preview

Essay about It's Time to Reform the Endangered Species Act

Decent Essays

It's Time to Reform the Endangered Species Act

In 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act. The Act was passed in response to findings by Congress that growth and development were responsible for the extinction of species of fish, wildlife and plants.

This Act was to provide programs to protect species identified as either endangered or threatened. It also mandated Federal agencies and departments to protect endangered and threatened species in their own operations, as well as work with State and local agencies to further promote conservation and protection of identified species.

By the definition of the Endangered Species Act, a species covered by the legislation is either classified “Endangered” if threatened with …show more content…

They felt “Recovery plans all too often "manage for extinction" rather than for survival”.

The National Wildlife Institute has published “Conservation Under the Endangered Species Act: A Promise Broken”. Their critique of the Act includes questioning the programs undertaken as a result of the Act have played sufficient roles in the recovery of species that were delisted, as well as questioning the allocation of funding to programs intended to aid listed species.

The National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition is questioning the effectiveness of the Act, as well as its impact on people. Pointing to the poor progress of removing species from the Endangered and Threatened lists, the group calls on reform of the Act, to reform the methods for determining eligibility for listing, opening the listing and regulatory processes of the Act to include participation from all groups affected by the legislation, and providing more incentives for private citizens and businesses to pro-actively participate in conservation of listed species.

MY OPINION

While well-intended, the Act has some shortcomings, as indicated by the lack of progress in getting species off the list. This indicates that the programs that are part of the Act are failing to accomplish their mandated objective.

Also, while biodiversity is crucial to protect, there are natural processes

Get Access