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In September TESRA passed the US House of Representatives. Now it needs your support in the US Senate.
Please take a moment and click here to contact your Senators with your views on TESRA.
Here are some important facts to consider:
In the past thirty years the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has achieved a less than 1% success rate for species recovery, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) data. Clearly, the ESA has failed to achieve its purpose in recovering endangered species to healthy and sustainable populations. According to U.S. FWS data:
- 39% of all listed species are classified as unknown status
- 21% of all listed species are classifed as declining
- 3% are believed to be extinct (roughly 2 dozen species)
- Only 6% of all listed species are classified as improving
- 77% of all listed species have only achieved 0-25% of their recovery goals
- 30% of all listed species are classified as stable.
These numbers alone indicate the ESA is in desperate need of legislative update.
TESRA offers a new emphasis on recovery with new Recovery Teams and Recovery Tools: Recovery Plans will be required by law, within two years of listing, and will be reviewed regularly to make sure they are as effective as possible. Plans require identification of lands important to the conservation and recovery of species.
Recovery Teams will draw on those who have knowledge and skills essential to guide conservation programs and also those who have property or livelihoods affected by species. This will foster collaboration rather than confrontation with recovery programs.
New Conservation Tools will be provided to promote conservation of species on private lands without putting more land under federal mandate; presently utilized tools will also be improved.
Recovery Agreements and Contracts (Section 12) will provide the means for enlisting private property owners as allies in the conservation of endangered and threatened species by providing incentives to manage lands, with priority to those lands identified in recovery plans as being of specieal value to species.
Conservation Aid (Section 16) reduces the burden of regulation on landowners when land use has been restricted for conservation purposes so that individual property owners are not unfairly forced to shoulder the financial burden of a program to conserve endangered and threatened species. This reduces the disincentives to landowners to provide habitat on their property.
Conservation Grants (Section 16) will foster new ideas and unique approaches to conservation on private property by providing some guidelines as to goals to be met.
Threatened Species (Section 15) are distinctly defined differently from rare species as was intended, by requiring that rules regulating threatened species be put forward on a case by case basis and with justification rather than by a blanket rule for all threatened species.
Critical Habitat designation is perhaps the most problematic aspect of current law. The FWS has maintained that designating critical habitat does the following:
1) contributes very little, if any, additional protections for species recovery
2) consumes massive amounts of the agency's conservation resources.
Please join NAIA and let your senator know how strongly you support HR 3824 today.
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