Community Politics and Endangered Species Protection

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Federal and state laws protect endangered species – at least for now. But a new voice may be joining the political chorus threatening both past gains and future progress in U.S. biodiversity policies. It is the voice of local communities mobilizing in opposition to strong government measures to protect wildlife and habitat. Unless we try to understand and address the sources of community-level disenchantment with these policies, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and similar laws may themselves become extinct. My argument is fourfold. First, politics has permanently eclipsed science as the main determinant of what can be achieved in endangered species policy, and this is as it should be. Second, an array of issues that goes beyond simple economic interests is mobilizing community politics against government efforts to protect biodiversity in general, and against the ESA in particular. Third, anti-ESA community politics has the potential to be a more formidable and vexing challenge to biodiversity policy than traditional economic interest group opposition. Fourth, an enduring and robust endangered species policy requires that federal and state governments address the noneconomic trade-offs imposed on communities by bringing communities into the policy process. POLITICS ECLIPSES SCIENCE If there is any single point of agreement among proponents and opponents of endangered species protection, it is that politics routinely dominates science in ESA policy and decision making – a situation they both claim to deplore. Instead, they call for “better” science, each confident that better science will strengthen their respective hands in the policy process.