Funding for Endangered Species Incentives Urged

(23 September, 1997 ? Washington, DC) The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) joined with the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Center for Marine Conservation today in urging that “a secure, assured source of funding” for several new incentive programs be added to a new Senate bill to reform the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The farm and environmental groups called new incentive programs “vitally important measures for improving the conservation of endangered species and ? the relations between landowners and conservation agencies.”

EDF wildlife program chair Michael Bean offered support for provisions in the bill to give financial incentives to private landowners who agree to implement beneficial management practices on their land, but noted that without substantial, assured funding the potential benefits of such incentives won’t be realized. “Without cost sharing assistance, many landowners can’t implement the needed management measures,” said Bean. “Without such active management, the continued decline of many of these species is inevitable.”

EDF applauded a requirement that federal agencies enter into agreements to help implement recovery plans for endangered species, but criticized new procedures for developing such plans as too costly and complex. “Instead of getting recovery plans that play a vital and central role in the implementation of the Act, you will get a major diversion into unproductive bureaucratic procedures of scare resources that could have gone into on-the-ground conservation, a paucity of recovery plans, and a proliferation of litigation over non-compliance with deadlines and content requirements,” said Bean.

EDF also criticized new hurdles that must be cleared before a species can be protected. “Rare species are often already reduced to near-extinction by the time they make the endangered list, yet the bill adds new layers of review to a listing process that often comes too late for many species.” Bean also called for creating an “insurance fund” to enable the government to take action when habitat conservation plans with landowners fail to work as expected.

The bill codifies authority for “safe harbor” agreements, a new conservation tool that EDF has championed under which landowners voluntarily create, restore, or enhance habitat for an agreed-upon period, but do not have to maintain those voluntary improvements in perpetuity. At present, landowners often refrain from management practices that could benefit endangered species for fear of incurring added legal liability.