By GABRIELA CHAVARRIA | Guest Commentary
August 20, 2019 at 2:44 pm
I came to the United States 30 years ago to do my Ph.D. in Biology at Harvard University, working with one of the world’s most highly recognized biologists, Dr. Edward O. Wilson. From an early age, I was fascinated by insects especially bees; the more I learned the more I was intrigued about their unique role and special place in our wildlands. Throughout my studies, I quickly learned that wild spaces were being destroyed and wildlife species were disappearing.
After I graduated, I stayed in the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and committed myself to protecting wildlands and wildlife, especially threatened and endangered species. From 2010 to 2014 I was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s science advisor to the director, and from 2014 to 2017 the senior science advisor and forensic science branch chief. I know that our wildlife is in crisis. We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction — the first one caused by humans.
In Colorado, we have watched in dismay as our greenback cutthroat trout, monarch butterfly and bighorn sheep populations, among others, have suffered and many others are silently disappearing. Climate change is decreasing snowpack, which is detrimental to the threatened Canada lynx and the imperiled wolverine. We are also seeing more damaging fire seasons, which threaten humans, wildlife and habitat. As our wildlife suffer, we will also suffer and so will our real-estate and hospitality industries. We are all connected, and we are all dependent on each other.
So, what is the Trump administration doing to help wildlife? Nothing, in fact, it’s destroying the Endangered Species Act.
The Endangered Species Act is the world’s preeminent conservation law and our nation’s most effective law for protecting wildlife in danger of extinction. Ninety-nine percent of species that have received protections under the act are still with us today. Iconic species like the bald eagle, the American alligator, and the brown pelican have recovered and been delisted. And the act is incredibly popular — 90% of American voters support the law.
Yet, the Trump administration has finalized new rules that will severely weaken the act. The rules will: bias listing decisions with unreliable economic analyses; make it much more difficult to protect species impacted by climate change; make it more difficult to list a new species and easier to remove those now on the list; make it harder to designate critical habitat for threatened and endangered wildlife; reduce protections for threatened species; reduce voluntary conservation incentives; and weaken the consultation process.
As plants and animals across our state are feeling the impacts of climate change and development, this is not the time to weaken protections. Former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke oversaw the writing of these rules. Zinke resigned in December 2018 and is now under federal investigation. Zinke was riddled with conflicts of interest and worked to benefit his former clients on land deals and oil and gas leasing and should not be allowed to destroy our Endangered Species Act on behalf of his industry clients. Now, acting Secretary David Bernhardt, who may become the next secretary of interior, is also drowning in conflicts of interest and by supporting these rules is acting on behalf of industry leaders that find the Endangered Species Act a hindrance. The Department of Interior should work on behalf of the American people. Staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services should make decisions based on science as the American public expects.
Congress must reject the Trump administration’s harmful changes to the implementation of the Endangered Species Act. I am calling on Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner and our entire Congressional delegation to reject these regulations. We must protect our wildlife and the wild places that make Colorado unique.
Gabriela Chavarria was the science advisor to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the Obama administration. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and her master’s and Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University. Dr. Chavarria is currently working with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science as VP of Research and Collections.