(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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The Vanishing of Biden’s Biodiversity Agenda [1]
['Prem Thakker', 'Nick Martin', 'Marion Renault', 'Heather Souvaine Horn', 'Liza Featherstone', 'Molly Taft', 'Stephen Lezak', 'Kate Aronoff']
Date: 2023-02-01
RAWA would address some of the gaps in the Endangered Species Act, whose protections don’t generally activate until a species is deemed threatened or endangered; in other words, the negative chain reaction causing species collapse has to start, and then be verified, before protective actions are taken to stop it. “We got this system kind of like health care where we have emergency rooms good at keeping a patient from dying,” said Collin O’Mara, CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “But it doesn’t have a lot of resources to get a patient back to health—and we have no kind of preventative care for the vast majority of species.”
RAWA would provide $1.4 billion annually to state, territory, and tribal wildlife agencies to implement federally approved wildlife action plans.
RAWA would provide $1.4 billion annually to state, territory, and tribal wildlife agencies to implement federally approved wildlife action plans. It would be the first bill of its kind to dedicate a stream of wildlife conservation funding—nearly $100 million—to all 574 federally recognized tribal nations. “RAWA gives tribes an opportunity to really build their management programs,” says Gloria Tom, director of the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife. “I have 18 million acres here, and I only have five conservation officers. That’s just one area that really needs to be expanded.” Under the current system, only about $1 billion total in state grant funding has been doled out in the past 23 years. Moreover, in 2021, the Tribal analog to the state grant funding program only disbursed funds to about 6 percent of the 574 federally recognized tribes.
RAWA would also go beyond serving just the 1,700 or so threatened or endangered species, also directing funds toward species currently considered at risk but not yet endangered. “We, unfortunately, are often in the state of reaction instead of being proactive,” said Julie Thorstenson, executive director of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. “And that’s really what RAWA would do: take a more proactive strategy at protecting wildlife than just going through the Endangered Species Act.”
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[1] Url:
https://newrepublic.com/article/170301/biden-biodiversity-ecosystems-rawa
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