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In another "sustainable use" proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced in August a precedent-setting exemption to the Wild Bird Conservation Act, which was signed into law in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush. The policy would allow importation of the blue fronted Amazon parrot from Argentina. The agency is reviewing public comment.

The prized parrots sell for several hundred dollars apiece. Stansell said Argentina, which approached Fish and Wildlife with the proposal, would allow the capture of about 10 nestling parrots from five nests in every 250 acres of parrot habitat.

With export taxes of $40 to $80 per bird, a 250-acre area would generate $400 to $800 per year to support conservation. Stansell conceded that cutting down forest habitat and selling timber would generate far more money for landowners, but said the Argentine government concluded that owners would prefer sustainable returns from selling the birds.

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Conservation biologists said the service made poor estimates -- or no estimates -- about how many parrots would be left.

"It's an extraordinarily bad idea," said Jamie Gilardi, director of the World Parrot Trust, a conservation group that has filed opposition to the plan in a letter signed by 88 international biologists. "The quotas are based on poor or inadequate science -- and the sustainability issue is simply not addressed at all."

The Fish and Wildlife Service's parrot proposal cited scientific estimates by Enrique Bucher, a top Argentine parrot biologist, in determining how many birds could be safely captured. But in a telephone interview from the University of Cordoba in Argentina, Bucher said his research actually showed the U.S. proposal was poorly conceived and lacked scientific oversight.

"It's a very romantic idea, but in practice I do not know any positive examples," he said, referring to "sustainable use" plans. "The assumption that local communities will have the organization and altruism to put the money into long-term protection of the environment where you have terrible economic forces pushing for deforestation is a little naive."

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I was disappointed to read about the Bush administration's policy shifts on threatened species ["U.S. May Expand Access to Endangered Species," news story, Oct. 11].

I conducted field research for Kenneth Stansell and others at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1996 that refuted the very arguments he and others in the administration are using to justify the shift.

Commercial use of wildlife, whether through captive breeding or controlled "harvesting," does not pay for the species' conservation. Even when government sets a good policy and fair management rules and regulations are in place and reasonably enforced, private businesses often evade the scientific and management protocols with serious, sometimes irreversible consequences to the species. Local people, especially those living in poverty, rarely benefit, for reasons related not to wildlife biology but to politics.

This is true in both developing and developed countries. And make no mistake: Trading and trafficking in wildlife is serious business, which may help explain the Safari Club International's enormous political contributions ($274,000) in the 2000 election cycle.

I studied the effect of the commercial use in El Salvador of green iguanas, a protected species at the time. I interviewed local people, the iguana ranch owners, the ranch employees, the government officials responsible for enforcing the regulations and wildlife biologists and conservationists in El Salvador and in the United States.

My findings were straightforward: The local communities received no tangible benefits from the sustainable production and trade of green iguanas in El Salvador. In some cases, they were worse off, because the iguana ranchers had bought the land that tenant farmers had been renting to graze their cattle, reducing the security of the tenant farmers' livelihood.

Before making a decision on whether to allow for the intensified commercial use of threatened species, it is critical to answer the following questions: Who benefits? How much do they benefit? How do they benefit?

Failure to do so not only will endanger the species but also will hurt the local people who were supposed to benefit.

AARON M. CHASSY

Arlington

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Saving Endangered Wildlife by Killing It?

At ceremonies two years ago in honor of Earth Day, President George Bush stood beneath a giant sequoia and called for "a new environmentalism for the 21st century." As fleshed out by his administration, this new environmentalism prefers market-based incentives to government regulation and elevates property rights over wilderness and species protection. It is, in many ways, simply the environmental corollary to the administration's broader deregulatory views.

Peter Huber, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is one of the brains behind the administration's approach to the environment. His influential political tract, Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists, was published in 2000 as a conservative counterweight to Al Gore's Earth in the Balance.

In Hard Green, Huber lauds Teddy Roosevelt as the ultimate environmentalist role model. Roosevelt, famous as a hunter and safari enthusiast, once killed several hundred wild animals - including a reported nine lions, five elephants, thirteen rhinos and seven hippos - during a single extended expedition in Africa. As Huber puts it, approvingly: "He loved wild animals. He particularly loved to shoot them."

Roosevelt's 'love them and kill them' approach is the obvious antecedent of a new endangered species policy that the Bush Administration announced this summer. As set forth in a draft document whose comment period expires on Friday, the Administration plans to begin allowing hunters, zoos, circuses and others to kill, capture, and import wildlife facing extinction in other countries.

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To "Enhance the Propagation or Survival" of the Species

In the past, officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have interpreted the law to bar the commercial importation of endangered plants and animals to the United States. The clear reasoning behind this refusal was that U.S. demand would further deplete these species' already limited numbers.

The current administration, however, argues that the burgeoning U.S. market for sporting trophies, hides, pelts and other animal parts, as well as the demand for exotic pets and circus animals, could create positive conservation incentives. Section 10(1)(A) of the Endangered Species Act allows the Fish and Wildlife Service to grant exemptions to the law's ban on endangered species imports in order to "enhance the propagation or survival of the affected species." Invoking this section, the administration proposes to permit the importation of wildlife from countries with effective conservation programs.

Imports would be allowed, specifically, in cases where the country has a conservation plan by which the number of wildlife that are killed or captured is offset by increases in the target population. The overall net impact of such a plan should, theoretically, be positive.

The administration's draft policy is crowded with the language of incentive and sustainable use. Its promised benefits are speculative and long-term, however, while its risks are direct and immediate.

By opening up the American market to endangered species from abroad, the proposal creates direct incentives for the depletion of existing wildlife stocks. In contrast, the promised overall growth in endangered species populations will result only in those countries where the conservation plan is well thought out, where the authorities are genuinely interested in implementing it, and where the circumstances are such that implementation is actually possible. Given the corruption, disorganization, and competing priorities in many countries, it is doubtful that the proposed influx of American cash will have the desired effect.

In the end, what the change does is allow Fish and Wildlife Service officials to gamble with the future of foreign wildlife stocks. It substitutes a speculative weighing of incentives for a bright line rule.

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The Larger Context

It is worth remembering, in closing, that the recent proposals are part of a larger attack on the Endangered Species Act. With the administration's support, Republicans in Congress have been seeking to amend the law in order to weaken it. To achieve the same goal though other means, the administration has also consistently underfunded the endangered species program, creating a work backlog that undermines the Fish and Wildlife Service's ability to enforce the law's requirements.

Several of the administration's federal court nominees, such as Alabama Attorney General William Pryor and Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, have a history of hostility to the Endangered Species Act. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the head of the department charged with enforcing the law, once filed a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging significant cuts in endangered species protections. Her assistant secretary for water and science is a former mining lawyer who once called for the abolition of the Endangered Species Act.

Joanne Mariner, FindLaw

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Originally posted by TSN:
Unless I missed something, Rob only said that he agreed with putting some of the animals in zoos, because it might help keep them protected. He said he's not sure about the "kill them to save them" part of the plan. Why is everyone acting like he's shouting "YEAH! BURN ALL THE FUCKING ANIMALS! WOO!"?

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