(CSOs)和生活污水管网溢流(SSOs)的影响和控制。该报告对目前两种系统的特征、对人体健康和环境的影响以及为减少溢流污染所消耗的资源和技术情况进行了总结。报告指出进一步控制污水溢流对保护公众健康和防止水体污染是十分重要的。EPA认为增加资金投入、综合实施地方和区域的水体保护项目、改善水质监测和报告制度、强化各级政府、产业和公众的合作关系是取得更大成就所必须采取的措施。自从1972年实施清洁水法以来,EP…     

美国环保局对除尘器滤料性能的认证

本文介绍了美国环保局(EPA)环境技术认证(ETV)项目中对袋式除尘器滤料性能的检测方法和结果,可为国内外广大除尘设备用户在选择滤料时提供参考.     

美国有机农业迅猛发展

过去10多年中,有机农业成为美国农业增长最快的领域之一。美国转向有机农业生产方式的农民越来越多,主要目的是:降低农业投入成本,保护不可再生资源,捕捉高值产品市场,以及在大宗农产品价格下降的情况下提高农场收入。有机农业生产体系依靠栽培方法和生物方法来控制害虫,在作物生产中禁止使用各种人工合成化学品,在家畜生产中禁止使用抗生素或激素。有机农业体系带来的潜在好处包括:改良土壤肥力,提高生产率,减少能源消费,降低杀虫剂使用量等。美国有机产品的零售额1990年仅为10亿美元,1996年为33亿美元,2000年为78亿美元,2001年达到90亿～9…     

美国环境产业相关政策及启示

本文将美国的环境产业发展过程划分为三个阶段，并对后两个阶段的政策特点进行了分析。最后，借鉴美国环境产业相关的政篆并结合我国国情，提出了针对我国环境产业发展的建议。     

美国与欧盟的农业环保计划

美国和欧盟实施的农业环保计划总体上分为三类：一是以奖励或补贴为基础的自愿性计划，二是以税收和规定为基础的强制性规定计划，三是以遵守环保规定为条件享受政府补贴的交叉遵守计划。