Last year (2023) was the 50th Anniversary of the passage and signing of the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). All living things, including humans, benefit from the protection that this law provides. Without the ESA, our World would be a poorer place to live in, our living neighbors and their homes (ecosystems) would be fewer, and the protection afforded humans on an Earth with many living things would be degraded.
The ESA protects more than rare plants, animals, and other living things. It protects humans and our homes and the ecosystems where there are other living things. The ESA also provides free environmental services for us including:
1. Oxygen to breathe
2. Carbon storage to regulate our climate
3. Erosion control to protect our soil with nutrients and organic matter and thus our food supply
4. Filtering out pollutants so we have clean water
5. Providing for our need for closeness and recreation with Nature
… and so much more!
In 1973, the U.S. Congress passed the ESA and President Richard Nixon signed this bill into law. The predecessors of the 1973 ESA, passed in 1966 and 1969, didn’t effectively prevent the extinction of living things.
The ESA has been amended several times including 1978, 1982, 1988, and 2004. The ESA’s requirements to research, list, protect, and recover living things that are threatened or endangered has been maintained.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in the Department of the Interior, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in the Department of Commerce, administer the ESA to protect terrestrial and marine living things.
Three examples in Texas demonstrate the importance of the ESA.
1. Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle. Via various programs, including head-starting sea turtles from eggs in the late 1970’s, with the assistance of Carole Allen, HEART (Help Endangered Animals – Ridley Turtles), and school children, protection of the habitat (home) for these important marine reptiles has resulted in an increased population. The progress shows that the ESA works and can bring back a rare species while humans continue our economic activities.
2. Cave or karst animals. These cave animals live in the Edwards Aquifer, underground, along with rare salamanders. These animals need protection from water pollution, development, and overuse of groundwater. In the early 1990’s the Sierra Club, via a lawsuit, got agencies to carefully protect drinking water quality and quantity in the Edwards Aquifer of the Hill Country near Austin and San Antonio. These actions also resulted in the protection of these endangered cave animals.
3. Red-cockaded Woodpecker (RCW). A lawsuit by the Sierra Club and the Texas Conservation Alliance (called TCONR at the time) in the late 1980’s resulted in the protection of the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker (RCW). This lawsuit reduced clearcutting of public federal national forests in Texas, increased the RCW population, and better protected the public’s vegetation, soil, water, wildlife, and other natural resources.
Without the ESA cave animals, Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, and the RCW would now barely exist or would be extinct. We should all thank the farsighted people who fought for the passage of the ESA and those who continue to fight for it today.
We all need a place to live, we all need to help each other, and we all need to be good neighbors in our community of life on Earth. Bless the protection that the ESA has provided in the past and continues to provide today and in the future, for all living things, including humans!
Photo: The Kemp's Ridley sea turtle (National Park Service)