Intelligent Tinkering

The Endangered Species Act and Resilience

Bibliographic Data

ID4240151
AuthorsMelinda Harm Benson (corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume17
Issue4
Publication date2012-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueConservation Ecology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1195-5449 • E-ISSN: 1708-3087
PublisherResilience Alliance (PUBLISHER • CA)
DOI10.5751/es-05116-170428
OpenAlexW2062989953
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited9

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of the most powerful and controversial environmental laws in the United States. As a result of its uncompromising position against biodiversity loss, the ESA has become the primary driver of many ecological restoration efforts in the United States. This article explains why the ESA has become the impetus for so many of these efforts and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the ESA as a primary driver from a resilience-based perspective. It argues that in order to accommodate resilience theory, several changes to ESA implementation and enforcement should be made. First and foremost, there is a need to shift management strategies from a species-centered to a systems-based approach. Chief among the shifts required will be a more integrated approach to governance that includes a willingness to reassess demands placed on ecological systems by our social systems. Building resilience will also require more proactive management efforts that support the functioning of system processes before they are endangered and on the brink of regime change. Finally, resilience thinking requires a reorientation of management away from goals associated with achieving preservation, restoration, and optimization and toward goals associated with fostering complexity and adaptive capacity

Adaptive Management · Biology · Business · Complex adaptive system · Corporate governance · Ecological systems theory · Economics · Endangered species · Enforcement · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Habitat · Political science · Psychological resilience · Socio-ecological system · Computer Science · Engineering · Law · Psychology · Species Distribution and Climate Change · Ecology

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