National Center for Policy Analysis Calls Federal Protection of Endangered Species Misguided and Harmful

On Tuesday, the National Center for Policy Analysis stated that the Endangered Species Act, which was created to help protect species in danger of extinction, is part of the very problem that it purports to solve.

The Center says that the central and glaring problem with the Act is its land use controls. These controls include: prohibiting or placing strict restrictions upon any activity considered to be a danger to a given species, such as farming, lumbering, construction, or humans inhabiting or just visiting the land; providing no compensation to the land owner for the loss of land value, loss of income, or a lost natural resource; and subjecting millions of acres to land use regulations for the sake of just a single protected species.

"The Endangered Species Act has wreaked havoc on wildlife and landowners. The ESA punishes landowners for harboring endangered species, and the tragic result has been a scorched earth policy towards the very species the Act is supposed to protect. If one had deliberately written legislation to harm endangered species, it would be almost impossible to top the ESA...Effective wildlife conservation depends first on not punishing the people who bear the costs of harboring wildlife. When the ESA's penalties are removed, then a wide range of incentives can be employed and the dormant goodwill and creativity of America's landowners will flourish," said NCPA Adjunct Scholar Brian Seasholes.

With the rate of species extinction having reached a level that is 100 times that of what it was in the pre-industrial era, many critics of the punitive approach that strong-arms human beings into protecting animals and habitats have said that the time has come to recognize that society needs to make private landowners partners in species conservation instead of punishing them for desiring to own and develop land.