Conservation & the Environment: Conservative Values, New Solutions V. The Tortoise Can Win the Race for Candidate Species Conservation Laura Huggins PERC In June of 2012, the world mourned the loss of the There is much to be learned from Lonesome George. giant tortoise, Lonesome George. The 100-year-old Perhaps the most critical lesson is if we really want to tortoise lived in the Galapagos and was believed to help ensure a species survival than we should engage be the last of his sub-species. George served as an in conservation activities prior to a species becoming ambassador for endangered species—especially in endangered. Acting late is risky and expensive; but Ecuador where many groups are working to restore not individuals respond to incentives and require a carrot only tortoise populations throughout the archipelago or a stick to act early to conserve species. but also to improve the status of other rare species. The federal framework for species conservation in the George’s death made the headlines because it was United States—the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—is one of the few times people actually watched an often characterized as a reactive tool. This regulatory extinction take place. New York Times columnist Carl stick triggers costly conservation requirements after a Hulse wrote that this sentiment was expressed at the species is critically imperiled (Lueck and Michael 2003, shops and restaurants along Charles Darwin Avenue in Stokestad 2005). A system of positive incentives for the Galapagos: “We have witnessed extinction,” said a environmental stewardship upstream of listing under blackboard in front of one business. “Hopefully we will the ESA could enhance the nation’s framework for learn from it” (Hulse 2012). species conservation by motivating proactive species management and removing perverse incentives for landowners. The Tortoise Can Win the Race for Candidate Species Conservation V-1 Conservation & the Environment: Conservative Values, New Solutions This type of system could also help avoid legal battles Under this model, private landowners who conserve, that drain already strained resources from programs manage, or restore candidate species habitat on their intended to help vulnerable flora and fauna, enhance properties can receive “credits” (a unit of trade that regulatory predictability for major land users such as places monetary value on conservation measures) energy developers and the military, and provide new that they can sell in the marketplace. Buyers in sources of revenue for landowners who choose to that marketplace would include project developers manage their lands to enhance the survival of species. that expect to impact these species after listing. The need for such an approach is underscored by a Developers would purchase credits as mitigation for recent court settlement requiring the United States future impacts. In exchange for alleviating potential Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make a final impacts, developers would receive a level of regulatory determination on ESA status for more than 250 predictability from the USFWS regarding the value candidate species by September 2016 (WildEarth of the mitigation actions and applicability to future Guardians v. Salazar 2011). impacts if the species is listed. Consider species such as the gopher tortoise, the Although this approach is still under development, greater sage grouse, and the lesser prairie chicken. the USFWS has indicated interest in the concept. In These animals are considered by the USFWS to March 2012, the USFWS issued an advance notice of be biologically imperiled to the point of needing a proposed rulemaking to “encourage landowners and ESA protections. In at least parts of their ranges, other potentially regulated interests to fund or carry out however, the USFWS is precluded from listing these voluntary conservation actions beneficial to candidate species under the ESA due to higher priority actions and other at-risk species by providing a new type of and agency funding constraints. Until resources are available to initiate a formal listing, these species wait on the “Candidate” list (see the text box “What Is a Candidate Species”). Waiting on this list equates What Is a Candidate Species? to regulatory limbo—the species are biologically Candidate species are plants and animals threatened or endangered, but receive no federal for which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protection. has sufficient information regarding their biological status to justify proposing them as Several nonprofit groups such as World Resources endangered or threatened under the ESA, but Institute, and Advanced Conservation Strategies for which development of a proposed listing are developing innovative programs that strive to classification is precluded by other higher provide a system of positive incentives for candidate priorities and agency capacity constraints. species conservation. The incentive-based Candidate status gives notice to landowners approach to pre-listing conservation is commonly and resource managers of species in need of referred to as “advance mitigation” or “candidate conservation, and ideally provides an impetus conservation banking.” By aligning the interests of to adopt measures that could preclude the project developers, private landowners, conservation need to list the species as threatened or advocates, and the USFWS, this approach can endangered (USFWS 2011a). complement and improve the performance of existing ESA programs by mobilizing actions that achieve net conservation benefits for at-risk species before they are listed. V-2 The Tortoise Can Win the Race for Candidate Species Conservation Conservation & the Environment: Conservative Values, New Solutions assurance that in the event the species is listed, the powerful environmental laws in the United States. benefits of appropriate voluntary conservation actions The ESA prohibits any actions that may cause harm will be recognized as offsetting the adverse effects of to endangered plants and animals or the ecosystems activities carried out by that landowner or others after upon which they depend. Over the past four decades, the listing” (USFWS 2012). This shift could advance more than 1,200 species have been granted legal a proactive framework that further motivates early protection under the ESA, and while very few have conservation efforts to help the gopher tortoise and gone extinct, most remain in peril. other imperiled species win the race for survival. First Generation ESA— This paper offers a summary of the three generations Perverse Incentives of the Endangered Species Act followed by a As former USFWS Director Sam Hamilton observed discussion of the benefits and hurdles of pre-listing when he oversaw Fish and Wildlife Service efforts conservation strategies—primarily in the form of pre- in Texas: “The incentives are wrong here. If I have a listing conservation banking. The incentive-based rare metal on my property, its value goes up. But if approach for the conservation of candidate species a rare bird occupies the land, its value disappears” is highlighted by a brief case study on the eastern (Carpenter 1993, 89). It is not illegal to modify habitat population of the gopher tortoise where partners for candidate species that might be considered are working with the U.S. military, which is trying to endangered species habitat in the future. Nor are manage gopher tortoise habitats before federal listing landowners required to take affirmative steps to under the ESA becomes necessary and potentially maintain even endangered species habitat (Adler leads to a loss of training capacity on bases. 2011b). The negative incentives built into the ESA The concluding section suggests that this model have led to less and lower-quality habitat available can be replicated in other parts of the United States to endangered species on private land (Bean 2002). dealing with candidate species such as the lesser Such regulations may even encourage landowners to prairie chicken and greater sage grouse. destroy or degrade potential habitat on their land— sometimes referred to as the “shoot, shovel, and shut- The Foundation up” syndrome. The groundwork for the Endangered Species Act Several empirical studies further suggest the perverse was laid in the 1960s, as the modern environmental effects of the ESA on private land conservation. Two movement emerged and the federal government such studies found evidence of preemptive habitat began legislating environmental policy (Anderson destruction by forest landowners in the eastern United and Huggins 2008). In 1966, Congress passed States due to the listing and presence of red-cockaded the Endangered Species Preservation Act, which woodpeckers. The first found that private landowners authorized the Secretary of the Interior to establish engaged in preemptive habitat destruction when the a list of endangered and threatened species and presence of red-cockaded woodpeckers placed the to purchase land for conservation purposes. landowners at risk of federal regulation and a loss of International limits on trade in endangered species their timber investment (Lueck and Michael 2003). and their products were established during the 1973 Providing habitat for a single woodpecker colony could Convention on International Trade in Endangered cost a private timber owner as much as $200,000 in Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. That same year, the foregone timber harvests. To avoid the loss, those ESA was enacted and evolved into one of the most