http://earth911.com/news/2007/09/07/the-overcrowded-ark/ Make Everyday Earth Day Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:41:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://earth911.com/news/2007/09/07/the-overcrowded-ark/comment-page-1/#comment-1164 Sandra Keil Fri, 07 Sep 2007 23:29:36 +0000 http://earth911.com/blog/2007/09/07/the-overcrowded-ark/#comment-1164 I think this article brings to light an important aspect of the "shoot, shovel and shutup" phenominon. Under the current law, a land owner is punished for having endangered species on his property, so much in fact, that they find it worth the risk to kill of the species rather than protect it. By punished, I mean, they oftentimes lose the ability to use their land. For a farmer, one can imagine this would be devastating. If their land practices are such that endangered species are living on their land, they must be doing something right. Instead of punishing them, why not reward them? If we are concerned for the survival of the species, then we should be incentiving land owners. Protecting species benefits everyone, but the ESA puts the burden on private land owners. Any economist will argue that this is unfair: a public benefit should be shouldered by the public, not a few private citizens. If we really want to protect species, we must also protect the rights of land owners. The Act should be amended to incentive land owners to create better habitat rather than force them to comply with unfair regulations. The land owners will more likely be agreeable to maintaining the habitat, the public will be able to rest assured that more species are being protected and best of all, more species will survive. I think this article brings to light an important aspect of the “shoot, shovel and shutup” phenominon. Under the current law, a land owner is punished for having endangered species on his property, so much in fact, that they find it worth the risk to kill of the species rather than protect it. By punished, I mean, they oftentimes lose the ability to use their land. For a farmer, one can imagine this would be devastating. If their land practices are such that endangered species are living on their land, they must be doing something right. Instead of punishing them, why not reward them? If we are concerned for the survival of the species, then we should be incentiving land owners. Protecting species benefits everyone, but the ESA puts the burden on private land owners. Any economist will argue that this is unfair: a public benefit should be shouldered by the public, not a few private citizens. If we really want to protect species, we must also protect the rights of land owners. The Act should be amended to incentive land owners to create better habitat rather than force them to comply with unfair regulations. The land owners will more likely be agreeable to maintaining the habitat, the public will be able to rest assured that more species are being protected and best of all, more species will survive.

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