The Trump administration this week released new rules pertaining to the Endangered Species Act, and as one nature photographer warned for MS NOW, it could very well be a "mortal blow" to the protections that have done much to bring certain animals back from the brink of extinction.
Derrick Z. Jackson is an acclaimed and award-winning nature photographer, as well as a fellow in climate and energy at the Center for Science and Democracy's Union of Concerned Scientists. On Sunday, he published a new piece for MS NOW, sounding the alarm about changes implemented this week by President Donald Trump that are bound to imperil endangered animals.
"The administration’s new rule, which was issued by the Interior and Commerce departments and becomes effective Sept. 14, deletes a critical definition of what constitutes 'harm' to species on the brink of extinction," Jackson explained. "Under the old definition, harm wasn’t limited to actions that directly killed or injured wildlife. Developers, industrial polluters and landowners were also prohibited from rolling out bulldozers and backhoes and causing 'significant habitat modification or degradation' that damaged or destroyed endangered species’ 'breeding, feeding or sheltering' areas."
He added later: "It is obvious who benefits from this outrageous change. Oil and gas drillers, building contractors, mining companies, road construction groups, ranchers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have all chafed at the appropriately broad interpretation of 'harm.' In one statement, the Independent Petroleum Association of America claimed the Endangered Species act was “destroying economic growth and job creation.” In a bald-faced press release hailing the change, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum called the old rules a 'regulatory trap.' The new ones, he said, will 'reduce unnecessary permitting, cut compliance costs, and eliminate confusion for landowners, small businesses, energy producers, farmers, ranchers and local governments.'”
With this rule change in place, Jackson warned that companies have been given a "neon green light inviting developers to plow through the wetlands that are left, cut down more forests, build along sensitive coastlines, cast fishing nets into precious feeding grounds for migratory birds and whales, and dump more pesticides and chemicals."
Environmental groups have already sued the administration to block this change, but Jackson said that these cases are unlikely to do much in the face of the extremely Trump-friendly Supreme Court, which he also noted has been "robotically" slashing away wildlife protections in particular.
"In 2023 the Supreme Court drastically limited the definition of a wetland," Jackson explained. I"n more sane days, the Environmental Protection Agency called wetlands a 'biological supermarket.' More than one-third of all the nation’s endangered and threatened species live full time in wetlands, and more than half of such species spend some time in them. The court ruled against a generous definition of a wetland even though between 2009 and 2019, according to the Interior Department under the Biden administration, the nation lost an area of vegetated wetlands larger than the size of Rhode Island."
