How Trump’s Policy Change Could Lead to More Plant and Animal Extinctions
The rollback also comes amid a broader effort to reinterpret the ESA.
One week prior, the FWS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration redefined the meaning of “harm” under the ESA, making it so that damaging or destroying an endangered species’ habitat is no longer, by itself, considered harming that species under the law. Going forward, the word only refers to “an act which actually kills or injures wildlife.”
In response, a coalition of nine environmental groups and two Native American tribes filed lawsuits saying that the move violates the ESA’s statutory language and inhibits its fundamental goals.
The latest revisions are also expected to face legal challenges and, taken together with last week’s change to the definition of “harm,” mark a broader effort by the administration to reshape implementation of the ESA.
‘A one-way ticket to extinction’
The Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit working to protect endangered species, said that these new rules could leave many species with little to no protection.
