President Joe Biden’s administration announced Thursday that it had restored certain protections for endangered species that had been eliminated by Donald Trump.
Environmental associations, however, regretted that some changes introduced in 2019 by the Republican president remained intact. The measures adopted refer to the Endangered Species Act, a law from the early 1970s that has become a reference for environmental protection.
The regulations released Thursday will restore protections for endangered animals, as well as language requiring that the designation of a species as threatened be made without considering economic factors.
“Species face formidable new challenges, including climate change, fragmented and degraded habitats, invasive species, and disease,” Martha Williams, director of the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement.
“The Endangered Species Act is more important than ever,” he added.
Not ambitious enough according to associations
But several associations regretted that the Biden government has not gone far enough.
Certain measures adopted under Donald Trump and left intact today require “the near total destruction of a protected habitat before it becomes a problem,” or the demand for “greater scientific certainty than is sometimes possible in the practice before being able to protect a species or habitat,” criticized the organization Earthjustice.
“The Biden administration repealed some of the worst aspects of Trump’s regulations, but missed an opportunity to end the nightmare Donald Trump created for wildlife,” added Ben Jealous of the Sierra Club.
According to many scientists, the world is going through a biodiversity crisis linked to human activities, for example through the destruction of species’ habitats or their overexploitation, and whose severity is comparable to the climate crisis.
Source: BFM TV
