The Trump administration has redefined the term ‘harm’ in the Endangered Species Act, removing habitat destruction from the definition. This change could have significant implications for the protection of endangered species, as most species on the brink of extinction are threatened by habitat loss.

Background

The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, bans the ‘take’ of ‘any endangered species of fish or wildlife,’ which includes harming protected species. Since 1975, regulations have defined ‘harm’ to include habitat destruction that kills or injures wildlife. However, the Trump administration’s new rule change narrows the definition of ‘harm’ to exclude habitat modification.

This change could allow for the destruction of protected species’ habitats, making it nearly impossible to protect those endangered species. As an ecologist and a law professor, experts have spent their entire careers working to understand the law and science of helping imperiled species thrive. They recognize that the rule change could green-light the destruction of protected species’ habitats.

Implications

Habitat protection is the single most important factor in the recovery of endangered species in the United States – far more consequential than curbing direct killing alone. A 2019 study found that only 17% of species were listed as endangered due to direct killing, while 81% were listed due to habitat loss and degradation.

The new rule change is a quiet way to gut the Endangered Species Act, and it is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose Congress wrote into the act. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has argued that the recent ‘de-extinction’ of dire wolves by changing 14 genes in the gray wolf genome means that America need not worry about species protection because technology ‘can help forge a future where populations are never at risk.’ However, altering an existing species to look like an extinct one is both wildly expensive and a paltry substitute for protecting existing species.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.