The more money that is spent on recovery efforts for an endangered or threatened species, the more likely that species is to recover. It’s an intuitive link, although intuitive links aren’t always borne out by reality. But in the US, where a large amount of funding for endangered species recovery efforts comes from the government, the money being spent often falls well short of what's needed, leaving many species to flounder.
Arizona State University researcher Leah Gerber has analyzed government spending on endangered species, finding ways to make the process more efficient. She found that some species are declining despite receiving more funding than they request, making them “costly yet futile,” she writes in a PNAS paper. Redirecting this extra funding could help us to save many more species.
There are currently around 1,500 species listed as endangered or threatened in the US, half of which are at high risk for extinction. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is set to assess approximately 800 more species for inclusion in the list within the next two years. The recovery plans for these species require $1.21 billion/year, but in reality, only a quarter of this budget is actually spent. It’s a “capacity challenge”, Gerber writes—the funding that's made available for recovery efforts is just not sufficient to meet the flood of demand.
Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
No comments:
Post a Comment