National W ilderness Institute f> P.O. Box 25766, Washington, DC 20007 For Immediate Release May 20,1997 For more information contact: Greg Mueller or Mike Thompson 703-683-5004 Groundbreaking Study Determines Endangered Species Act To Be A Failure National Press Club, Washington, DC — A study appearing next week in EnvironmentInternational, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, demonstrates that the Endangered Species Act has failed to conserve endangered plants and animals. According to the authors the study, Conservation UndertheEndangered SpeciesAct, “reviews the conservation impact o f implementing the Endangered Species Act for a near quarter century and the results are devastating.” The editor o f EnvironmentInternational, Dr. Alan Moghissi, stated that “ A disheartening part o f the paper... is their conclusive evidence that the deletion o f essentially every species from the endangered species list was not caused by implementation o f the ESA,”and the study provides “... a picture in which the USFWS (US Fish and Wildlife Service) lists a species and either removes it or reduces its severity o f endangerment, solely because afterwards it finds that it made an error.” The study’ s authors, Rob Gordon, James Streeter and James Lacy o f the National Wilderness Institute (NWI) spent more than a year analyzing thousands of pages o f government documents and creating a database with more than 200,000 data points to conduct the study which is the second largest paper ever published by EnvironmentInternational. Among the study’ s findings: •Numerous species were incorrectly listed as threatened or endangered; •No species has recovered primarily as a result o f the ESA; •In only two instances can reclassification o f a species from endangered to threatened be attributed to successful management actions and in both o f these cases the actions could have been taken without the Act; •Most the species claimed by USFWS to have achieved 75% o f their recovery objectives are not beneficiaries o f successful actions taken under the Act; •The government data is too poor to demonstrate a general trend for protected species - either positive or negative; •Federal expenditures on endangered species are made primarily by agencies other than the USFWS and NMFS, the principal implementing agencies; •There is no scientific rationale for the allocation o f funds among species. According to Gordon, Executive Director o f NWI, “Government data show the endangered species program to be a failure — it could be likened to a doctor who has committed innumerable misdiagnoses, is quick to elect radical surgery and has never saved a patient. No one could wittingly and with good consciousness send a sick patient in to face such prospects. Those o f us who are genuinely concerned about conserving endangered species must redirect our efforts - the current program has failed - we need to take a different approach.” According to Moghissi, “ Finally we have a peer-reviewed study on the results o f the ESA - they are not good. The science shows it does not work — perhaps policy makers, scientists and conservationists now that we have the facts and know what does not work - can get together and develop something that will.” In addition to being available in EnvironmentInternationalwhere it was first published, an expanded version o f this definitive study may be obtained by contacting NWI. An executive summary and portions o f the study will be available over the internet at http://www.nwi.org after the press conference. NWI is a non-profit educational conservation organization which was founded in 1989. To schedule an interview with Robert Gordon or Alan Moghissi please call 703-836-7404. - 30 - STATEMENT OF DR. A. ALAN MOGfflSSI EDITOR, ENVIRONMENTINTERNATIONAL Today w e are releasing a study published in the current issue o f Environment International on endangered species. Before I discuss the implications o f the study, I would like to briefly describe the nature o f Environment International. This Journal was initiated as a consequence o f the decision by die Environmental Protection Agency to stop the publication o f a journal. Environmental Data and Reports. Ever since its inception, the Journal has attempted to publish papers that are original, o f high scientific quality and more importantly, o f significance to the decision makers. For example, we published an entire volume devoted to the issue o f carbon dioxide and its potential impact in 1979, considerably before the issue was recognized by the environmental scientific community. Similarly, as one o f the first scientific journals, w e published Cancer risk assessment and cardiovascular risk assessment o f environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). The paper by Gordon, et. al., represents a continuation o f our original policy. The peer review o f the paper indicated the need for some changes that were done by the authors. However, while the reviewers agreed with the technical content o f the paper they felt that “its publication w ill harm the cause o f Endangered Species A ct” This recommendation is nearly identical to the recommendation w e received about ETS because at the time it was feared that we may cause the ire o f the tobacco industry. The paper by Gordon, e t ah, raises serious questions about the management o f endangered species in the United States. Meanwhile, a relevant report was published by the National Research Council (NRC). That report confuses the role o f the scientific community with that o f politicians and policy makers. It is imperative that actions be taken by the Congress, the conservation movement, and the media to save endangered species. The current system is faulty and must be corrected. 1 . 1 am calling upon the Congress to reassess the current status o f the Act. In particular, it is mandatory that objective and reproducible measures are used to list, delist, or change the status o f species. Personal opinions w ill not do. 2 . 1 am calling upon the president o f the N R C to reassess its report on endangered species. In particular, the NRC should provide clear and unambiguous definitions for species, subspecies, and other referent terms. 3. EnvironmentInternational welcomes contributions from those with findings other than those by Gordon, et. al. Their submissions w ill be subjected to our customary peer review process.