The Endangered Species Act at Thirty is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of issues surrounding the Endangered Species Act, with a specific focus on the act's actual implementation record over the past thirty years. The result of a unique, multi-year collaboration among stakeholder groups from across the political spectrum, the two volumes offer a dispassionate consideration of a highly polarized topic. Renewing the Conservation Promise, Volume 1, puts the reader in a better position to make informed decisions about future directions in biodiversity conservation by elevating the policy debate from its current state of divisive polemics to a more-constructive analysis. It helps the reader understand how the Endangered Species Act has been implemented, the consequences of that implementation, and how the act could be changed to better serve the needs of both the species it is designed to protect and the people who must live within its mandates. Volume 2 examines philosophical, biological, and economic dimensions of the act in greater detail.

The Endangered Species Act at Thirty is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of issues surrounding the Endangered Species Act, with a specific focus on the act's actual implementation record over the past thirty years. The result of a unique, multi-year collaboration among stakeholder groups from across the political spectrum, the two volumes offer a dispassionate consideration of a highly polarized topic. Renewing the Conservation Promise, Volume 1, puts the reader in a better position to make informed decisions about future directions in biodiversity conservation by elevating the policy debate from its current state of divisive polemics to a more-constructive analysis. It helps the reader understand how the Endangered Species Act has been implemented, the consequences of that implementation, and how the act could be changed to better serve the needs of both the species it is designed to protect and the people who must live within its mandates. Volume 2 examines philosophical, biological, and economic dimensions of the act in greater detail.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is one of the most cherished and reviled laws ever passed. It mandates protection and preservation of all the nation’s species and biodiversity, whatever the cost. It has been a lightning rod for controversy and conflicts between industry/business and environmentalists. The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of this law, and provides an opportunity for a measured and thorough evaluation thereof. We cannot know today’s challenges and opportunities without understanding their histories. This book is the most comprehensive history of the ESA ever published, and the first to consider the entire history of the law from all angles in a single volume. The history of the ESA has been one of increasing impact, complexity, and controversy. In 1978, the Supreme Court declared that Congress intended for the U.S. government to save all species at any cost, and thereafter application of the ESA became steadily more controversial, as seen in the example of the northern spotted owl and the timber wars in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s and early 90s, and then everywhere as the ESA became a political football in the highly partisan environment of the late 1990s and amendments to the law ceased. This book is not only a history, but a call to action. It will take more conservation, more funding, and more innovative solutions if we are to save our wildlife and biodiversity. It will take the engagement to every American to muster the collective will to meet this challenge. The hope of this book is that we will be able to look back and say that we accomplished more in the second 50 years of the ESA than we did in the first.

"As Secretary of the Interior, implementing the Endangered Species Act was one of my most important, and challenging, responsibilities. All who deal with this complex and critical law need a clear and comprehensive guide to its provisions, interpretation, and implementation. With chapters written by some of the foremost practitioners in the field, the new edition of Endangered Species Act: Law, Policy, and Perspectives is an essential reference for conservationists and the regulated community and the attorneys who represent them."---Bruce Babbbitt, former Secretary of the Interior --

The Endangered Species Act at Thirty is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of issues surrounding the Endangered Species Act, with a specific focus on the act's actual implementation record over the past thirty years. The result of a unique, multi-year collaboration among stakeholder groups from across the political spectrum, the two volumes offer a dispassionate consideration of a highly polarized topic. Renewing the Conservation Promise, Volume 1, puts the reader in a better position to make informed decisions about future directions in biodiversity conservation by elevating the policy debate from its current state of divisive polemics to a more-constructive analysis. It helps the reader understand how the Endangered Species Act has been implemented, the consequences of that implementation, and how the act could be changed to better serve the needs of both the species it is designed to protect and the people who must live within its mandates. Volume 2, which examines philosophical, biological, and economic dimensions of the act in greater detail, will be published in 2006. As debate over reforming the Endangered Species Act heats up in the coming months, these two books will be essential references for policy analysts and lawmakers; professionals involved with environmental law, science, or management; and academic researchers and students concerned with environmental law, policy, management, or science.

The rapid growth of the American environmental movement in recent decades obscures the fact that long before the first Earth Day and the passage of the Endangered Species Act, naturalists and concerned citizens recognized—and worried about—the problem of human-caused extinction. As Mark V. Barrow reveals in Nature’s Ghosts, the threat of species loss has haunted Americans since the early days of the republic. From Thomas Jefferson’s day—when the fossil remains of such fantastic lost animals as the mastodon and the woolly mammoth were first reconstructed—through the pioneering conservation efforts of early naturalists like John James Audubon and John Muir, Barrow shows how Americans came to understand that it was not only possible for entire species to die out, but that humans themselves could be responsible for their extinction. With the destruction of the passenger pigeon and the precipitous decline of the bison, professional scientists and wildlife enthusiasts alike began to understand that even very common species were not safe from the juggernaut of modern, industrial society. That realization spawned public education and legislative campaigns that laid the foundation for the modern environmental movement and the preservation of such iconic creatures as the bald eagle, the California condor, and the whooping crane. A sweeping, beautifully illustrated historical narrative that unites the fascinating stories of endangered animals and the dedicated individuals who have studied and struggled to protect them, Nature’s Ghosts offers an unprecedented view of what we’ve lost—and a stark reminder of the hard work of preservation still ahead.

This book traces the history of threats to species and habitat in California, from the time of the Gold Rush to the present. The author shows how, over the course of more than a century, scientists and conservationists came to view the fates of endangered species as dependent on the ecological conditions and human activities in the places where those species lived. The story begins with the tale of the state's extinct mascot, the California grizzly, and the conservation movements and laws that followed its disappearance. The second half of the book focuses on four high-profile endangered species: the California condor, the desert tortoise, the San Joaquin kit fox, and the Delta smelt. The author offers an account of how Americans developed a civil system in which imperiled species serve as proxies for broader conflicts about the politics of place. The book concludes that the challenge for conservationists in the twenty-first century will be to expand habitat conservation beyond protected wildlands to build more diverse and sustainable landscapes.

Now forty years old, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) remains a landmark act in conservation and one of the world’s most comprehensive laws designed to prevent species extinctions and support recovery efforts for imperiled species. A controversial law and often subject to political attack, the ESA is successful overall but not without difficulties. Those who enforce the ESA, for example, struggle to achieve viable recovery goals for many species. At the forefront of challenges is a reactive framework that sometimes leads to perverse incentives and legal battles that strain support and resources. Further, few species have been delisted. Proactive Strategies for Protecting Species explores the perspectives, opportunities, and challenges around designing and implementing pre-listing programs and approaches to species conservation. This volume brings together conservation biologists, economists, private and government stakeholders, and others to create a legal, scientific, sociological, financial, and technological foundation for designing solutions that incentivize conservation action for hundreds of at-risk species—prior to their potential listing under the ESA. This forward-thinking, innovative volume provides a roadmap for designing species conservation programs on the ground so they are effective and take place upstream of regulation, which will contribute to a reduction in lawsuits and other expenses that arise after a species is listed. Proactive Strategies for Species Protection is a guidebook for anyone anywhere interested in designing programs that incentivize environmental stewardship and species conservation.

A detailed analysis of the policy effects of conservatives' decades-long effort to dismantle the federal regulatory framework for environmental protection.

Issues like clearcutting, wilderness preservation, and economic development have dominated debates over public lands for years, yet we seem no closer to resolving these matters than we ever were. Martin Nie now looks at why there continues to be so much conflict about public lands and resource management-and how we can break through these impasses. Showing that such conflicts have been driven by interrelated factors ranging from scarcity to mistrust and politics, he charts the present status and future prospects of public lands management in America. Nie looks closely at two of today's most intractable conflicts: the designation of U.S. Forest Service roadless areas and management of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. He uses these cases to investigate more inclusive issues about governing federal lands in the West, such as the contested use of science and litigation, lengthy planning processes, and controversial practices of Congress and the president in managing environmental disputes. Along the way, he addresses such other conflict areas as snowmobiles in Yellowstone, bear and wolf protection, fire and forest health, drilling in Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, and federal grazing policy. Nie emphasizes the complicated and often contentious interaction between the branches of the federal government as a major factor in misunderstandings. He particularly cites the problem of vague statutory language, which tells our public land agencies little about what they should be doing but lots about how they should be doing it. Nie reexamines this confusing body of law and policy, in which the rulemaking process wags the dog and agencies are caught in political quagmires, to show how the pieces fit-but more often don't. Throughout the book, Nie considers the factors that make some public land conflicts so controversial, revisits how they have been dealt with in the past, and proposes ways they might be better managed in the future. Eschewing the single-policy approach to public lands management-such as encouraging free markets-he instead surveys a diverse array of other available options. His big-picture outlook for the twenty-first century is a bold call for reshaping ongoing conflicts-and for reinvesting in our public lands.