We can’t save every species

Much of America’s vanishing wildlife is covered by one of the world’s toughest environmental laws–the Endangered Species Act of 1973. In plain language, the law insists that humans must accommodate the interests of the natural world, with few exceptions. The ultimate goal: Stop all extinctions in the United States.

In 1973,, Congress believed this laudable goal could be easily accomplished at little cost. Today, these beliefs stand in ruins. We have added 840 species to the official endangered list but removed just 21.

Meanwhile, the law has produced a series of spectacular train wrecks, among them the snail darter, which almost brought to a halt a $100 million dam in Tennessee; the northern spotted owl, which shut down logging on millions of acres; and the coastal California gnat-catcher, which threatens to disrupt the real estate market in Southern California.

Minimal success at huge cost–it is time to look hard at the law. We do not have the knowledge or means to save everything. By refusing to accept this fact, the current system produces little meaningful conservation. Choices are often forced through litigation, with little regard for the prospects of bringing a species back to health or the human costs of doing so.

We need to reform the law, which is up for reauthorization in this Congress, to confront those choices head on–to decide which species shall live or die. The idea is scary, but such choices are inescapable. And both the human and the natural world will be better off if we give up the impossible goal of saving everything and guide our actions by principles people are able to fulfill. Here are four of them:

1. The system for making choices must be ethical. When conflict arises between economic and ecological priorities, the system should work to balance them. No longer can we dismiss the human needs that imperil species as greed or shortsightedness; nor should we mock efforts to save species like the furbish lousewort of the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. Instead, we should acknowledge that both sides play a role in determining its outcome.
2. The system for making choices must be practicable. Protecting species is expensive, yet the law ignores this fact. Because the system now forces public and private landowners to prevent extinction, endangered species are transformed into a liability. Federal agencies shun them if possible; property owners head for their bulldozers at the sight of an endangered insect. Unless we bring the system back into the realm of the practicable and share the expense of saving species, we will end up working against the interests of the natural world.
3. The system for making choices must be knowledgable. Missing or mistaken data flaw too many conservation decisions. Species are constantly being listed too early or too late, and protection actions all too often misfire as a result. More important, the necessity of proceeding on inadequate data means that we may be expending scarce funds to clear up what turn out to be insignificant problems. A better system would devote more resources to gathering information.
4. The system for making choices must be political. In a democracy, the to-and-fro of politics is how society reconciles competing goals like protecting endangered species and creating houses for the middle class. Bringing our natural heritage into the rough-and-tumble world of politics will elevate it alongside such basic values as health, defense and education and give it a claim to a bigger share of our nation’s public resources. As long as the system uses the touchstone of politics, it will make choices based in values–something the present system avoids.

Following these principles will not make everyone happy. No matter how we make choices, some “needless” losses of biodiversity may occur.

Yet in the real world, the question is not whether a proposal is free from flaws, but whether it has the potential to improve our lot and that of the natural world. The first step in that direction is to accept our role as modern Noahs. We may want to load all endangered species onto our ark, but the task must compete for scarce resources with other worthy projects. What will be saved, and what will be left behind? There is no automatic answer. But one thing is clear: We must choose to choose.