The Endangered Species Act, adopted in 1973, is a law in force in the United States, created with the aim of conserving and protecting endangered species and their habitats. The law, to use the words of American writer and economist Peter Barnes, "attests that the right of species to survive precedes the right to short-term profit from capital". Today, however, that right appears to have been called into question. On 12 August, the United States government, led by Donald Trump, weakened the law, making its measures less restrictive.

What changes

The changes to the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, praised by industry and condemned by anyone who cares about the fate of the biosphere, will make it more difficult to protect wildlife from the multiple threats linked to human impact and climate change. The new rules, which will come into force next month, will make it easier to remove a species from the list of endangered species and would weaken protections for threatened species — that is, the status before a species is deemed at risk of extinction.

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Conservation becomes a question of money

What is particularly alarming is the paradigm shift: for the first time, assessments will not be limited to analysing the health of a given animal species, but economic evaluations will also be carried out. The measures needed to conserve a species will therefore be analysed from an economic standpoint as well — for example, by estimating the revenues lost as a result of a ban on logging in a given habitat.

Species (increasingly) under threat

The economic impact of protecting a species will therefore become more important than the protection of that species itself, overturning every conservation logic. In the United States, more than 1,600 species are officially considered at risk. Many threatened species will no longer be able to benefit from the same protective measures as those listed as "endangered" and will be more vulnerable.

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The influence of climate change

The new law leaves species threatened by climate shifts particularly exposed. One of the most controversial changes concerns the limitations placed on lawmakers' ability to take climate change into account when carrying out assessments to list species as threatened. In practice, lawmakers will be able to disregard the effects of extreme heat, drought, sea level rise and other consequences of climate change that could occur decades from now.

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The most at-risk species

This is bad news for certain species in particular, including polar bears (Ursus maritimus), which are losing the sea ice they depend on, and beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), which will have to dive deeper and for longer to find food in an Arctic that is growing ever warmer. The future also looks particularly bleak for the wolverine (Gulo gulo), a large mustelid that could lose two thirds of its range by the end of the century, the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), and Nicrophorus americanus, a beetle endemic to North America, once found in 35 states and now only in nine, threatened by intensive agriculture and oil exploration.

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The successes of the Endangered Species Act

Since the Endangered Species Act came into force, signed by then-US president Richard Nixon, more than 1,650 species have been listed under it, in the endangered or threatened categories. In nearly half a century, the law has made it possible to protect numerous iconic species, such as the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) and the Florida population of the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus).