ways governments could help protect endangered species essay

Search the site

Links to social media channels

Protecting Endangered Species

Still Only One Earth: Lessons from 50 years of UN sustainable development policy

Despite continued conservation efforts, the status of many endangered species remains unchanged. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) are the primary treaties tasked with protection of endangered species. But moving forward, species conservation efforts should expand to include lesser known species that serve important ecosystem services. ( Download PDF ) ( See all policy briefs ) ( Subscribe to ENB )

The Persian leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana), the largest subspecies of leopards, used to roam widely across Central Asia and the Caucasus. They are large spotted cats—about five feet in length—with slender hindquarters and long, thick tails. Both male and female leopards lead solitary lives, though they come together during winter mating. They are very territorial, patrolling wide home ranges to scent-mark trees, shrubs, and rocks. The leopard inhabits a wide variety of habitats: from mountain crags up to 3,000 meters in elevation, to grasslands and cold desert ecosystems, with a preference for cliff and rocky areas, as well as juniper and pistachio woodlands that give them cover for hunting.

During the past century, human-wildlife conflict, indiscriminate killing of their prey, habitat loss, and bounties incentivizing their killing have reduced their historic range by 72-84% (Jacobson et al., 2016). Today, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species—the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of species and subspecies, which uses a set of defined criteria to evaluate their extinction risk (Rodrigues et al., 2006)—the Persian leopard is endangered.

The story of the Persian leopard is the story of many species pushed by human action to the brink of extinction. Strong conservation measures can still reverse the course for some species. For many others, it is too late.

During the past century, human-wildlife conflict, indiscriminate killing of their prey, habitat loss, and bounties incentivizing their killing have reduced the leopard’s historic range by 72-84% JACOBSON ET AL., 2016

The foundations of global species conservation measures date back to the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment . Principle 2 of the Stockholm Declaration says “the natural resources of the earth, including the air, water, land, flora and fauna and especially representative samples of natural ecosystems, must be safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations.” Principle 4 reads “Man has a special responsibility to safeguard and wisely manage the heritage of wildlife and its habitat, which are now gravely imperilled by a combination of adverse factors.”

Among the 109 recommendations found in the Stockholm Action Plan , Recommendation 99 calls for the preparation and adoption of an international treaty to regulate international trade in certain species of wild plants and animals. This treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), had been drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of IUCN. As a result of the push provided by the Stockholm Conference, the Convention was finally adopted at a meeting of representatives of 80 countries in Washington, D.C. on 3 March 1973.

There are a few other relevant recommendations. Recommendation 29 draws attention to species of wildlife that may serve as indicators for future wide environmental disturbances. Recommendation 30 emphasizes drawing attention to the situation of animals endangered by their trade value. The Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan also legitimized the role of IUCN and especially the Red List, which had been established in 1964. In fact, IUCN was one of the few environmental organizations formally involved in the preparations of the Stockholm Conference and in the drafting and implementation of the three conventions that followed it: the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972), CITES, and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (1971).

What are Endangered Species: The Role of the IUCN Red List

Since its establishment, the IUCN Red List has been the key tool to assess the status of species and catalyze action for conservation and policy change. Through the List’s rigorous assessment processes, experts linked to the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s specialist groups collect information on a species’ range, population size, habitat and ecology, use and/or trade, threats, and conservation actions that inform necessary conservation decisions.

The assessments published in the IUCN Red List are used by governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and multilateral environmental agreements. The assessments drive conservation action and funding, albeit still in insufficient ways to always ensure saving species. In fact, Betts et al. (2020) noted that without successful communication between species experts, academics, policymakers, funders, and practitioners, IUCN Red List assessments may not lead to development and implementation of conservation action plans.

The IUCN Red List has nine categories to indicate how close a species is to becoming extinct. The closest to extinction is the “critically endangered” category, with a species example being the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), a subspecies found only in Iran that has dwindled to fewer than 50 animals remaining in the wild. The least critical category is defined as “least concern.” For example, the global brown bear (Ursus arctos) population is considered to be of “least concern” because it is large and spread over three continents, even though there are some local populations that are under threat. The categories in the middle, i.e., “vulnerable” and “endangered,” are for species considered under threat.

In other words, if a species is either critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable, it is in popular terms “endangered.”

This mismatch between the technical terms of the IUCN Red List and common language can lead to confusion. In 2016, a re-assessment of the snow leopard prompted an outcry from some members of the conservation community due the species’ being reclassified from endangered to vulnerable (McCarthy et al., 2016). Their anger was echoed by members of the public, in part because they did not understand “being vulnerable” under IUCN Red List criteria still means at high risk of extinction.

The way a species is assessed under the IUCN Red List can also determine whether such species deserve protection under two international treaties aimed at species conservation: CITES and the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). Listing an endangered species under either of these two conventions can catalyze further action and, possibly, save a species from extinction (Zahler & Rosen, 2013).

Without successful communication between species experts, academics, policy makers, funders, and practitioners, IUCN Red List assessment may not lead to development and implementation of conservation action plans. BETTS ET AL. (2020)

Regulating the Protection of Endangered Species

CITES and CMS are the key conventions tasked with regulating protection of endangered species.

CITES regulates international trade and therefore looks at the impact of trade on species conservation. Annually, international wildlife trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars and to include hundreds of millions of plant and animal specimens. The trade is diverse, ranging from live animals and plants to an array of products derived from them, including food, exotic leather goods, wooden musical instruments, timber, tourist curios, and medicines. Since trade in wild animals and plants crosses borders between countries, the effort to regulate it requires international cooperation to safeguard certain species from over-exploitation. Today, CITES accords varying degrees of protection to more than 37,000 species of animals and plants, whether they are traded as live specimens, fur coats, or dried herbs (CITES, n.d.)

In the language of CITES, species listed under Appendix I are considered threatened with extinction and afforded the highest level of protection, including restrictions on commercial trade. Examples of the 931 species currently listed under Appendix 1 include gorillas (Gorilla sp.), tigers (Panthera tigris), and snow leopards (Panthera uncia). Appendix II includes species that, while currently not threatened with extinction, may become so without trade controls. It also includes species that resemble other listed species and must be regulated to effectively control the trade in those other listed species. Currently 34,419 species are listed under Appendix II, including saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), wolf (Canis lupus), argali sheep (Ovis ammon), and kiang (Equus kiang). Appendix III includes a list of wildlife and plant species identified by particular CITES parties as being in need of international trade controls.

The purpose of CMS is conservation of migratory species, their habitats, and migration routes. “Migratory” is broadly defined as species that straddle international borders (Lewis & Trouwborst, 2019). Migratory species threatened with extinction are listed in Appendix I of the Convention. Appendix I listing is a mechanism to promote conservation measures called, in CMS terminology, “Concerted Action” among the range states of the listed species. CMS parties commit to ensure strict protections under national laws and conserving their habitats, mitigating obstacles to migration, among other threats. Migratory species viewed as benefiting from international cooperation are listed in Appendix II of the Convention (CMS, n.d.). To date, seven specialized regional agreements and 19 memoranda of understanding have been concluded for Appendix II species under the CMS.

Representative Frameworks for the Conservation of Endangered Species

The development of models tailored to conservation needs throughout migratory ranges is a unique feature of the CMS. Along these lines, there are two important initiatives benefiting endangered species in Africa and Central Asia under the CMS umbrella.

One is the Central Asian Mammals Initiative (CAMI) and its associated Programme of Work. Established in 2014, CAMI aims to strengthen the conservation of Central Asian migratory mammals through a common framework to coordinate conservation activities in the region and coherently address major threats to migratory species. By developing an initiative for Central Asian mammals, CMS is catalyzing collaboration between all stakeholders, with the aim of harmonizing and strengthening the implementation of the Convention (Rosen & Roettger, 2014). One of the most recent projects under CAMI is the proposed development of a regional strategy for the conservation of the Persian leopard.

The Joint CITES-CMS African Carnivores Initiative (ACI), established in 2017, stems from the recognition of the importance of synergies and coordination of measures toward species that are protected under both Conventions. Supported by IUCN Species Survival Commission ’s specialist groups, the Secretariats are tasked to drive effective conservation of African lion, leopard, cheetah, and wild dog, and help avoid duplicate activities and associated costs, and generate funding.

By developing an initiative for Central Asian mammals, CMS is catalyzing collaboration between all stakeholders, with the aim of harmonizing and strengthening the implementation of the Convention ROSEN & ROETTGER, 2014

There are also two other important frameworks, each focused on the conservation of single species. One is the Global Tiger Initiative Council (GTIC), and the other is the Global Snow Leopard Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP).

GTIC was originally set up as the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), a global alliance of governments, international organizations, NGOs, and the private sector, with the goal to save tigers from extinction. Established by the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Smithsonian Institution, Save the Tiger Fund, and International Tiger Coalition (representing more than 40 NGOs), the initiative is led by the 13 tiger range countries. The St. Petersburg Declaration , adopted in 2010 at the Tiger Summit in Russia, defines the priorities.

GSLEP, propelled by GTI and established in 2013, is driven by 12 snow leopard range states, NGOs, and international organizations, which sit on a steering committee. The foundation of the GSLEP is 12 individual National Snow Leopard and Ecosystems Priorities (NSLEPs). Under GSLEP, specific activities are grouped under broad themes that correspond to the commitments of the Bishkek Declaration adopted at the 2013 Global Snow Leopard Conservation Forum (Zakharenka et al., 2016).

Some of these initiatives have successfully catalyzed attention, resources, and conservation action. They have received a high level of political attention, especially GTI in Russia and GSLEP in Kyrgyzstan, as respective hosts of the Tiger Summit and Snow Leopard Forum. However, some conservationists argue, especially in relation to tigers, that results have fallen short, and lack of transparency and accountability is compromising progress in tiger conservation efforts. Slappendel (2021) writes that “tiger-range countries are responsible for making tiger conservation efforts and holding themselves accountable for their methods and results. There’s no authority above them, so they can do whatever they want.

While the reach and influence of CAMI and ACI are more limited compared to GTI and GSLEP, they have also generated important resources for conservation and could likely have a stronger policy-driving role in the future.

Generally, these four frameworks serve as important examples for directing donor resources.

The Role of UN Agencies and Donors

The GEF, established in 1992, is the largest multilateral fund focused on enabling developing countries to invest in nature. It supports the implementation of major international environmental conventions including on biodiversity, climate change, chemicals, and desertification. Endangered species prioritized under CITES and CMS, such as GTI and GSLEP, are also prioritized for GEF funding.

In 2010, the GEF indicated it would provide up to USD 50 million in grants to save the tiger through contributions to be invested by developing countries using their GEF allocations in biodiversity, supplemented by investments from its REDD+ Program (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable use of forests, and enhancement of carbon stocks) (GEF, 2010). Since 1991, the GEF has invested nearly USD 100 million toward snow leopard projects implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The GSLEP Forum in 2013 catalyzed nine further GEF-financed, UNDP-implemented projects, representing an investment of about USD 45 million to support snow leopard range countries. These nine projects also leveraged over USD 200 million in co-financing from national and international partners (UNDP, 2016).

UNDP has emerged as one of the key implementing UN agencies when it comes to endangered species and conservation projects more broadly. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has also spearheaded initiatives for the conservation of endangered species, such as Vanishing Treasures . This EUR 9 million project, funded by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, seeks to better understand the vulnerability to climate change of the snow leopard, tiger, and gorilla and the ecosystems being affected.

Why Do Many Species Continue to be Endangered?

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned in its Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services that “nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history—and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating” (IPBES, 2019).

Despite continued conservation efforts, the status of many endangered species remains unchanged—including tigers, lions, and cheetahs. The question is: Why? With our growing knowledge of the fragility of the planet’s ecosystems, why are we pushing entire species out of existence?

The limited amount of funding benefiting species research and conservation is one reason. Often these funds are short term, whereas to really see progress and results, a longer funding commitment is necessary. Some projects are also too narrowly focused on protection and enforcement, without seeking ways local communities can be part of the solution. Likewise, some projects do not address root causes of decline.

But there are also issues of capacity. In many countries that provide habitat for endangered species, there is limited technical capacity to protect such species. Local and national conservation organizations also would benefit from greater capacity building.

At the national level, species conservation may not be prioritized. This is often reflected in ministries tasked with both environment and agriculture or economic and mining issues—with the latter issues prioritized over conservation. Species conservation also does not operate in a vacuum, but must be considered alongside mechanisms to address threats to their survival, which may be exacerbated by conflicting development goals. For example, a development project aimed at improving access to water, through building dams and irrigation channels, may hurt access by salmon species to spawning grounds or damage riparian habitat. Finally, conservation organizations—with their own agendas and issues of competition for funding that leads to lack of cooperation—sometimes fail to create better synergies for conservation.

There are also many other endangered species that are not as well known or do not have the appeal of more popular endangered species, such as snow leopards or tigers. Some of these species have disappeared from large swaths of their range, including the striped hyaena (Hyaena hyaena), which can no longer be found in parts of Central Asia and Caucasus regions. The lesser-known Saint Lucia racer (Erythrolamprus ornatus), listed as Critically Endangered, numbers fewer than 20 individuals and is considered one of the rarest snakes in the world. Similarly, the Daguo Mulian tree (Magnolia grandis) is listed as critically endangered due to habitat loss for agricultural expansion and logging.

Moving Forward

Protecting iconic endangered species is still important for promoting policies and measures that can benefit entire ecosystems and many other endangered species. Nevertheless, species conservation efforts must expand to include many more species that are lesser known and serve important ecosystem services. Such efforts should also create incentives for local communities to conserve them, including through sustainable use when that is recognized as the only or the most effective measure. Finally, greater financial resources have to be allocated. Many hope the post-2020 global biodiversity framework will help guide the most pressing actions to keep entire species from being erased from our shared world.

Works Consulted

Betts, J., Young, R. P., Hilton-Taylor, C., Hoffmann, M., Rodríguez, J. P., Stuart, S. N., & Milner-Gulland, E. J. (2020). A framework for evaluating the impact of the IUCN Red List of threatened species. Conservation Biology: The Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, 34(3), 632–643. doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13454

Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. (n.d.). What is CITES? cites.org/eng/disc/what.php

Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. (n.d.). CMS. cms.int/en/legalinstrument/cms

Global Environment Facility. (2010). Global Environment Facility to support $50 million in grants to save the tiger. thegef.org/newsroom/news/global-environmentfacility-support-50-million-grants-save-tiger

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. (2019). Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3831673

Jacobson, A.P., Gerngross, P., Lemeris, Jr., J.R., Schoonover, R.F., Anco, C., Breitenmoser-Würsten, C., Durant, S.M., Farhadinia, M.S., Henschel, P., Kamler, J.F., Laguardia, A., Rostro-García, S., Stein, A.B., & Dollar, L. (2016). Leopard (Panthera pardus) status, distribution, and the research efforts across its range. PeerJ 4:e1974. doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1974

Lewis, M., & Trouwborst, A. (2019). Large carnivores and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)—definitions, sustainable use, added value, and other emerging issues. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7. frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fevo.2019.00491

McCarthy, T., Mallon, D., Jackson, R., Zahler, P., & McCarthy, K. (2017). Panthera uncia. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017. Panthera uncia (Snow Leopard) (iucnredlist.org)

Rodrigues, A.S.L., Pilgrim, J.D., Lamoreux, J.F., Hoffmann, M., & Brooks, T.M. (2006). The value of the IUCN Red List for conservation. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21(2), 71-76. doi.org/10.1016/j. tree.2005.10.010

Rosen, T., & Roettger, C. (2014). Central Asian Mammals Initiative: Saving the last migrations. CMS. cms.int/sites/default/files/publication/Central_Asian_Mammals_Initiative.pdf

Slappendel, C. (2021). What’s stopping some countries from keeping up with tiger conservation promises? Commentary. Mongabay news.mongabay.com/2021/11/whats-stopping-some-countries-from-keeping-up-with-tiger-conservationpromises-commentary/

UNDP. (2016). Silent Roar - UNDP and GEF in the snow leopard landscape. undp.org/publications/silent-roar-undpand-gef-snow-leopard-landscape

Zahler, P., & Rosen, T. (2013). Endangered mammals. Encyclopedia of Biodiversity. Elsevier.

Zakharenka, A., Sharma, K., Kochorov, C., Rutherford, B., Varma, K., Seth, A., Kushlin, A., Lumpkin, S., Seidensticker, J., Laporte, B., Tichomirow, B., Jackson, R. M., Mishra, C., Abdiev, B., Modaqiq, A. W., Wangchuk, S., Zhongtian, Z., Khanduri, S. K., Duisekeyev, B., … Yunusov, N. (2016). The Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program. Snow Leopards, 559–573. doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-802213-9.00045-6

Additional downloads

Government of Norway, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Government of Sweden, Ministry of Environment

Government of Canada, Global Affairs Canada

Deep dive details, you might also be interested in, web of resilience.

Pakistan's development model has still not recognised the limits of the natural environment and the damage it would cause, if violated, to the sustainability of development and to the health and well-being of its population. Pakistan’s environment journey began with Stockholm Declaration in 1972. A delegation led by Nusrat Bhutto represented the country at the Stockholm meeting, resulting in the establishment of the Urban Affairs Division (UAD), the precursor of today’s Ministry of Climate Change. In setting the country’s environmental agenda, we were inspired by the Stockholm Principles, but in reality, we have mostly ignored them for the last five decades.

IISD in the news

June 5, 2022

The Legacies of the Stockholm Conference

Fifty years after Stockholm, we face a triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution.

June 1, 2022

The Roots of Forest Loss and Forest Governance

If lessons from past failures on deforestation are learned, forest protection could play a major role in reversing both climate change and biodiversity loss.

May 9, 2022

Pathways to Sustainable Cities

Urban planning needs to be inclusive and responsive to the needs of local communities and build on participatory approaches that foster the engagement of marginalized actors.

April 28, 2022

Why should we protect endangered animals?

The conservation of endangered species is not just a matter of ethical responsibility—it’s a fundamental necessity for the health of our planet.

Many human activities have been undeniably detrimental to many animal species, both directly and indirectly. The extinction rate of species is up to 1000 times higher than in pre-human times, and scientists suggest we are living through the planet’s sixth mass extinction. There has been a 68% decline in mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and fish species between 1970 and 2012. We’re losing biodiversity quicker than we ever have in the past.

Preserving endangered species safeguards the intricate balance of our planet’s life, ensuring a healthier and more secure future for ecosystems and people.

At IFAW, our mission is to build a future where animals and people can thrive together. With this goal in mind, it’s essential to examine why we must protect endangered species—why are they so important? And what would our world look like without them?

Why should we protect endangered species?

Endangered species are essential for biodiversity.

We can think of biodiversity as nature’s balancing act, where all the world’s species work together to keep populations in check and protect our planet’s ecosystems. When certain species become endangered or extinct, that balance is upset, causing ripples throughout the rest of the world’s species.

Take bees as an example. These insects play a crucial role in pollinating plants, helping maintain biodiversity and ensuring the availability of fruits, vegetables, and nuts in our ecosystems.

With globally declining numbers of bee populations , including some species such as the Potter Flower Bee and the Cliff Mason Bee becoming regionally extinct, there is a concern that there will be significant consequences for food security and ecosystem health.

Indicators of environmental health

Endangered species can also serve as indicators of environmental health. When populations decline, it can signify underlying issues such as habitat destruction, pollution, or climate change, which, if unaddressed, can threaten the stability of the entire ecosystem and many other species.

For example, declining populations of bald eagles in North America allowed scientists to discover that the environment had been contaminated with DDT , a pesticide used to control mosquitoes and other insects. In this way, the bald eagle served as a warning sign for the environmental damage being done by DDT, allowing a ban on the chemical to be put in place and eagle populations to recover along with the environment.

Climate change hinges on biodiversity

Climate change is closely linked to biodiversity loss . So protecting—and restoring—biodiverse ecosystems is vital in the fight against climate change.

Biodiversity helps ecosystems adapt to climate change, as various plant and animal species can sequester carbon dioxide, regulate temperatures, and support resilience in the face of climate impacts. When biodiversity is reduced due to habitat destruction or species loss, ecosystems become more vulnerable and compromised.

IFAW champions nature-based solutions to climate change , which involve protecting animals—as they hold the key to protecting their ecosystems and mitigating climate change simply through their natural functions.

Meanwhile, climate change contributes to habitat loss and rising temperatures that further endanger these animals, creating a sort of feedback loop. With a 4.3°C increase in global temperatures, 16% of the world’s species would be driven to extinction.

Currently, more than 25% of animals on the IUCN endangered species list are threatened by climate change. Scientists predict that one third of all animal and plant species will be under threat due to climate change by the year 2070.

How endangered species benefit the animal and plant life around them

Certain animals are known as ‘ ecosystem engineers ’ because they help protect their environments and habitats through their feeding and other behaviors.

Below are some examples of ecosystem engineers. To note here, each of these animals encompasses a broad range of different species and each animal group contains species that are classified as endangered.

• Sharks : Thanks to their position near the top of the food chain, sharks help regulate prey populations, which helps maintain the balance of marine food webs . It’s an intricate system—if snapper and grouper become too numerous on coral reefs because of limited reef shark populations to prey on them, these mesopredator fish will over consume their food source: algae-eating fish. Without adequate populations of algae-eating fish, algae may take over, smothering and killing the coral.
• Elephants : These gentle giants traverse the savannah, eating 140-300 kg (300-400 lbs) of food every single day. While walking through their habitat, elephants disperse seeds through their waste , sometimes as much as 60 kilometers away from where the plants were eaten. Elephant dung is an excellent fertilizer, facilitating new growth from their undigested seeds. These plants colonize new areas and eventually create new habitats and food for a range of other animals.
• Seals : These marine mammals act as both predators (of fish, squid, shellfish, seabirds, and other marine life) and as prey for hunters (like polar bears, orcas, and sharks)—all of which help to maintain balance in the food web. When seals swim through the ocean, they create currents which cycle nutrients from the sea to the shore, essential for plant growth and survival.

Endangered species are important for culture and tradition

Returning to our goal of helping animals and people thrive together, we must also consider that many animals are integral parts of cultures, traditions, and folklore worldwide.

For example, in Mexico, Monarch butterflies are culturally significant to the Mazahua people. When they land in central Mexico at the end of their 4,000-kilometre migration, they are viewed as the spirits of the dead returning for a visit, and their arrival coincides with traditional Day of the Dead celebrations.

Monarchs were classified as endangered by the IUCN in 2022. Losing this butterfly species would have both ecological and cultural impacts.

Similarly, African savannah elephants have deep connections with indigenous groups. For example, the Kwhe culture believes that elephants were once human and transformed into animals while maintaining the wisdom and connection to their people.

Protecting endangered species is also a fight to protect cultures and traditions worldwide.

Humans must protect endangered animals because human activity is a major threat

We’re currently experiencing the sixth mass extinction event, marked by alarming declines in the number of insects, vertebrates, and plant species worldwide. Left unchecked, this could completely change the planet as we know it, devastating ecosystems and life across the globe.

Mass extinction occurs when around 75% of the world’s species go extinct within a short time period. There have been five known mass extinctions throughout Earth’s history, and researchers believe we are now in the midst of the sixth.

However, unlike the five that have come before, this sixth mass extinction is primarily due to human activity. It’s come about through a combination of factors, including habitat destruction, deforestation, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources, introduction of invasive species, and climate change.

These activities have led to widespread biodiversity loss and countless species’ decline or extinction. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to protect those same species and the environments they inhabit and influence. This necessitates changing behaviors, activities, and policies. Urgent international action is needed to reverse humans’ effects on the environment. 

How can you help protect endangered species?

Despite the uncertain future we face as we grapple with climate change and habitat loss, there is hope for endangered species. Thanks to policy and conservation efforts, there are many species that have made or are in the midst of making recoveries .

The easiest way you can help protect endangered species is to learn more about them. See our list of the most endangered mammals and our endangered species glossary.

Though IFAW undertakes large-scale conservation efforts across the planet, we also believe in the impact of small acts.

You can do simple things to help protect biodiversity, such as:

• Rewild your garden to encourage pollinators
• Join a community beach cleanup and reduce harmful pollution in our waterways
• Buy eco-friendly cleaning products that don’t contain damaging chemicals
• Introduce one or two meat-free dinners each week
• Put a bell on your cat’s collar to reduce the chance of them attacking native wildlife
• Support wildlife conservation experts

For more ideas, check out our list of 50 simple actions you can take to help animals.

Making a difference starts with taking action. Get involved by signing our petitions and making your voice heard for the animals that need you most.

Press releases

IFAW calls on EU candidates and citizens to put environment at top of election agenda

Giving Day for Elephants

Koala facts and statistics

Our work can’t get done without you. Please give what you can to help animals thrive.

Unfortunately, the browser you use is outdated and does not allow you to display the site correctly. Please install any of the modern browsers, for example:

US Environmental Policy

Preserving life: the endangered species act’s journey and future.

By Brady Kim

Since its inception in 1973, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a cornerstone of environmental legislation in the United States. It reaffirmed the nation’s commitment to preserving biodiversity and protecting endangered species. The ESA has and continues to have significant successes in facilitating the recovery of many endangered species. In fact, over 90% of the plants and wildlife the law covers are recovering on schedule. [1] In recent years however, the act has been caught in the middle of partisan crosshairs. [2] In 2019, the Trump administration significantly weakened the act and despite revisions from the Biden administration in 2024 many conservationists don’t believe the changes are enough. [3] Endangered Species Act proponents must tap into humanity’s affection for animals and underscore its crucial role in maintaining environmental balance to garner broader public support, increased funding, and bipartisan backing to bolster the ESA’s effectiveness.

The ESA’s legacy of success is evident in the remarkable recoveries of species once on the brink of extinction. The most iconic example is the bald eagle, whose population rebounded from just a few hundred pairs in the lower 48 states in the 1960s to over 10,000 pairs today, thanks in large part to actions taken by the ESA. [4] Similarly, the American alligator, once on the verge of extinction due to habitat loss and overhunting, has made a remarkable recovery and is now thriving in its native habitats across the southeastern United States. [5]

The species listed above are among over 2,300 species the ESA currently protects. When a species becomes threatened or endangered, the ESA is able to step in and prohibit importing, exporting and selling of the species. [6] The ESA also prohibits destruction of natural habitats which is part of the contentiousness of the act, but also essential. Ecosystems are completely interconnected and the health of one species affects the entirety. The ESA’s protection of these at-risk species has far-reaching implications.

Looking ahead, the ESA faces a new set of challenges that threaten to undermine its effectiveness in conserving biodiversity. Chief among these challenges is our lack of funding and continual weakening of the act. Today, the ESA is only funded at 40 percent of what it needs to protect all endangered or threatened species. [7] Specifically, this limits the capacity of agencies to effectively monitor species populations, protect critical habitats, and mitigate threats. With regards to the weakening of the act, in 2019 the Trump administration removed blanket protections for plants and animals right when they are classified as threatened. [8] The administration also notably allowed economic considerations when giving protections. [9] More recently, the Biden administration reversed these, however conservationists are worried that a Trump 2024 election will revert the changes.

These two challenges to the effectiveness of the ESA are exacerbated by the existential threat of climate change which is exacerbating habitat loss, altering ecosystems, and increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. In Washington State where I am from, rising sea levels from climate change is heavily impacting Chinook Salmon populations. A lack of freshwater streams due to less glaciers inhibits the salmon from migrating from freshwater to the ocean. This essential cycle of life for salmons is detrimental to their population. [10] The increasing complexity of conserving at-risk species.

To adapt to these issues, ESA proponents need to focus on recreating the act as a staple of bipartisan support to protect our environment and species that are essential. The first way this can be done is by strategically leveraging iconic species like the grizzly bear and the bald eagle, which hold significant cultural and symbolic value in America, to garner bipartisan support. By convincing the public that the EPA is necessary for the survival of countless species such as the bald eagle more people will be inclined to show active rather than passive support. EPA proponents can also emphasize the economic benefits associated with protecting these iconic species, such as increased tourism revenue from wildlife viewing and ecotourism, can appeal to fiscal conservatives. [11]

The second way this can be done is through communicating the importance of saving critical species by emphasizing their indispensable role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, which contribute to people’s well-being. Advocates can show how the loss of even one species can trigger cascading effects, destabilizing entire ecosystems, and jeopardizing vital ecosystem services upon which humans rely. For instance, bees and other pollinators play a crucial role in the reproduction of many plants, including those that provide us with food. It is estimated that three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. [12] The EPA plays a critical role in preserving the species that hold importance to human health and sustenance.

The Endangered Species Act has been a critical tool in preserving biodiversity and preventing extinctions, but its effectiveness is increasingly challenged by lack of funding and support. To ensure the Act’s continued relevance and success, we must gain bipartisan support from lawmakers and citizens alike. By taking proactive measures to address these challenges, we can chart a sustainable path forward for the ESA and protect endangered species for years to come.

[1] “Celebrating 50 Years of Endangered Species Act Success.” Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Biological Diversity, 3 Feb. 2023, biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/celebrating-50-years-of-endangered-species-act-success-2023-02-02/.

[2] “Species under Siege: Why the Endangered Species Act Is in Congressional Crosshairs.” Defenders of Wildlife, defenders.org/blog/2023/03/species-under-siege-why-endangered-species-act-congressional-crosshairs. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

[3] Press, The Associated. “Biden Administration Restores Threatened Species Protections Dropped by Trump.” NPR, NPR, 28 Mar. 2024, www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1241467876/threatened-species-protections-restored .

[4] “Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus Leucocephalus): U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.” FWS.Gov, www.fws.gov/species/bald-eagle-haliaeetus-leucocephalus. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

[5] “Conservation Comeback: The American Alligator.” Wild Hope, 10 Jan. 2024, www.wildhope.tv/article/the-americanalligator/#:~:text=The%20tide%20finally%20began%20to,in%20the%20southeastern%20United%20States

[6] F., Cynthia, and Hodges. “Full Title Name:  Brief Summary of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).” Animal Law Legal Center, 1 Jan. 1970, www.animallaw.info/article/brief-summary-endangered-species-act#:~:text=With%20certain%20exceptions%2C%20the%20ESA,destruction%20of%20their%20critical%20habitat .

[7] Rice, Bonnie. “Celebrating the Endangered Species Act on Capitol Hill.” Sierra Club, www.sierraclub.org/articles/2023/09/celebrating-endangered-species-act-capitol-hill#:~:text=However%2C%20despite%20its%2099%25%20success,amendments%20in%20major%20congressional%20bills. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

[8] Brown, Matthew. “Biden Administration Restores Threatened Species Protections Dropped by Trump.” AP News, AP News, 28 Mar. 2024, apnews.com/article/biden-threatened-species-protections-9f5a2c12e51a857ae32b85997b54dcc7.

[9] Lambert, Jonathan. “Trump Administration Weakens Endangered Species Act.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 12 Aug. 2019, www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02439-1#:~:text=President%20Donald%20Trump’s%20administration%20is,whether%20to%20protect%20a%20species .

[10] Mapes, Lynda V., et al. “Endangered Species Act Turns 50: What 6 NW Animals Can Tell Us.” The Seattle Times, The Seattle Times Company, 4 Jan. 2024, www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/endangered-species-acts-50th-anniversary-what-6-nw-animals-can-tell-us/ .

[11] Worland, Justin. “Endangered Species Act Has Economic Benefits – and Costs.” Time, Time, 25 July 2018, time.com/5347260/endangered-species-act-reform/.

[12] “The Importance of Pollinators.” USDA, www.usda.gov/peoples-garden/pollinators. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

2 thoughts on “ Preserving Life: The Endangered Species Act’s Journey and Future ”

The Endangered Species Act is the cornerstone for protecting endangered animals and habitats in the United States. As Brady states in his blog, the ESA is often changed by the current presidential administration in office. As we approach the next election it is important to remember the power that comes with electing a president or any official to office. In my own research, I uncovered a few ways that I can personally promote the preservation of the ESA. One example would be to learn more about the ESA and specific species in my local area and how I can help them recover. It is also important to voice support for the ESA in local and state governments. Templates can be found online for emails addressed to members of Congress, urging them to preserve the ESA. Influence can be used locally too, by writing letters to local newspapers discussing the importance of the ESA or by attending local meetings for city organizations or governments to voice the importance of preserving endangered species. As always, awareness of political candidates’ positions on the ESA is crucial when voting. Through conscious efforts, we can all show support for the ESA and the protection of endangered and threatened species.

Hey! I like how your discussion emphasizes a multi-faceted approach to garner bipartisan support and public backing for the ESA. Many of these animals hold cultural significance and can inspire national pride and can be used to broaden public interest in biodiversity conservation. Furthermore, I do believe the economic benefits of protecting endangered species—such as increased tourism revenue and ecotourism. Emphasizing the interconnectedness of ecosystems can highlight the broader consequences of losing even a single species in the food chain that can destabilize entire ecosystems and even our way of life. I hope ESA proponents can foster support that transcends political divides, ensuring the preservation America’s natural heritage and beautiful environments.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Biodiversity: What is it and how can we protect it?

Facebook Twitter Print Email

The UN and its global partners will grapple with the massive loss of animal and plant species and how to avoid further extinction at a major conference beginning 23 January. Here’s a primer on what exactly biodiversity is and how the UN can help support efforts to enable nature to survive and thrive.

What does 'biodiversity' mean and why is it important?

In simple terms, biodiversity refers to all types of life on Earth. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity ( CBD ) describes it as “the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems, including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi”. These three levels work together to create life on Earth, in all its complexity.

The diversity of species keep the global ecosystem in balance, providing everything in nature that we, as humans, need to survive, including food, clean water, medicine and shelter.  Over  half of global GDP  is strongly dependent on nature. More than one billion people  rely on forests  for their livelihoods.

Biodiversity is also our strongest natural defence against  climate change . Land and ocean ecosystems act as “carbon sinks”, absorbing more than half of all carbon emissions.

Why are we talking about it now?

Because the first big push of the year to put the UN’s bold plan to protect biodiversity into practice  takes place in the Swiss capital, Bern , between 23 and 25 January. 

Introducing the conference, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Director of the United Nations Environment Programme ( UNEP ) Law Division,  warned that the lack of coordination between the various organizations trying to protect biodiversity is a “critical challenge” that needs to be urgently overcome “as we strive for a world living in harmony with nature by 2050”. A key aim of the conference will be to solve that problem by pulling together the various initiatives taking place across the world.

Is there a crisis?

Yes. It’s very serious, and it needs to be urgently tackled. 

Starting with the natural and land sea carbon sinks mentioned above. They are being degraded, with examples including the deforestation of the Amazon and the disappearance of salt marshes and mangrove swamps, which remove large amounts of carbon. The way we use the land and sea is one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss. Since 1990, around 420 million hectares of forest have been lost through conversion to other land uses. Agricultural expansion continues to be the main driver of deforestation, forest degradation and forest biodiversity loss.

Other major drivers of species decline include overfishing and the introduction of invasive alien species (species that have entered and established themselves in the environment outside their natural habitat, causing the decline or even extinction of native species and negatively affecting ecosystems).

These activities, UNEP has shown , are pushing around a million species of plants and animals towards extinction. They range from the critically endangered South China tiger and Indonesian orangutans to supposedly “ common” animals and plants, such as giraffes and parrots as well as oak trees, cacti and seaweed.  This is the largest loss of life since the dinosaurs.  

Combined with skyrocketing levels of pollution, the degradation of the natural habitat and biodiversity loss are having serious impacts on communities around the world. As global temperatures rise, once fertile grasslands turn to desert, and in the ocean, there are hundreds of so-called “dead zones”, where scarcely any aquatic life remains.

The loss of biodiversity affects the way an ecosystem functions, leading to species being less able to respond to changes in the environment and making them increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters. If an ecosystem has a wide diversity of organisms, it is likely that they will not all be affected in the same way. For instance, if one species is killed off then a similar species can take its place. 

What is the Biodiversity Plan?

The Plan, officially called the Kunming-Montreal  Global Biodiversity Framework , is a UN-driven landmark agreement adopted by 196 countries to guide global action on nature through to 2030, which was hashed out at meetings in Kunming, China and Montreal, Canada, in 2022.

The aim is to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems and protect indigenous rights. Indigenous peoples  suffer disproportionately from loss of biological diversity and environmental degradation. Their lives, survival, development chances, knowledge, environment and health conditions are threatened by environmental degradation, large scale industrial activities, toxic waste, conflicts and forced migration as well as by land-use and land-cover changes such as deforestation for agriculture and extractives.

There are concrete measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 per cent of the planet and 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030. Currently 17 per cent of land and around eight per cent of marine areas are protected. The plan also contains proposals to increase financing to developing countries – a major sticking point during talks – and indigenous peoples.

Countries have to come up with national biodiversity strategies and action plans as well as set or revise national targets to match the ambition of global goals.

What else will the UN do to protect biodiversity this year?

Next month the UN Environment Assembly ( UNEA ), otherwise known as the   “World’s Environment Parliament” will meet at the UN office in Nairobi . The event   brings together governments, civil society groups, the scientific community and the private sector to highlight the most pressing issues and improve global governance of the environment. UNEA 2024 will focus on climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

However, the main event will be the  UN Biodiversity Conference , which will take place in Colombia in October. Delegates will discuss how to restore lands and seas in a way that protects the planet and respects the rights of local communities.

• biodiversity

It’s not too late to save them: 5 ways to improve the government’s plan to protect threatened wildlife

Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

DECRA Research Fellow, University of Sydney

Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University

Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSW Sydney

ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Sydney

Disclosure statement

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Federal Government’s Bushfire Recovery Program, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, WWF and Parks Victoria. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) and member of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.

Ayesha Tulloch receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government's Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. She is the Vice President of Public Policy and Outreach and co-convenes the Science Communication Chapter for the Ecological Society of Australia, and sits on Birdlife Australia's Research and Conservation Committee. She is a member of eBird Australia, the Society for conservation Biology and the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre Citizen Science Node.

Don Driscoll receives funding from the Herman Slade Foundation, OEH NSW Environmental Grants program, DELWP Vic, National Geographic, Rufford Foundation, WWF and Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, Australian Government Bushfire Recovery program. He is Director of the Centre of Integrative Ecology and Director of the TechnEcology Research Network at Deakin University. Don is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and Society for Conservation Biology.

Megan C Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council as part of a Discovery Early Career Research Award. Previously she has been funded by the National Environmental Science Program's Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

Tim Doherty is Chair of the Policy Committee for the Society for Conservation Biology Oceania and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia. He receives funding from the Hermon Slade Foundation, Australian Academy of Science, Australian Research Council and NSW Environmental Trust.

University of Sydney , Deakin University , and UNSW Sydney provide funding as members of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

Australia’s Threatened Species Strategy — a five-year plan for protecting our imperilled species and ecosystems — fizzled to an end last year. A new 10-year plan is being developed to take its place, likely from March.

It comes as Australia’s list of threatened species continues to grow. Relatively recent extinctions , such as the Christmas Island forest skink, Bramble Cay melomys and smooth handfish , add to an already heavy toll .

Now, more than ever, Australia’s remarkable species and environments need strong and effective policies to strengthen their protection and boost their recovery.

So as we settle into the new year, let’s reflect on what’s worked and what must urgently be improved upon, to turn around Australia’s extinction crisis.

Read more: Let there be no doubt: blame for our failing environment laws lies squarely at the feet of government

How effective was the first Threatened Species Strategy?

The Threatened Species Strategy is a key guiding document for biodiversity conservation at the national level. It identifies 70 priority species for conservation, made up of 20 birds, 20 mammals and 30 plants, such as the plains-wanderer, malleefowl, eastern quoll, greater bilby, black grevillea and Kakadu hibiscus.

These were considered among the most urgent in need of assistance of the more than 1,800 threatened species in Australia.

The strategy also identifies targets such as numbers of feral cats to be culled , and partnerships across industry, academia and government key to making the strategy successful.

The original strategy (2015-20) was eagerly welcomed for putting the national spotlight on threatened species conservation. It has certainly helped raise awareness of its priority species.

However, there’s little evidence the strategy has had a significant impact on threatened species conservation to date.

The midterm report in 2019 found only 35% of the priority species (14 in total) had improving trajectories compared to before the strategy (pre-2015). This number included six species — such as the brush-tailed rabbit-rat and western ringtail possum — that were still declining, but just at a slower rate.

On average, the trends of threatened mammal and bird populations across Australia are not increasing.

Other targets, such as killing two million feral cats by 2020, were not explicitly linked to measurable conservation outcomes, such as an increase in populations of threatened native animals. Because of this, it’s difficult to judge their success.

Read more: Feral cat cull: why the 2 million target is on scientifically shaky ground

What needs to change?

The previous strategy focused very heavily on feral cats as a threat and less so on other important and potentially compounding threats , particularly habitat destruction and degradation.

For instance, land clearing has contributed to a similar number of extinctions in Australia (62 species) as introduced animals such as feral cats (64).

In fact, 2018 research found agricultural activities affect at least 73% of invertebrates, 82% of birds, 69% of amphibians and 73% of mammals listed as threatened in Australia. Urban development and climate change threaten up to 33% and 56% of threatened species, respectively.

Read more: The buffel kerfuffle: how one species quietly destroys native wildlife and cultural sites in arid Australia

Other important threats to native Australian species include pollution, feral herbivores (such as horses and goats), very frequent or hot bushfires and weeds. Buffel grass was recently identified as a major emerging threat to Australia’s biodiversity, with the risk being as high as the threat posed by cats and foxes.

Five vital improvements

We made a submission to the Morrison government when the Threatened Species Strategy was under review. Below, we detail our key recommendations.

1. A holistic and evidence-based approach encompassing the full range of threats

This includes reducing rates of land clearing — a major and ongoing issue, but largely overlooked in the previous strategy.

2. Formal prioritisation of focal species, threats and actions

The previous strategy focused heavily on a small subset of the more than 1,800 threatened species and ecosystems in Australia. It mostly disregarded frog, reptile, fish and invertebrate species also threatened with extinction.

To reduce bias towards primarily “charismatic” species, the federal government should use an evidence-based prioritisation approach, known as “decision science”, like they do in New South Wales , New Zealand and Canada . This would ensure funds are spent on the most feasible and beneficial recovery efforts.

3. Targets linked to clear and measurable conservation outcomes

Some targets in the first Threatened Species Strategy were difficult to measure, not explicitly linked to conservation outcomes, or weak. Targets need to be more specific.

For example, a target to “improve the trajectory” of threatened species could be achieved if extinction is occurring at a slightly slower rate. Alternatively, a target to “improve the conservation status” of a species is achieved if new assessments rate it as “vulnerable” rather than “endangered”.

4. Significant financial investment from government

Investing in conservation reduces biodiversity loss . A 2019 study found Australia’s listed threatened species could be recovered for about A$1.7 billion per year . This money could be raised by removing harmful subsidies that directly threaten biodiversity , such as those to industries emitting large volumes of greenhouse gases.

The first strategy featured a call for co-investment from industry . But this failed to attract much private sector interest, meaning many important projects aimed at conserving species did not proceed.

5. Government leadership, coordination and policy alignment

The Threatened Species Strategy should be aligned with Australia’s international obligations such as the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (which is also currently being reviewed ). This will help foster a more coherent and efficient national approach to threatened species conservation.

There are also incredible opportunities to better align threatened species conservation with policies and investment in climate change mitigation and sustainable agriculture .

The benefits of investing heavily in wildlife reach beyond preventing extinctions. It would generate many jobs, including in regional and Indigenous communities .

Protecting our natural heritage is an investment, not a cost. Now is the time to seize this opportunity.

Read more: Scientists re-counted Australia's extinct species, and the result is devastating

• Agriculture
• Conservation
• Endangered species
• Wildlife conservation
• Habitat destruction

Head of School, School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Clinical Teaching Fellow

Data Manager

Director, Social Policy

November 1, 2023

20 min read

Can We Save Every Species from Extinction?

The Endangered Species Act requires that every U.S. plant and animal be saved from extinction, but after 50 years, we have to do much more to prevent a biodiversity crisis

By Robert Kunzig

Snail Darter Percina tanasi. Listed as Endangered: 1975. Status: Delisted in 2022.

© Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark

A Bald Eagle disappeared into the trees on the far bank of the Tennessee River just as the two researchers at the bow of our modest motorboat began hauling in the trawl net. Eagles have rebounded so well that it's unusual not to see one here these days, Warren Stiles of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told me as the net got closer. On an almost cloudless spring morning in the 50th year of the Endangered Species Act, only a third of a mile downstream from the Tennessee Valley Authority's big Nickajack Dam, we were searching for one of the ESA's more notorious beneficiaries: the Snail Darter. A few months earlier Stiles and the FWS had decided that, like the Bald Eagle, the little fish no longer belonged on the ESA's endangered species list. We were hoping to catch the first nonendangered specimen.

Dave Matthews, a TVA biologist, helped Stiles empty the trawl. Bits of wood and rock spilled onto the deck, along with a Common Logperch maybe six inches long. So did an even smaller fish; a hair over two inches, it had alternating vertical bands of dark and light brown, each flecked with the other color, a pattern that would have made it hard to see against the gravelly river bottom. It was a Snail Darter in its second year, Matthews said, not yet full-grown.

Everybody loves a Bald Eagle. There is much less consensus about the Snail Darter. Yet it epitomizes the main controversy still swirling around the ESA, signed into law on December 28, 1973, by President Richard Nixon: Can we save all the obscure species of this world, and should we even try, if they get in the way of human imperatives? The TVA didn't think so in the 1970s, when the plight of the Snail Darter—an early entry on the endangered species list—temporarily stopped the agency from completing a huge dam. When the U.S. attorney general argued the TVA's case before the Supreme Court with the aim of sidestepping the law, he waved a jar that held a dead, preserved Snail Darter in front of the nine judges in black robes, seeking to convey its insignificance.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Now I was looking at a living specimen. It darted around the bottom of a white bucket, bonking its nose against the side and delicately fluttering the translucent fins that swept back toward its tail.

“It's kind of cute,” I said.

Matthews laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. “I like this guy!” he said. “Most people are like, ‘Really? That's it?’ ” He took a picture of the fish and clipped a sliver off its tail fin for DNA analysis but left it otherwise unharmed. Then he had me pour it back into the river. The next trawl, a few miles downstream, brought up seven more specimens.

In the late 1970s the Snail Darter seemed confined to a single stretch of a single tributary of the Tennessee River, the Little Tennessee, and to be doomed by the TVA's ill-considered Tellico Dam, which was being built on the tributary. The first step on its twisting path to recovery came in 1978, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, surprisingly, that the ESA gave the darter priority even over an almost finished dam. “It was when the government stood up and said, ‘Every species matters, and we meant it when we said we're going to protect every species under the Endangered Species Act,’” says Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Listed as Endangered: 1967. Status: Delisted in 2007. Credit: © Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark

Today the Snail Darter can be found along 400 miles of the river's main stem and multiple tributaries. ESA enforcement has saved dozens of other species from extinction. Bald Eagles, American Alligators and Peregrine Falcons are just a few of the roughly 60 species that had recovered enough to be “delisted” by late 2023.

And yet the U.S., like the planet as a whole, faces a growing biodiversity crisis. Less than 6 percent of the animals and plants ever placed on the list have been delisted; many of the rest have made scant progress toward recovery. What's more, the list is far from complete: roughly a third of all vertebrates and vascular plants in the U.S. are vulnerable to extinction, says Bruce Stein, chief scientist at the National Wildlife Federation. Populations are falling even for species that aren't yet in danger. “There are a third fewer birds flying around now than in the 1970s,” Stein says. We're much less likely to see a White-throated Sparrow or a Red-winged Blackbird, for example, even though neither species is yet endangered.

The U.S. is far emptier of wildlife sights and sounds than it was 50 years ago, primarily because habitat—forests, grasslands, rivers—has been relentlessly appropriated for human purposes. The ESA was never designed to stop that trend, any more than it is equipped to deal with the next massive threat to wildlife: climate change. Nevertheless, its many proponents say, it is a powerful, foresightful law that we could implement more wisely and effectively, perhaps especially to foster stewardship among private landowners. And modest new measures, such as the Recovering America's Wildlife Act—a bill with bipartisan support—could further protect flora and fauna.

That is, if special interests don't flout the law. After the 1978 Supreme Court decision, Congress passed a special exemption to the ESA allowing the TVA to complete the Tellico Dam. The Snail Darter managed to survive because the TVA transplanted some of the fish from the Little Tennessee, because remnant populations turned up elsewhere in the Tennessee Valley, and because local rivers and streams slowly became less polluted following the 1972 Clean Water Act, which helped fish rebound.

Under pressure from people enforcing the ESA, the TVA also changed the way it managed its dams throughout the valley. It started aerating the depths of its reservoirs, in some places by injecting oxygen. It began releasing water from the dams more regularly to maintain a minimum flow that sweeps silt off the river bottom, exposing the clean gravel that Snail Darters need to lay their eggs and feed on snails. The river system “is acting more like a real river,” Matthews says. Basically, the TVA started considering the needs of wildlife, which is really what the ESA requires. “The Endangered Species Act works,” Matthews says. “With just a little bit of help, [wildlife] can recover.”

The trouble is that many animals and plants aren't getting that help—because government resources are too limited, because private landowners are alienated by the ESA instead of engaged with it, and because as a nation the U.S. has never fully committed to the ESA's essence. Instead, for half a century, the law has been one more thing that polarizes people's thinking.

I t may seem impossible today to imagine the political consensus that prevailed on environmental matters in 1973. The U.S. Senate approved the ESA unanimously, and the House passed it by a vote of 390 to 12. “Some people have referred to it as almost a statement of religion coming out of the Congress,” says Gary Frazer, who as assistant director for ecological services at the FWS has been overseeing the act's implementation for nearly 25 years.

Gopher Tortoise Gopherus polyphemus . Listed as Threatened: 1987. Status: Still threatened. Credit: ©Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark

But loss of faith began five years later with the Snail Darter case. Congresspeople who had been thinking of eagles, bears and Whooping Cranes when they passed the ESA, and had not fully appreciated the reach of the sweeping language they had approved, were disabused by the Supreme Court. It found that the legislation had created, “wisely or not ... an absolute duty to preserve all endangered species,” Chief Justice Warren E. Burger said after the Snail Darter case concluded. Even a recently discovered tiny fish had to be saved, “whatever the cost,” he wrote in the decision.

Was that wise? For both environmentalists such as Curry and many nonenvironmentalists, the answer has always been absolutely. The ESA “is the basic Bill of Rights for species other than ourselves,” says National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, who is building a “photo ark” of every animal visible to the naked eye as a record against extinction. (He has taken studio portraits of 15,000 species so far.) But to critics, the Snail Darter decision always defied common sense. They thought it was “crazy,” says Michael Bean, a leading ESA expert, now retired from the Environmental Defense Fund. “That dichotomy of view has remained with us for the past 45 years.”

According to veteran Washington, D.C., environmental attorney Lowell E. Baier, author of a new history called The Codex of the Endangered Species Act, both the act itself and its early implementation reflected a top-down, federal “command-and-control mentality” that still breeds resentment. FWS field agents in the early days often saw themselves as combat biologists enforcing the act's prohibitions. After the Northern Spotted Owl's listing got tangled up in a bitter 1990s conflict over logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, the FWS became more flexible in working out arrangements. “But the dark mythology of the first 20 years continues in the minds of much of America,” Baier says.

Credit: June Minju Kim ( map ); Source: David Matthews, Tennessee Valley Authority ( reference )

The law can impose real burdens on landowners. Before doing anything that might “harass” or “harm” an endangered species, including modifying its habitat, they need to get a permit from the FWS and present a “habitat conservation plan.” Prosecutions aren't common, because evidence can be elusive, but what Bean calls “the cloud of uncertainty” surrounding what landowners can and cannot do can be distressing.

Requirements the ESA places on federal agencies such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management—or on the TVA—can have large economic impacts. Section 7 of the act prohibits agencies from taking, permitting or funding any action that is likely to “jeopardize the continued existence” of a listed species. If jeopardy seems possible, the agency must consult with the FWS first (or the National Marine Fisheries Service for marine species) and seek alternative plans.

“When people talk about how the ESA stops projects, they've been talking about section 7,” says conservation biologist Jacob Malcom. The Northern Spotted Owl is a strong example: an economic analysis suggests the logging restrictions eliminated thousands of timber-industry jobs, fueling conservative arguments that the ESA harms humans and economic growth.

In recent decades, however, that view has been based “on anecdote, not evidence,” Malcom claims. At Defenders of Wildlife, where he worked until 2022 (he's now at the U.S. Department of the Interior), he and his colleagues analyzed 88,290 consultations between the FWS and other agencies from 2008 to 2015. “Zero projects were stopped,” Malcom says. His group also found that federal agencies were only rarely taking the active measures to recover a species that section 7 requires—like what the TVA did for the Snail Darter. For many listed species, the FWS does not even have recovery plans.

Endangered species also might not recover because “most species are not receiving protection until they have reached dangerously low population sizes,” according to a 2022 study by Erich K. Eberhard of Columbia University and his colleagues. Most listings occur only after the FWS has been petitioned or sued by an environmental group—often the Center for Biological Diversity, which claims credit for 742 listings. Years may go by between petition and listing, during which time the species' population dwindles. Noah Greenwald, the center's endangered species director, thinks the FWS avoids listings to avoid controversy—that it has internalized opposition to the ESA.

He and other experts also say that work regarding endangered species is drastically underfunded. As more species are listed, the funding per species declines. “Congress hasn't come to grips with the biodiversity crisis,” says Baier, who lobbies lawmakers regularly. “When you talk to them about biodiversity, their eyes glaze over.” Just this year federal lawmakers enacted a special provision exempting the Mountain Valley Pipeline from the ESA and other challenges, much as Congress had exempted the Tellico Dam. Environmentalists say the gas pipeline, running from West Virginia to Virginia, threatens the Candy Darter, a colorful small fish. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provided a rare bit of good news: it granted the FWS $62.5 million to hire more biologists to prepare recovery plans.

The ESA is often likened to an emergency room for species: overcrowded and understaffed, it has somehow managed to keep patients alive, but it doesn't do much more. The law contains no mandate to restore ecosystems to health even though it recognizes such work as essential for thriving wildlife. “Its goal is to make things better, but its tools are designed to keep things from getting worse,” Bean says. Its ability to do even that will be severely tested in coming decades by threats it was never designed to confront.

T he ESA requires a species to be listed as “threatened” if it might be in danger of extinction in the “foreseeable future.” The foreseeable future will be warmer. Rising average temperatures are a problem, but higher heat extremes are a bigger threat, according to a 2020 study.

Scientists have named climate change as the main cause of only a few extinctions worldwide. But experts expect that number to surge. Climate change has been “a factor in almost every species we've listed in at least the past 15 years,” Frazer says. Yet scientists struggle to forecast whether individual species can “persist in place or shift in space”—as Stein and his co-authors put it in a recent paper—or will be unable to adapt at all and will go extinct. On June 30 the FWS issued a new rule that will make it easier to move species outside their historical range—a practice it once forbade except in extreme circumstances.

Credit: June Minju Kim ( graphic ); Brown Bird Design ( illustrations ); Sources: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Environmental Conservation Online System; U.S. Federal Endangered and Threatened Species by Calendar Year https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/species-listings-by-year-totals ( annual data through 2022 ); Listed Species Summary (Boxscore) https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/boxscore ( cumulative data up to September 18, 2023, and annual data for coral ); Delisted Species https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/species-delisted ( delisted data through 2022 )

Eventually, though, “climate change is going to swamp the ESA,” says J. B. Ruhl, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, who has been writing about the problem for decades. “As more and more species are threatened, I don't know what the agency does with that.” To offer a practical answer, in a 2008 paper he urged the FWS to aggressively identify the species most at risk and not waste resources on ones that seem sure to expire.

Yet when I asked Frazer which urgent issues were commanding his attention right now, his first thought wasn't climate; it was renewable energy. “Renewable energy is going to leave a big footprint on the planet and on our country,” he says, some of it threatening plants and animals if not implemented well. “The Inflation Reduction Act is going to lead to an explosion of more wind and solar across the landscape.

Long before President Joe Biden signed that landmark law, conflicts were proliferating: Desert Tortoise versus solar farms in the Mojave Desert, Golden Eagles versus wind farms in Wyoming, Tiehm's Buckwheat (a little desert flower) versus lithium mining in Nevada. The mine case is a close parallel to that of Snail Darters versus the Tellico Dam. The flower, listed as endangered just last year, grows on only a few acres of mountainside in western Nevada, right where a mining company wants to extract lithium. The Center for Biological Diversity has led the fight to save it. Elsewhere in Nevada people have used the ESA to stop, for the moment, a proposed geothermal plant that might threaten the two-inch Dixie Valley Toad, discovered in 2017 and also declared endangered last year.

Does an absolute duty to preserve all endangered species make sense in such places? In a recent essay entitled “A Time for Triage,” Columbia law professor Michael Gerrard argues that “the environmental community has trade-off denial. We don't recognize that it's too late to preserve everything we consider precious.” In his view, given the urgency of building the infrastructure to fight climate change, we need to be willing to let a species go after we've done our best to save it. Environmental lawyers adept at challenging fossil-fuel projects, using the ESA and other statutes, should consider holding their fire against renewable installations. “Just because you have bullets doesn't mean you shoot them in every direction,” Gerrard says. “You pick your targets.” In the long run, he and others argue, climate change poses a bigger threat to wildlife than wind turbines and solar farms do.

For now habitat loss remains the overwhelming threat. What's truly needed to preserve the U.S.'s wondrous biodiversity, both Stein and Ruhl say, is a national network of conserved ecosystems. That won't be built with our present politics. But two more practical initiatives might help.

The first is the Recovering America's Wildlife Act, which narrowly missed passage in 2022 and has been reintroduced this year. It builds on the success of the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act, which funds state wildlife agencies through a federal excise tax on guns and ammunition. That law was adopted to address a decline in game species that had hunters alarmed. The state refuges and other programs it funded are why deer, ducks and Wild Turkeys are no longer scarce.

The recovery act would provide $1.3 billion a year to states and nearly $100 million to Native American tribes to conserve nongame species. It has bipartisan support, in part, Stein says, because it would help arrest the decline of a species before the ESA's “regulatory hammer” falls. Although it would be a large boost to state wildlife budgets, the funding would be a rounding error in federal spending. But last year Congress couldn't agree on how to pay for the measure. Passage “would be a really big deal for nature,” Curry says.

Oyster Mussel. Epioblasma capsaeformis.  Listed as Endangered: 1997. Status: Still endangered. Credit: © Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark

The second initiative that could promote species conservation is already underway: bringing landowners into the fold. Most wildlife habitat east of the Rocky Mountains is on private land. That's also where habitat loss is happening fastest. Some experts say conservation isn't likely to succeed unless the FWS works more collaboratively with landowners, adding carrots to the ESA's regulatory stick. Bean has long promoted the idea, including when he worked at the Interior Department from 2009 to early 2017. The approach started, he says, with the Red-cockaded Woodpecker.

When the ESA was passed, there were fewer than 10,000 Red-cockaded Woodpeckers left of the millions that had once lived in the Southeast. Humans had cut down the old pine trees, chiefly Longleaf Pine, that the birds excavate cavities in for roosting and nesting. An appropriate tree has to be large, at least 60 to 80 years old, and there aren't many like that left. The longleaf forest, which once carpeted up to 90 million acres from Virginia to Texas, has been reduced to less than three million acres of fragments.

In the 1980s the ESA wasn't helping because it provided little incentive to preserve forest on private land. In fact, Bean says, it did the opposite: landowners would sometimes clear-cut potential woodpecker habitat just to avoid the law's constraints. The woodpecker population continued to drop until the 1990s. That's when Bean and his Environmental Defense Fund colleagues persuaded the FWS to adopt “safe-harbor agreements” as a simple solution. An agreement promised landowners that if they let pines grow older or took other woodpecker-friendly measures, they wouldn't be punished; they remained free to decide later to cut the forest back to the baseline condition it had been in when the agreement was signed.

That modest carrot was inducement enough to quiet the chainsaws in some places. “The downward trends have been reversed,” Bean says. “In places like South Carolina, where they have literally hundreds of thousands of acres of privately owned forest enrolled, Red-cockaded Woodpecker numbers have shot up dramatically.”

The woodpecker is still endangered. It still needs help. Because there aren't enough old pines, land managers are inserting lined, artificial cavities into younger trees and sometimes moving birds into them to expand the population. They are also using prescribed fires or power tools to keep the longleaf understory open and grassy, the way fires set by lightning or Indigenous people once kept it and the way the woodpeckers like it. Most of this work is taking place, and most Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are still living, on state or federal land such as military bases. But a lot more longleaf must be restored to get the birds delisted, which means collaborating with private landowners, who own 80 percent of the habitat.

Leo Miranda-Castro, who retired last December as director of the FWS's southeast region, says the collaborative approach took hold at regional headquarters in Atlanta in 2010. The Center for Biological Diversity had dropped a “mega petition” demanding that the FWS consider 404 new species for listing. The volume would have been “overwhelming,” Miranda-Castro says. “That's when we decided, ‘Hey, we cannot do this in the traditional way.’ The fear of listing so many species was a catalyst” to look for cases where conservation work might make a listing unnecessary.

An agreement affecting the Gopher Tortoise shows what is possible. Like the woodpeckers, it is adapted to open-canopied longleaf forests, where it basks in the sun, feeds on herbaceous plants and digs deep burrows in the sandy soil. The tortoise is a keystone species: more than 300 other animals, including snakes, foxes and skunks, shelter in its burrows. But its numbers have been declining for decades.

Urbanization is the main threat to the tortoises, but timberland can be managed in a way that leaves room for them. Eager to keep the species off the list, timber companies, which own 20 million acres in its range, agreed to figure out how to do that—above all by returning fire to the landscape and keeping the canopy open. One timber company, Resource Management Service, said it would restore Longleaf Pine on about 3,700 acres in the Florida panhandle, perhaps expanding to 200,000 acres eventually. It even offered to bring other endangered species onto its land, which delighted Miranda-Castro: “I had never heard about that happening before.” Last fall the FWS announced that the tortoise didn't need to be listed in most of its range.

Miranda-Castro now directs Conservation Without Conflict, an organization that seeks to foster conversation and negotiation in settings where the ESA has more often generated litigation. “For the first 50 years the stick has been used the most,” Miranda-Castro says. “For the next 50 years we're going to be using the carrots way more.” On his own farm outside Fort Moore, Ga., he grows Longleaf Pine—and Gopher Tortoises are benefiting.

Whooping Crane. Grus americana.  Listed as Endangered: 1967. Status: Still endangered. Credit: © Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark

The Center for Biological Diversity doubts that carrots alone will save the reptile. It points out that the FWS's own models show small subpopulations vanishing over the next few decades and the total population falling by nearly a third. In August 2023 it filed suit against the FWS, demanding the Gopher Tortoise be listed.

The FWS itself resorted to the stick this year when it listed the Lesser Prairie-Chicken, a bird whose grassland home in the Southern Plains has long been encroached on by agriculture and the energy industry. The Senate promptly voted to overturn that listing, but President Biden promised to veto that measure if it passes the House.

B ehind the debates over strategy lurks the vexing question: Can we save all species? The answer is no. Extinctions will keep happening. In 2021 the FWS proposed to delist 23 more species—not because they had recovered but because they hadn't been seen in decades and were presumed gone. There is a difference, though, between acknowledging the reality of extinction and deliberately deciding to let a species go. Some people are willing to do the latter; others are not. Bean thinks a person's view has a lot to do with how much they've been exposed to wildlife, especially as a child.

Zygmunt Plater, a professor emeritus at Boston College Law School, was the attorney in the 1978 Snail Darter case, fighting for hundreds of farmers whose land would be submerged by the Tellico Dam. At one point in the proceedings Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., asked him, “What purpose is served, if any, by these little darters? Are they used for food?” Plater thinks creatures such as the darter alert us to the threat our actions pose to them and to ourselves. They prompt us to consider alternatives.

The ESA aims to save species, but for that to happen, ecosystems have to be preserved. Protecting the Northern Spotted Owl has saved at least a small fraction of old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest. Concern about the Red-cockaded Woodpecker and the Gopher Tortoise is aiding the preservation of longleaf forests in the Southeast. The Snail Darter wasn't enough to stop the Tellico Dam, which drowned historic Cherokee sites and 300 farms, mostly for real estate development. But after the controversy, the presence of a couple of endangered mussels did help dissuade the TVA from completing yet another dam, on the Duck River in central Tennessee. That river is now recognized as one of the most biodiverse in North America.

The ESA forced states to take stock of the wildlife they harbored, says Jim Williams, who as a young biologist with the FWS was responsible for listing both the Snail Darter and mussels in the Duck River. Williams grew up in Alabama, where I live. “We didn't know what the hell we had,” he says. “People started looking around and found all sorts of new species.” Many were mussels and little fish. In a 2002 survey, Stein found that Alabama ranked fifth among U.S. states in species diversity. It also ranks second-highest for extinctions; of the 23 extinct species the FWS recently proposed for delisting, eight were mussels, and seven of those were found in Alabama.

One morning this past spring, at a cabin on the banks of Shoal Creek in northern Alabama, I attended a kind of jamboree of local freshwater biologists. At the center of the action, in the shade of a second-floor deck, sat Sartore. He had come to board more species onto his photo ark, and the biologists—most of them from the TVA—were only too glad to help, fanning out to collect critters to be decanted into Sartore's narrow, flood-lit aquarium. He sat hunched before it, a black cloth draped over his head and camera, snapping away like a fashion photographer, occasionally directing whoever was available to prod whatever animal was in the tank into a more artful pose.

As I watched, he photographed a striated darter that didn't yet have a name, a Yellow Bass, an Orangefin Shiner and a giant crayfish discovered in 2011 in the very creek we were at. Sartore's goal is to help people who never meet such creatures feel the weight of extinction—and to have a worthy remembrance of the animals if they do vanish from Earth.

With TVA biologist Todd Amacker, I walked down to the creek and sat on the bank. Amacker is a mussel specialist, following in Williams's footsteps. As his colleagues waded in the shoals with nets, he gave me a quick primer on mussel reproduction. Their peculiar antics made me care even more about their survival.

There are hundreds of freshwater mussel species, Amacker explained, and almost every one tricks a particular species of fish into raising its larvae. The Wavy-rayed Lampmussel, for example, extrudes part of its flesh in the shape of a minnow to lure black bass—and then squirts larvae into the bass's open mouth so they can latch on to its gills and fatten on its blood. Another mussel dangles its larvae at the end of a yard-long fishing line of mucus. The Duck River Darter Snapper—a member of a genus that has already lost most of its species to extinction—lures and then clamps its shell shut on the head of a hapless fish, inoculating it with larvae. “You can't make this up,” Amacker said. Each relationship has evolved over the ages in a particular place.

The small band of biologists who are trying to cultivate the endangered mussels in labs must figure out which fish a particular mussel needs. It's the type of tedious trial-and-error work conservation biologists call “heroic,” the kind that helped to save California Condors and Whooping Cranes. Except these mussels are eyeless, brainless, little brown creatures that few people have ever heard of.

For most mussels, conditions are better now than half a century ago, Amacker said. But some are so rare it's hard to imagine they can be saved. I asked Amacker whether it was worth the effort or whether we just need to accept that we must let some species go. The catch in his voice almost made me regret the question.

“I'm not going to tell you it's not worth the effort,” he said. “It's more that there's no hope for them.” He paused, then collected himself. “Who are we to be the ones responsible for letting a species die?” he went on. “They've been around so long. That's not my answer as a biologist; that's my answer as a human. Who are we to make it happen?”

Robert Kunzig is a freelance writer in Birmingham, Ala., and a former senior editor at National Geographic, Discover and Scientific American .

Protecting threatened and endangered species in a changing climate

Sydney Giuliano

Service scientists are truly superheroes, protecting our wild spaces and saving species from extinction. To make these daring rescues, they first need to know what they’re up against. 

While our heroes don’t have the power to see into the future, with the help of climate models, they’re protecting wildlife and plants like the whitebark pine from future harm.

The power of the ESA 

The Endangered Species Act is incredibly effective, saving 99% of listed species from extinction. It protects listed species from actions that may lead to their death or harm, including direct actions like poaching and indirect actions like destruction of the habitats these species call home. 

But what does it mean to make the list? 

Under the ESA, species may be listed as threatened or endangered. Endangered means a species is likely to completely disappear or go extinct in the near future. Threatened means a species is likely to become endangered in the near future.

So, as the planet warms, how do scientists project potential changes in the landscape and how species will respond? 

They use models that gather information from around the world on trends in greenhouse gas emissions, human population-growth and development, and more to determine a range of likely future conditions. 

Species-specific

Dotting mountainsides along ranges such as the Sierras and Rockies, majestic, crown-shaped whitebark pine trees grow 16 to 66 feet tall. Whitebark pine is a keystone or foundational species, meaning its existence is necessary to maintain the health of its environment and the species that live there. These evergreens stabilize soil, slow snow-melt, reduce flooding and provide food for many seed-eating animals. They typically thrive in cold, windy forests at high elevations and are known to live for 500 to 1,000 years. 

But in December 2022, the Service listed whitebark pine as a threatened species, in part because of how climate change climate change Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale. Learn more about climate change is expected to impact its habitat. 

For all ESA listings, Service scientists compile the best available information on the species’ characteristics, life history and habitat. Then they look at the current condition of the species, including its abundance, range and genetic variation. 

Current population health, genetic make-up and range all influence whether the species as a whole can withstand changes in its environment. More populations and a larger range allow for certain populations or areas to experience losses without the species as a whole disappearing. However, genetic variability that helps account for adaptive responses to changing conditions may be lost; the genetic difference between one tree and the next may be the reason why one tree survives stressors like disease and another does not. 

Service Endangered Species Biologist Dr. Brenna Forester explained, “Service biologists are continually learning and adapting to new information, so the best-available scientific information is used to inform ESA decisions."

When looking at listing whitebark pine, scientists first considered the tree’s reproductive cycle and decided they should model for 180 years, or three generations, rather than the 75-year standard for most climate-change modeling. By looking at generations rather than years, they can better understand how the species will respond to change over time. 

Model projections show scientists how whitebark pine habitat may change in those 180 years. Combined with the data on current status, this insight informs listing decisions.

Where does this information come from? 

Climate change is one of the greatest environmental stressors we face today. To better understand the challenges wildlife and plants will have to overcome, our scientists look at information gathered globally. 

The Service relies on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, created by the United Nations in 1988. The IPCC provides governments with information on what is causing climate change, how this change will impact our planet, the future risks associated with this change, and how these risks can be reduced. They gather the best available science from around the world, and regional experts from different global regions review the information to make sure it’s objective and complete. 

Scientists plug this climate data into models that simulate climate processes, using current trends to make projections about future changes. 

For example, scientists know the world’s oceans are warming by 0.27°F per decade because they have been measuring ocean temperatures for more than a century. A climate model can use that information to project ocean temperatures 50 or 100 years from now. 

These models can also help us account for uncertainties that might change projected outcomes, like how quickly and effectively the world reduces global greenhouse gas emissions and how the climate system responds to those reductions. These climate scenarios help us compare how climate conditions may change depending on things like population growth, economic growth and changes in technology. 

Global models can be downscaled to look at unique locations with specific features — like the Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than the rest of the world’s oceans — to understand how landscape features, like hills and river valleys, change local climate patterns.

“Models can be simple or complex depending on how much information we have,” Dr. Forester said. “In either case, they are critical to ensuring a clear, transparent, and repeatable approach to assessing extinction risk.”

A lifetime of needs

When evaluating a species for listing, we identify its needs for all life stages. Whitebark pine seeds need cold weather to start to grow, but mature trees need two summers of warmer temperatures and enough rain to mature. From there, scientists dive deeper into the habitat and resources a species relies on to better understand how potential changes at a location may have a domino effect on the species in question. 

Whitebark pine has multiple stressors that could influence its survival, including diseases such as white pine blister rust, which damages stems and cone-bearing branches and restricts nutrient flow until the tree eventually dies. Models project that within 10 to 20 years all whitebark pine trees will be infected with white pine blister rust.

Additionally, mountain pine beetles have been attacking these trees in record numbers — the trees’ only defense is low winter temperatures that can kill beetle larvae and adults. At their high elevation, whitebark pines used to be protected. But as winters shorten and temperatures rise, mountain pine beetles are now thriving at higher and higher elevations. The safe areas for whitebark pines are shrinking.

Fortunately for the trees, Clark’s nutcrackers might swoop in and save them. These crow-like birds have specialized beaks to extract seeds from whitebark pinecones. The nutcrackers carry the seeds for miles before storing them — effectively planting them in the ground. 

But the relationship between the birds and the trees is not equal. Clark’s nutcrackers can also extract seeds from other pine species. With food available elsewhere, it’s highly likely that, as temperatures increase, Clark’s nutcrackers will move to cooler areas, leaving whitebark pine trees behind with no way to migrate. 

How accurate are these models? 

Humans are uniquely able to change the world at both local and global scales. Our actions as individuals and as a species are unpredictable. This is why we model scenarios that consider a range of potential human choices. 

Because humans can change on a whim, we can only lay out probable scenarios; we can’t determine which are more likely to happen. 

However, we do have confidence that the scenarios we currently use accurately project future conditions up to the year 2100 for most climate change information. How, might you ask?

When people think about climate change, they often consider it a future problem, yet right now we are experiencing the results of a changing climate, including an increase in extreme weather events, sea-level rise, droughts and wildfires.

Climate models have produced accurate hindcasts of climate change in the last century. In a hindcast, a model is tested by comparing its results to see if they match actual historical records. The success of these tests gives us confidence that the models will continue to accurately project the effects of climate change. 

Climate and conservation 

Climate models help us determine not only which species need immediate protection but also what actions are necessary to protect them. Modeling helps scientists weigh restoration projects based on their likelihood of success. The models combine all the existing knowledge to determine what locations and actions will lead to the best results.

For whitebark pines, it’s not as simple as helping those populations under the most stress. In an area with trees infected with white pine blister rust, for example, newly planted seedlings would likely die off quickly. A population with fewer stressors, on the other hand, may benefit from planting trees. 

Meanwhile, that same disease-stressed population could contain individual trees with a genetic advantage for surviving the rust. Rather than planting more trees, we could do more for that population and the species by conducting genetic studies to look for and propagate rust-resistant trees. 

Looking ahead

In 2023, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act. As a scientific community, the Service and its partners have come a long way from the decision-making of the past. 

“I have hope because of the 50 years of conservation successes under the ESA,” Dr. Forester said. “The ESA is one of the most powerful and effective environmental laws in the world. One of the major reasons it has been so successful is the incredibly talented and dedicated scientists and policy experts who work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We all work together to continually innovate and improve how we apply science and policy to protect species from extinction — something which is needed now more than ever.”

Advances in technology like climate modeling help these dedicated individuals break down the extremely complex questions of which species need protection and how we can best protect them.

Though we can’t see into the future, it is clear, with the continued advancement of technology and the commitment of our super scientists across the country, the next 50 years of the Endangered Species Act will be full of success stories and, most importantly, hope. 

Other Story Credits

Related stories.

Latest Stories

You are exiting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website

You are being directed to

We do not guarantee that the websites we link to comply with Section 508 (Accessibility Requirements) of the Rehabilitation Act. Links also do not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Why protect species

• Interactive map

The alarm has been raised repeatedly about the decline in biodiversity across the planet.

By allowing this decline to continue, we erode the very foundations of our traditions, economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and even the existence of life worldwide.

Why Are Species Important?

The millions of species on land, in freshwater and in the ocean have evolved over millennia and form the web of life that sustains the planet. Species and their populations are the building blocks of ecosystems, individually and collectively securing the conditions for life. They provide food, medicine and raw materials. They are the basis of soil formation, decomposition, water filtration and flow, pollination, pest control and climate regulation. They are the primary source of income and resources for hundreds of millions of people around the globe.

Species are an essential part of the history, culture, tradition and folklore of every culture on Earth and their aesthetic values and spiritual roles provide comfort and inspiration as well as recreation.

The Species Emergency

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ reveals that a quarter of all species face high risk of extinction. Human activity has severely altered more than 75% of the Earth’s land and freshwater areas, and 66% of the oceans. Climate change and political instability are exacerbating this crisis at all levels.

Species loss at current rates will eliminate the vital ecological, economic and cultural roles that they fulfil. The crisis goes beyond species loss; human pressures mean that a vast array of species are experiencing dramatic population declines (often irreversible) to a level that affects their future and our resource base. It is beyond question that the current way of life is unsustainable and transformational change is vital.

The world’s people must accept responsibility for this emergency and act now to ensure we pass on a rich natural heritage to future generations.

The key threats that are driving population declines and extinctions include :

Habitat loss & degradation

Climate change

Invasive alien species

Human-wildlife conflict

Disruption of water flow

Over-exploitation of natural resources & prey depletion

Reduced genetic diversity

• Over the last few years, we have seen how the world has changed: from youth to business , the global community has now recognised the irreplaceable and vital role of biodiversity and its intrinsic link to the climate change crisis we are facing.
• Biodiversity is affected by climate change, with negative consequences for human health, but biodiversity , through the ecosystem services it supports, also makes an important contribution to both climate-change mitigation and adaptation: conserving and sustainably managing biodiversity is critical to addressing climate change (Secretariat on Convention on Biological Diversity, 2019).
• We cannot overcome climate change without the help of ecosystems: they provide up to 35% of the solutions that can help keep global warming below 2°C (Griscom et all, 2017).
• Yet, the current global response if insufficient: more than 1,000,000 species are threatened with extinction (IPBES, 2019).
• The current rate of species extinction has no precedent since the dinosaurs’ extinction 66 million years ago.

Make a difference

Help us bring threatened species back from the brink of extinction. Make a difference by donating today .

How to Help Endangered Species: 16 Ways to Protect Vulnerable Species Anyone Can Do!

A catastrophic decrease in biodiversity means that species are disappearing everywhere. Here’s what you can do to help nature’s most vulnerable, wherever you are in the world.

Green Coast is supported by its readers. We may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you if you buy through a link on this page . Learn more .

Since 1970, wildlife populations worldwide have collapsed by more than 69% . Known and unknown species are being gradually eliminated, never to be seen again. This extinction is comparable to the loss of the dodo or wooly mammoth, but it’s happening in the 21st century.

Despite the best efforts of the world’s conservationists, this shocking decline in species sadly shows no sign of slowing down. The habitat destruction and environmental pollution that have caused species to become endangered are extremely entrenched. It will require meaningful action at every level of society to reverse it.

However, despite this bleak outlook, there is always hope. By working together and making simple changes, mankind may slow or stop species loss and promote biodiversity. In this article, we share how to help endangered species with 16 ways anyone can make a meaningful contribution to protecting the world’s most threatened species.

What are endangered species?

Endangered species are groups of organisms that are at high risk of becoming extinct in the near future. The endangerment of a species may be global or in a particular region of the world. Conservationists and other groups with knowledge of the biology, habitat, and population numbers of potentially threatened species reach a consensus option on endangerment.

Who determines which species are endangered?

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a Swiss-based international conservation organization comprising over 1,400 governmental and non-governmental organizations. The IUCN produces a Red List , with the assessed status of the world’s most vulnerable species. Charities and NGOs within the IUCN continuously monitor the following:

• Absolute species population numbers
• Habitat loss
• Rates of poaching
• The presence of invasive species

Along with specialist assessments, this data can be used to assess the conservation status of a particular species. Governments and organizations can use the conservation status of species to determine which species require enhanced protection. Remedial activities can be formalized with the creation of a Biodiversity Action Plan.

Governments have legislated to protect endangered species, forbidding hunting or interfering with their habitats. Conservation statuses can also guide other initiatives like captive breeding programs or the designation of reserves and national parks.

More than 50% of the world’s species face the risk of extinction

The IUCN Red List lists more than 3,079 animals and 2,655 endangered plant species. Species are classified by their class, with Near Threatened (NT) and Least Concern (LC) indicating the species with the healthiest populations and Vulnerable (VU) and critically endangered (CR) indicating the most endangered creatures.

Endangered species can also be described as rare or even locally extinct. Not all conservation status data is precise because the extinction of many species may have gone unnoticed for many years.

The paucity of data means some red list entries may be designated as ‘data deficient.’ This is where there is inadequate data and research available to establish the true status of the species.

Examples of vulnerable and critically endangered species include: 

• The Siberian tiger
• Kemp’s ridley sea turtle
• The Siamese crocodile
• The blue-throated macaw
• The brown spider monkey
• The American burying beetle
• The Mexican wolf

Some of these species have left more than 150 living creatures worldwide.

Why are endangered species important?

The rising number of endangered species indicates that whole ecosystems are becoming compromised and may be at risk of collapse. As the population numbers of a particular species fall, the critical interactions that species has with other organisms within its local habitat are reduced, throwing the entire ecosystem out of balance and permanently changing its makeup.

For example, the loss of an apex predator species may lead to the unwanted proliferation of prey species that cause environmental damage through overgrazing, burrowing, or other activities. This can threaten other species in the ecosystem that become pressured, like plants and trees.

Another problem with species endangerment is that the world risks losing medicinal plants that may have future benefits to man. Over a quarter of modern medicines are derived from rainforest plants, and discoveries will be threatened if we let rare plant species go extinct.

Also, there is the sadness of knowing that some of Earth’s beautiful and intriguing creatures could be lost to future generations. Once they are gone, they cannot be brought back. This excellent PBS documentary about the life of Broken Tail, a deceased Royal Bengal tiger in India, highlights the pressures faced by endangered species and their tragic loss:

What can we do to help endangered species?

It’s great to know that there is something everyone can do to help endangered species. This is primarily because species of every type are under threat worldwide. Many aspects of our lives drive continuing biodiversity loss .

Simple changes and efforts, however small, can positively impact this serious environmental issue. Here’s what we can do:

1. Get Informed

When you think about endangered species, the well-publicized plight of animals like tigers, pandas, and rhinos immediately springs to mind. However, according to the WWF , 0.1% of all species go extinct yearly. There are so many unidentified species worldwide that it is impossible to know how many organisms are currently threatened.

This is why learning more about species endangerment biodiversity and the local ecosystems that need to be protected is essential. Learning about wildlife sanctuaries and species in your local area can help you contribute time or money to preserving vulnerable species wherever you are.

2. Be vocal about endangered species

Anyone can be an advocate for endangered species by being vocal about the problem. Raise awareness of the biodiversity crisis in your community by:

• Signing petitions about local habitats that could be threatened by development
• Writing to your local political representative
• Organizing fundraisers for animal conservation charities
• Creating leaflets or flyers to distribute to neighbors, friends, and relatives

3. Support your nearest conservation-accredited zoo

Supporting zoos by visiting them is one of the best things you can do for animal conservation. Zoos are no longer damaging, constrained environments for animals. The conservation of endangered species with education about them is the core activity of a modern zoo. This makes them essential institutions to support to make a difference to threatened species.

Your entrance fees, donations, and memberships fund practical conservation, research, outreach, and advocacy for endangered species. They are expert conservationists who can effectively inform and communicate the need to protect the most vulnerable species on Earth.

Animal biologists in zoos research animal behavior to give their animals the best quality of life in captivity. Modern zoo facilities are often equipped to breed endangered species and may even become involved in rehabilitating them for release into the wild.

4. Volunteer at your local nature reserve or wildlife sanctuary

Many wildlife reserves are vital havens for threatened non-exotic species. You can help protect these creatures by contributing your time to the charities and organizations that manage nature reserves in your community. These reserves and sanctuaries are often havens for rare species like bats, deer, amphibians, and birds which would become extinct without conservation.

Volunteers at wildlife sanctuaries can make a difference through activities that include species surveying and mapping, grounds maintenance, and welcoming visitors. Without the efforts of volunteers, these important reserves allow people to discover and explore the natural world.

5. Make your yard a haven for pollinators

Endangered species come in all shapes and sizes, and it is often the smallest creatures that disappear from the environment fastest. The collapse in numbers of vital pollinator species like bees, butterflies, and moths is a recognized issue.

In recent years, over 20% of pollinator species have shown a strong decline, even threatening the pollination of essential crops. One of the ways in which you can help these endangered species is to encourage pollinators to thrive in your yards. Helpful additions to your yard include:

• Bug hotels: simple wooden structures that have lots of crevices where bee species, beetles, and moths can shelter during the colder months.
• A saucer of fresh water: to safely provide vital hydration for bees and other insects.
• Planting wildflowers: Flowers attract pollinators to your yard and provide them with the nutritious nectar and pollen they need for their hive.

6. Take care when driving to prevent roadkill

Ideally, road infrastructure would include wildlife crossings that provide safe migration routes across major roadways. Unfortunately, more than 5.5 million animals die on roads worldwide every day! In the US, West Virginia has the highest levels of roadkill , with odds of 1 in 38 of hitting a deer. Pensylvania’s elk country is another hotspot.

Taking care when driving can make a massive difference in roadkill rates. Slow down as much as possible so that animals have time to respond to your vehicle. Honking your horn can also deter animals. If you do hit an animal, move it from the road to prevent the corpse from attracting predators onto the road.

7. Don’t buy products made from hunted endangered animals

One of the key drivers of species endangerment is the illegal wildlife trade, a multi-billion dollar industry that spans the entire globe. There is a continual demand for trafficked animal parts eaten, used in traditional medicines, or used as fashion or furnishing. Examples of poached animal products include:

• Ivory products
• Tiger skins and bones
• ‘Bush meat’ including the flesh of primates and rodents

The criminals that kill and sell poached wildlife only do it because people are willing to buy from them. By avoiding products from the illegal wildlife trade, poachers and traffickers are starved of profit and won’t take the risk of harming endangered species.

8. Don’t buy exotic pets

Wildlife crime doesn’t just involve dead animals. There is a demand for living rare and exotic creatures to be kept as pets. This is a particular problem in the aquarium industry, where demand for tropical saltwater and freshwater fish has led to their depletion in their natural habitat.

These animals often struggle to thrive outside of their native habitat. Owners may struggle to care for larger animals like big cats, or poor security may mean that they escape. Despite being threatened, these species may even become invasive in a new environment.

9. Go plastic-free

Plastic is one of the world’s most pernicious pollutants. Over 14 million tons of plastic enter oceans and waterways annually, forming over 80% of all marine debris . Plastic is not only ingested by diverse marine organisms and can also be a potent endocrine disruptor.

This means that our addition to single-use non-recycled plastic products threatens the health and reproductive capacity of endangered marine species. Avoiding these cheap and convenient plastic products is not always easy, but reducing plastic use can improve marine environments and biodiversity.

If you end up using plastics, recycling them will help keep them out of landfills and the sea.

10. Reduce your use of synthetic chemicals

Synthetic chemicals like cleaning agents, dyes, and personal care products are a part of daily life. Though humans largely tolerate them, many of the chemicals we use can cause significant environmental damage if they get into lakes, rivers, and oceans .

Aquatic life, including rare and threatened species, is harmed by many household products that are washed into surface water and persist in these fragile marine ecosystems. An example is the nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) used in the textile industry. The long-term ecological effect is environmental degradation and a loss of biodiversity.

Make the switch to using environmentally-friendly alternatives of household products like laundry detergent , dish soap, surface cleaners , and personal care products. Many of the best eco-friendly products feature natural ingredients that biodegrade quickly before they can harm living things.

11. Boycott companies that damage our environment

People are increasingly recognizing the industrial, commercial, and financial activity that is damaging our environment, leading to the loss of species worldwide. These corporations continue their activities because it has remained profitable for them to do so. Attempts for reform in this area are often little more than ‘green-washing‘.

One of the most effective ways to hold big polluters to account is by boycotting their products and services. Circular Magazine says some of the world’s biggest polluters include McDonald’s, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola.

Efforts to switch to eco-friendly alternatives that operate more ethically would send a clear message that they must change their polluting ways. It may initially be more expensive and less convenient, but if enough people say no, the message is sent. You can even write to the CEOs to let them know your concern about the environmental harm they are causing.

12. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

Mankind’s insatiable demand for natural resources has led to the destruction of the ecosystems that are home to many endangered species. Demand for raw materials like oil and gas, wood, minerals, and precious metals has meant that the habitats of many animals have been removed to make way for industrial development.

This leaves vulnerable populations of creatures without safe environments to live, hunt, and breed. Even where there are pockets of land that are left intact, there are no wildlife corridors that facilitate the movement of animals from one region to another.

The exploitation of natural resources only continues at the rate it does because of demand. By reducing the number of new items purchased, reusing, repairing, and recycling them at the end of their usable life, you can drive down demand for raw materials and allow valuable ecosystems to recover.

13. Avoid invasive species

Invasive species are plant and animal species that have been introduced to an ecosystem where they are not native. They include animals, amphibians, and fish kept as pets, plants, and even seeds that can escape into the local environment and proliferate. This makes them a massive threat to local wildlife !

Invasive species are tricky because the alien organism may have a selection advantage that enables it to outcompete native organisms and dominate the ecosystem. If the spread of invasive species is not curtailed, native species can quickly become threatened or even eradicated by them.

You can help to reduce the spread of invasive species by:

• Only plant native plants in your yard and opt for active house plant species.
• Learning the common invasive species in your region and reporting them to environmental agencies if you see them anywhere.
• If you travel, clean your footwear, luggage, and other equipment to prevent potentially invasive plant seeds and debris from being introduced to your locality.
• If you go camping, purchase firewood near your campsite rather than bringing it from home.

14. Avoid foods and products that use palm oil

Palm oil consumption is a massive driver of habitat destruction and environmental degradation that endangers multiple South East Asian species like the Sumatran rhino, pygmy elephants, and orangutans.

Palm oil is derived from the flesh and kernels of the fruit of the oil palm tree ( Elaeis guineensis ). It originated in Africa but is now heavily cultivated in Asia. Over centuries this oil has been extremely useful to man and is currently used in almost everything we buy including.

• Soaps and detergents
• Cooking oil
• Processed foods
• Peanut butter

Because the oil palm tree is a lucrative crop that is very quick and easy to grow, many people are cutting down and burning valuable rainforests to use the vacant land to cultivate it. This prolific deforestation has largely destroyed the habitats of many species, which have now become endangered. Without reform of this sector, the damage will continue unchallenged.

One of the ways in which you can help these endangered animals is by not buying products that use palm oil or switching to palm oil products that come from a certified sustainable source. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil  (RSPO), founded in 2004, certifies palm oil sources as being sustainable and not contributing to deforestation.

15. Become a sustainable tourist

In many parts of the world, species become endangered because it is simply more lucrative for locals to poach them than keep them alive. One way of contributing to animal conservation is by participating in sustainable tourism that profits local communities and empowers them to be stewards and protectors of their natural environments and species.

Going on safaris, snorkeling trips, or sustainable tours means local populations can earn a good living by caring for vulnerable species and promoting their welfare. Choosing sustainable tourism helps reduce the tourist industry’s negative impacts and alleviates poverty, demonstrating to local communities how valuable their natural resources are.

16. Eat locally and sustainably produced food

Agriculture is essential for feeding the world, but some methods are more damaging than others. One effect of globalization has been the massive number of food miles clocked up but the things you eat before they get to your place. Extensive air, rail, sea, and road freight of food is not only polluting but also drives:

• Deforestation and cash crop farming
• Mega farms and their devastating monoculture
• Genetically modified crops
• Heavy pesticide use destroys vital pollinators and disrupts ecosystems 

Another way that everyone can help endangered species is by eschewing these damaging forms of agriculture and opting for eating locally and seasonally. Local producers who farm organically and use non-intensive agricultural methods are great stewards of the environment.

Their food may be more expensive in the short term, but it is often better quality and more nutritious. If enough people change the way they eat, these environmentally friendly forms of farming could go mainstream:

Rounding up

Reducing the detrimental environmental impact of our modern way of life can give the world’s most endangered species vital breathing space to recover.

If everyone makes the small changes outlined above, there may be enough momentum gained to effect real and lasting change in how we steward the environment. This should allow species of all kinds to flourish in their natural habitats and be appreciated by all.

Articles you might also like

Prevention of Soil Pollution: What You Should Know

The Main Causes of Water Pollution and How They Affect Us All

25+ Ways to Protect Forests and Fight Climate Changes

Causes and Effects of Soil Erosion (And Why It’s Important)

The Most Common Diseases Caused by Water Pollution 

5 of the Critical Water Scarcity Solutions Addressing the Water Crisis

A Complete Guide to the Causes of Afforestation and Why This Process is Critical

How to Keep Soil Healthy: 10 of the Best Soil Conservation Methods

Carbon Cycle Steps: What is the Carbon Cycle and How Does It Work

Nuclear Radiation: Causes, Effects, and Current Solutions

35 Ways to Reduce Air Pollution and Boost Air Quality for All

Depletion of Natural Resources: 11 Natural Resources That Show the Scale of the Problem

Protecting Endangered Species

This essay will discuss the importance of protecting endangered species. It will cover the reasons species become endangered, including habitat loss, climate change, and human activities. The piece will examine conservation efforts and strategies to protect biodiversity, such as habitat restoration, legal protections, and wildlife conservation programs. It will also discuss the broader ecological implications of species extinction and the role of international cooperation in conservation. PapersOwl showcases more free essays that are examples of Agriculture.

How it works

At the beginning of 2018, researches have calculated 801 different types of animals that have gone completely extinct of which 65 of them are extinct in the wild. Researches have calculated about 3,879 different types of animals that are critically endangered. People say protecting endangered animals is a waste of money, time, and has no benefits for us but here is why we should protect endangered species. Protecting endangered species would help raise environmental awareness to protect and bring order. Being able to bring environmental awareness, could help protect the ecosystem and help restore the number of species that have been endangered over time.

Species being extinct can affect our ecosystem because of the duties each of them may have. For example, there can be a plant that can bring more oxygen than others, a fish that protects underwater organisms for medicine or even for food. The number of species being extinct up to date has increased tremendously. While species are being extinct, we could be missing out on the significance of medicine and cures that are yet to be discovered. If one plant species gets extinct, the possible aids such as medicine will be lost. While many plants may be approaching extinction without our knowledge, these plants could contain a huge number of important compounds that can extend the human lifespan or the cure for deadly diseases. Even though plants are not the only source of medicine, there are multiple animals that are medically used like a scorpion venom is used by researchers for a brain tumor or a viper’s venom to control blood pressure.  In today’s society, some medical practices use fish scales on burned victims to help cure faster and not acquire any infections during the healing process. Agriculture also plays an important role in the protection of species. Farmers are often seen as the original environmentalists because many of them set aside parts of their land as a wildlife habitat for endangered fish and reptiles.

Many species, like bees, contain important inherited material that is needed to maintain crops. With the genes that scientists gathered from the DNAs of plants, they are pest or disease resistance, salt tolerance, and drought-resistant. These relations can be used to guarantee new crops will develop in the future. The opposing argument as to why endangered species should not be protected is it will take more money to save them than to just move on and species endangerment is a part of life. Protecting species should not be about the amount of money being wasted but should come from having the knowledge of what each species role is and how it impacts our everyday life. As for being part of our life and it just being a life cycle, the majority of the endangered species are used for agriculture, ecosystem, and medical purpose that can help save a life. A plan that that would help protect the endangerment of species is to create strict laws and security. Many countries have laws but a lot of them have been broken because they lack enforcement. Researches have calculated about 3,879 different types of animal’s that are critically endangered while people say protecting endangered animals is a waste of money, time, and have no benefits for us. Protecting these species is beneficial to us for medical purposes, agriculture, which majority of our food comes from farms that are needing support from species and evolving the world.

Cite this page

Protecting Endangered Species. (2021, May 31). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/protecting-endangered-species/

"Protecting Endangered Species." PapersOwl.com , 31 May 2021, https://papersowl.com/examples/protecting-endangered-species/

PapersOwl.com. (2021). Protecting Endangered Species . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/protecting-endangered-species/ [Accessed: 5 Jun. 2024]

"Protecting Endangered Species." PapersOwl.com, May 31, 2021. Accessed June 5, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/protecting-endangered-species/

"Protecting Endangered Species," PapersOwl.com , 31-May-2021. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/protecting-endangered-species/. [Accessed: 5-Jun-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2021). Protecting Endangered Species . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/protecting-endangered-species/ [Accessed: 5-Jun-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Campaign to Save Endangered Species

Become a family of environmental leaders with these ideas on the process of designing a social action campaign to educate your community about the plight of endangered species and actions they can take to help ensure Earth is a healthy place for all living things.

Conservation

Photograph by NurPhoto / Getty Images

A social action campaign is a positive, organized, and active effort to educate others about an issue and ask them to take action. Effective campaigns not only inform but evoke the passion campaigners have for something they want to change. Social action campaigns have led to action in a variety of fields, including wildlife conservation. One example is the yellow-shouldered Amazon parrot ( Amazona barbadensis ), whose population rose on the island of Bonaire after a social action campaign, reforestation efforts, and efforts to educate the public, were initiated.

Design a Campaign Poster

Work together as a family to create a social action campaign poster to raise awareness about the plight of an endangered species that encourages the viewer to take a specific action. Start by selecting an endangered species to build your campaign poster around. As a family, research examples of campaign posters for inspiration. Decide on a catchy phrase for your poster to grab your audience’s attention and quickly make your point. Then create a rough sketch on scrap paper of the poster’s design to ensure that the text and image of your species is placed the way you want it. Make notes about what colors you want to use and the style of lettering. After completing your poster, plan to place it where it can be displayed for maximum reach.

Research, Research, Research

Great, effective campaigns are built on facts. As a family, vote on an endangered species to research. Then work together to find five to ten facts about that species. Your facts might cover the species’ physical characteristics, habitat, food, the threats it faces to survival, and any existing efforts underway to protect that species and its habitat.

Research Existing Campaigns

Select an endangered species your family would like to help. Then research groups and individuals who are working to protect those species. Make notes as you go. What actions do these individuals or organizations take to protect that species? What can you do in your area to help? How can you help them raise awareness and encourage others to take action?

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Last Updated

October 19, 2023

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Endangered Species — Ways of Protection Endangered Species

Ways of Protection Endangered Species

• Categories: Animal Welfare Endangered Species

About this sample

Words: 791 |

Published: Apr 29, 2022

Words: 791 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

The petition filed to protect giraffes

What you can do to help protect endangered species.

• Reduce your plastic consumption. Instead of getting new plastic bags every time you buy groceries, bring reusable ones when you can. Reusable straws are also becoming a trend recently, and they are not difficult to carry around because of their small size. Plastic products are not biodegradable so they can possibly end up somewhere they shouldn’t be in the ecosystem, like in the stomach of a fish or around the neck of a turtle.
• Conserve water. Water is very important for every living creature. Just because we seem to have an abundance of potable water, that doesn’t mean it is the same everywhere else. Little things matter, like turning off the faucet while you are brushing your teeth or reusing the towels in your hotel room.
• Reduce your carbon footprint. Habitat loss is often driven by the expansion of cities and logging. Instead of driving alone, you can opt to walk, bike, or carpool. Conserve energy and consider if the appliances you are purchasing are energy efficient.
• Have an effective trash system. Help preserve the animals’ natural habitat by protecting the environment from too much garbage. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.
• Learn about the endangered species around where you live. 

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

• Expert in: Environment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1333 words

2 pages / 840 words

4 pages / 2045 words

1 pages / 368 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Endangered Species

Imagine you are an animal. You’ve been wandering the wastelands, which used to be a lush green forest, what used to be your home. Its late spring, right about time for mating season. Normally, you’d be out calling for a mate, [...]

Red pandas are “raccoon-like” animals with fluffy fur ranging from orange, brown, black, and white. The red panda is found in Central China, Nepal, Burma, and other places in the surrounding area. They live in isolated mountain [...]

 The job of a marine biologist is to study and conserve the ocean, and all the creatures within it. While their main focus is the water, a lot of their work is conducted on dry land, as they fight for regional laws, fisherman [...]

Giant pandas, or Ailuropoda, are one of the most beloved and iconic animals in the world. Their distinctive black and white fur, gentle demeanor, and unique diet of bamboo have captivated people around the globe. However, the [...]

In the early days, estimates of abundance of species were derived at large geographic scales through the administration of questionnaires to local people (Sugiyama and Soumah 1988). Scientists have unanimously agreed that for [...]

Endangerment is a bigger issue, one of them that include the animals as well as the atmosphere where they interact with each other and live. To solve or elevate this problem every aspect related to this need to be studied. So, [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free