The ‘Recovering America’s Wildlife Act’ Does Not Adequately Respond to the Extinction Crisis

In front of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Dan Ashe, president and CEO of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, testified about the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA). Ashe spoke on behalf of the association’s 239 accredited members and on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife and its more than 2.2 million members and supporters. In his testimony he emphasized the need for the bill to include more support for federal wildlife conservation programs.
 
“Conservation of wildlife is a shared responsibility,” said Ashe. “Our great successes are not individual; nor are they local, state, tribal or federal. They are the product of decades of shared effort and commitment. And my plea to you, today, as members of an institution revered as the world’s greatest deliberative body, is to take some precious time and contemplate how this bill can better reflect the tradition of partnership and shared commitment that will be the keys to success. It is both possible and necessary to do this, by including funding for mandated, collaborative, and proven-successful federal agency efforts, and it will make this bill better and the results of your investment more enduring and impactful.”

Ashe also warned of the consequences to not doing so:

“Enacting legislation that would automatically spend $14 billion on wildlife over the next 10 years while ignoring the mandated, legally binding, and consequential responsibilities of federal agencies is, in my opinion, like watching a train wreck that you have the opportunity to avoid,” he said. 

If passed, the RAWA legislation would amend the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act to fund the Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Subaccount to support management of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) and other purposes. The bill promises nearly $1.4 billion annually in dedicated federal funding to support states and tribes to conserve SGCN, but unfortunately shortchanges those species federally recognized as being most at risk of extinction. 

“Given the extinction crisis our planet now faces, Congress must enact legislation that would guarantee critical funding to combat extinction and conserve imperiled species,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, Former president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife. “While the ‘Recovering America’s Wildlife Act’ includes some new funding for imperiled wildlife and habitat conservation, the bill does not designate sufficient resources on the most imperiled species, those listed under the Endangered Species Act. It would be a significant lost opportunity if Congress were to create a new funding stream for wildlife that doesn’t strongly respond to the existential threat facing the more than 1,600 species listed as threatened or endangered in the United States.”

Scientists broadly recognize that the world is facing an unprecedented extinction crisis. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a body created and supported by United Nations member states, estimates that 1 million species are on the verge of being wiped out, threatened by climate change, habitat loss, pollution, invasive species and poaching. Ashe’s testimony emphasized the need for a well-funded Endangered Species Act (ESA) program, which has been chronically underfunded for many years.

“Critics of the ESA often argue that species recovery is too rare,” said Ashe in his testimony. “While we are not ESA critics, we agree. It is too rare. But it’s largely because we’ve starved recovery. It is grossly and chronically underfunded. It’s like a car without fuel. When we fuel it, it runs! And here, now, you have the golden opportunity to fill the tank, and to drive an entire new generation of success. Please do it!”
 
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to consider the bill in the new year. 

Additional media contact: 

Rob Vernon, Association of Zoos & Aquariums Rvernon@AZA.org, (301) 244-3352