Proactive Strategies for Protecting Species: Pre-Listing Conservation and the Endangered Species Act

Now forty years old, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) remains a landmark act in conservation and one of the world's most comprehensive laws designed to prevent species extinctions and support recovery efforts for imperiled species. A controversial law and often subject to political attack, the ESA is successful overall but not without difficulties. Those who enforce the ESA, for example, struggle to achieve viable recovery goals for many species. At the forefront of challenges is a reactive framework that sometimes leads to perverse incentives and legal battles that strain support and resources. Further, few species have been delisted. Proactive Strategies for Protecting Species explores the perspectives, opportunities, and challenges around designing and implementing pre-listing programs and approaches to species conservation. This volume brings together conservation biologists, economists, private and government stakeholders, and others to create a legal, scientific, sociological, financial, and technological foundation for designing solutions that incentivize conservation action for hundreds of at-risk species prior to their potential listing under the ESA. This forward-thinking, innovative volume provides a roadmap for designing species conservation programs on the ground so they are effective and take place upstream of regulation, which will contribute to a reduction in lawsuits and other expenses that arise after a species is listed. Proactive Strategies for Species Protection is a guidebook for anyone anywhere interested in designing programs that incentivize environmental stewardship and species conservation.

Table of Contents:
Contributors Foreword - Michael J. Bean Preface PART ONE: INTRODUCTION AND PERSPECTIVES 1. An Introduction to Pre-Listing Conservation - C. Josh Donlan and Catherine Rothacker 2. A Primer on Species Avoidance, Minimization, and Compensatory Mitigation under the US Endangered Species Act - Becca Madsen 3. Perspective: Endangered Species, the Desert Tortoise, and Job Creation - Myles Traphagen 4. Perspective: Renewable Energy and Endangered Species - Sean Kiernan 5. Perspective: The Challenges and Benefits of Pre-Listing Conservation Approaches to Military Readiness - Ryan Orndoff 6. Perspective: Stewardship over Regulation and Harnessing the Agricultural Sector for Species Conservation - Terry R. Fankhauser 7. Perspective: Forest Conservation and Private Landowners - Rhett Johnson and Mary Sniekus PART TWO: DESIGNING PRE-LISTING CONSERVATION PROGRAMS 8. Pre-Listing Conservation: Law, Policy, and Pilot Projects - Ya-Wei Li and Timothy Male 9. A Primer on Biodiversity Measurement Systems - Bobby Cochran and Nicole Maness 10. A Landowner-Centered Approach to Incentivizing Participation in Pre-Listing Conservation Programs - Michael G. Sorice and Troy Abel 11. Market Models and Finance for Upstream Species Conservation - C. Josh Donlan, Abhishek Jain, and Barbara Muller 12. Tools to Promote Transparent and Efficient Markets for Species Conservation - Joanna Silver 13. The Role of Electronic Marketplaces in Scaling Environmental Markets - Michael Van Patten and Aaron Martin PART THREE: CASE STUDIES 14. Prospects for Pre-Listing Conservation in Freshwater Ecosystems - Daniel A. Auerbach and Todd K. BenDor 15. The Greater Sage-Grouse, Energy Development, and Pre-Listing Conservation - Shauna Ginger, Sara Vickerman, and Bruce Taylor 16. The Gopher Tortoise, Military Readiness, and Pre-Listing Conservation - Todd Gartner, C. Josh Donlan, Michael G. Sorice, James Mulligan, Mary Snieckus, and Rhett Johnson 17. The Future of Pre-Listing Conservation Programs for Wildlife Conservation - Timothy Male and C. Josh Donlan References Index

About the Author :
C. Josh Donlan is director and founder of Advanced Conservation Strategies, an organization that makes livelihoods and environments better through science, human-centered design, and innovation. He is a recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships and has published over eighty scientific and public articles in venues such as Nature, Conservation Biology, and PNAS.

Review :
"A breath of fresh air... This book represents the first concerted, pragmatic effort to examine how [PLC programs] might actually be accomplished in a market-based framework." -- Robin S. Waples BioScience