Proactive Strategies for Protecting Species: Pre-Listing Conservation and the Endangered Species Act. Edited by C. Josh Donlan. Berkeley (California): University of California Press. $65.00. xix + 260 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-0-520-27688-8 (hc); 978-0-520-96049-7 (eb). 2015.

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Previous articleNext article FreeConservation BiologyProactive Strategies for Protecting Species: Pre-Listing Conservation and the Endangered Species Act. Edited by C. Josh Donlan. Berkeley (California): University of California Press. $65.00. xix + 260 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-0-520-27688-8 (hc); 978-0-520-96049-7 (eb). 2015.Erica FleishmanErica FleishmanFish, Wildlife & Conservation Biology and Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado Search for more articles by this author Fish, Wildlife & Conservation Biology and Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, ColoradoPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe premise of the edited volume Proactive Strategies for Protecting Species is eminently sensible. Creation of incentives for conservation on private land that prevent species from becoming endangered is much more likely to meet ecological and economic goals than reliance on regulatory requirements after species are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). Yet this practical concept is not new. In 1993, for example, Defenders of Wildlife examined ways in which economic incentives might be incorporated into enforcement of the ESA (W. E. Hudson. 1993. Building Economic Incentives into the Endangered Species Act. Washington (DC): Defenders of Wildlife). Similarly, for more than 20 years, safe harbor agreements have given nonfederal landowners in the United States the assurance that if their actions promote recovery of listed species, their future land uses will not be restricted. Proactive Strategies for Protecting Species offers numerous ideas for financial mechanisms that might encourage higher proportions of landowners to participate in conservation programs. The contributing authors’ proposals might be more convincing if the book examined the impediments to proactive conservation agreements in greater detail. In the introductory chapter, for instance, Donlan and Rothacker note that candidate conservation agreements can be hamstrung not only by a dearth of financial incentives but by a long approval process and requirements for details about future activities that may not be feasible at the time an agreement is sought. The chapters largely sidestep the question of whether novel economic instruments could surmount bureaucracy and the traditional reluctance of regulatory agencies to encourage innovation in conservation, or why these economic instruments might succeed where previous tools have not.This volume is organized into three parts. The first part includes an overview of prelisting conservation, the provisions of incidental take—such as avoidance, minimization, and mitigation—on private lands, and a number of perspectives on the effectiveness of prelisting programs relative to postlisting actions. Part Two addresses potential designs of prelisting programs. A chapter by Sorice and Abel is noteworthy for its lucid discussion of variation in landowner motivations and, by extension, potential incentive schemes. The third part includes case studies of prelisting conservation and a summary of the book’s primary concepts. I appreciated the diversity of land uses represented in the text, from agriculture and forestry to energy development to military training. The diversity of geographic areas and ecosystems presented in the volume also is high. Additional references to past and contemporary legal scholarship on conservation incentives in the context of the ESA would have complemented the ecological and economic expertise evident in the book.As the authors note, obstacles to reform the ESA are myriad. However, if the substantial hurdles to creative and constructive regulation are alleviated, the work of Donlan et al. will be a fine addition to existing incentive structures. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 92, Number 1March 2017 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/690863 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.