Rethinking the Law and Policy of Protected Areas in a Warming World: Evolving Approaches of American Conservation Organizations

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Acknowledgments

Notes

Stuart Chape, Mark Spalding & Martin Jenkins, The World's Protected Areas: Status, Values and Prospects in the 21st Century 4 (2008).

International Union for the Conservation of Nature, What Is a Protected Area? (2010). Accessible online at http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/wcpa/wcpa_overview/ (visited 12 July 2011).

Id.

United Nations Environment Programme, World Database on Protected Areas (2009). Accessible online at http://www.wdpa.org/Statistics.aspx (visited 5 July 2010).

Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement 72 (1993).

R. Gerald Wright & David J. Mattson. The Origin and Purpose of National Parks and Protected Areas, in National Parks and Protected Areas 9–10 (R. Gerald Wright ed., 1996).

Michael P. Cohen, The History of the Sierra Club: 1892–1970 (1988). For example, John Muir and a group at the University of California established the Sierra Club in 1892 “to explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast; to publish authentic information concerning them,” and “to enlist the support and cooperation of the people and government in preserving the forests and other natural features of the Sierra Nevada.” These three purposes, recreational, educational, and conservationist, constituted the Club's motives, means, and final object.

The NPA was renamed the National Parks and Conservation Association in 1970 and then the National Parks Conservation Association in 2000.

Shabecoff, supra note 6, at 84.

Many other conservation organizations were established in the early years of the 20th century. While they are not the subject of this article, it is worth mentioning some of them, including the National Association of Audubon Societies (1905), Izaak Walton League (1922), The Wilderness Society (1935), and Ducks Unlimited (1937).

Since Darling illustrated the first duck stamp, the program has generated more than $750 million to purchase and lease over 5.3 million acres of wetlands habitats in the United States. Most of these lands are now protected in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wildlife Refuge System. See National Wildlife Federation, Creation of national wildlife federation (2010) at http://www.nwf.org/About/History-and-Heritage/Creation-of-NWF.aspx (visited 24 December 2010).

Id.

16 U.S.C. §§ 669–669i (1937) (as amended 1939, 1941, 1946, 1950, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1989).

Thomas B. Allen, Guardian of the Wild: The story of the National Wildlife Federation, 1936–1986 138–9 (1987).

16 U.S.C. §§ 777–777l (1950) (as amended 1956, 1959, 1960, 1970, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992).

Allen, supra note 15, at 147–8.

16 U.S.C. §§ 1131–1136 (1964) (as amended 1978). Since passage of the original Wilderness Act, more than 109 million acres of public lands have been designated as wilderness by subsequent congressional legislation. While this is a considerable amount, it is less than 5 percent of the entire land area of the United States.

The Federation did help establish a refuge for Key deer in the 1950s. Id., at 114–6.

Id., at 121.

Id., at 122.

Id., at 123.

Id., at 124.

The new refuge was named for the late Senator Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota, who introduced the original Endangered Species Act in 1966.

Allen, supra note 15, at 125–6.

There was a controversy in the early 1980s when the Federation sold land that had been donated to it in 1975 by Dr. Claude Moore. Moore opposed the sale in a lawsuit charging “fraud and deceit.” See Alston Chase, The Betrayal of Claude Moore, Outside (November 1987), at 41–42; and Richard Brewer, Conservancy: The Land Trust Movement in America 89–91 (2003).

National Wildlife Federation v. Coleman, 529 F.2d 359 (5th Cir 1976) at http://openjurist.org/529/f2d/359 (visited 5 January 2011).

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan 11 (2007) at http://library.fws.gov/CCPs/miss_sandhill_final07.pdf (visited 5 January 2011).

Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1533, 87 Stat. 885 (1973).

Louisiana Wildlife Federation v. York, 761 F.2d 1044 (5th Cir. 1985).

Agreement of Settlement and Compromise, Nebraska v. Basin Electric Power Cooperative, No. 78-1775 (D. Neb 4 Dec. 4, 1978).

United States Bergen v. Lawrence, 848 F.2d 1502 (10th Cir. 1988), at http://openjurist.org/848/f2d/1502/united-states-bergen-v-lawrence (visited 5 January 2011).

Florida Key Deer v. Paulison, 522 F.3d 1133 (11th Cir. 2008).

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis: Contribution of Working Group I (Susan D. Solomon et al., eds., 2007).

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: Contribution of Working Group II (Martin L. Parry et al., eds., 2007).

Managing Protected Areas: A Global Guide 236 (Michael Lockwood, Graeme L. Worboys, & Ashish Kothari, eds., 2006).

National Wildlife Federation, Global Warming Effects on Wildlife and Habitat (2010) at http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Effects-on-Wildlife-and-Habitat.aspx (visited 5 January 2011).

John Kostyack & Daniel Rohlf, Conserving Endangered Species in an Era of Global Warming, 38 Envt’l. L. Rep. 10, 203 (2008).

National Wildlife Federation, supra note 37.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Small Wetlands Program: A Half Century of Conserving Prairie Habitat (2009) at http://www.fws.gov/refuges/smallwetlands/ (visited 5 January 2011).

John Kostyack & Daniel Rohlf, Conserving Endangered Species in an Era of Global Warming: An Environmental Community Perspective, in Endangered Species Act: Law, Policy and Perspectives 379 (Donald C. Baur & Wm. Robert Irvin, eds., 2nd ed. 2009).

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. National Wildlife Refuge System (2010) at http://www.fws.gov/refuges/ (visited 5 January 2011).

See 59 Fed. Reg. 34274 (1994) at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/laws-policies/policy-ecosystem.html (visited 5 January 2011).

Kostyack & Rohlf, supra note 38.

Kostyack & Rohlf, supra note 38.

Chape, supra note 2, at 96.

Western Governors’ Association, Wildlife Corridors Initiative (2008). at http://www.westgov.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=123:wildlife-council&catid=102&Itemid=68 (visited 5 January 2011).

National Wildlife Federation, Wildlife Corridors (2010). at http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Climate-Smart-Conservation/Wildlife-Corridors.aspx (visited 5 January 2011).

National Research Council, Adaptive Management for Water Resources Planning (2004).

Kostyack & Rohlf, supra note 38.

Lisa Cloutier, Climate Change and the Conservation Challenge 12–13 (2010).

Patrick N. Halpin, Global Climate Change and Natural-Area Protection: Management Responses and Research Directions, 7(3) Ecological Applications 828–843 (1997).

Interview with Larry Schweiger, President, National Wildlife Federation, in New York, N.Y. (6 October 2010).

Interview with John Kostyack, Vice President of Wildlife Conservation, National Wildlife Federation, in Washington, D.C. (22 July 2010).

National Wildlife Federation, Funding for Wildlife and Ecosystems (2011), at http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Protecting-Wildlife-and-Habitat/Funding-for-Wildlife-and-Ecosystems.aspx (visited 11 July 2011).

H.R. 2454, 111th Cong. §481 (2009).

National Wildlife Federation, Funding for Wildlife and Ecosystems, supra note 55.

Interview with Tom Fry, Senior Policy Advisor, The Nature Conservancy, in Arlington, Va. (23 July 2010).

U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (2010) at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ceq/Interagency-Climate-Change-Adaptation-Progress-Report.pdf (visited 11 July 2011).

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy: Public Review Draft (2012) at http://www.wildlifeadaptationstrategy.gov/public-review-draft.php (visited 29 January 2012).

Patty Glick, Amanda Staudt & Bruce Stein, A New Era for Conservation: Review of Climate Change Adaptation Literature (2009).

Thus, grazing retirements are typically finalized with a three-way transaction: the rancher waives his grazing permit back to the Forest Service without preference to another producer; the Forest Service writes a decision letter permanently closing the allotment; and NWF provides the rancher with a check. National Wildlife Federation, Wildlife Conflict Resolution Program (2011) at http://www.nwf-wcr.org/program.htm (visited 11 July 2011).

Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, State Wildlife Action Plans: A Strategic Approach to Conservation (2011) at http://www.wildlifeactionplans.org/about/index.html (visited 12 July 2011).

Interview with Larry Schweiger, President, National Wildlife Federation, in New York, N.Y. (6 October 2010).

See Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Voluntary Guidance for States to Incorporate Climate Change into State Wildlife Action Plans & Other Management Plans (2009) at http://www.teaming.com/pdf/Climate%20Change%20Guidance%20Document_Final_December%202009.pdf (visited 12 July 2011).

National Wildlife Federation, State Wildlife Action Plans: A Platform for Addressing Climate Change (2011) at http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Climate-Smart-Conservation/State-Wildlife-Action-Plans.aspx (visited 11 July 2011).

Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (Patty Glick, Bruce A. Stein, & Naomi A. Edelson, eds., 2011) at http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Climate-Smart-Conservation/Assessing-Vulnerability.aspx (visited 11 July 2011).

Id., at 77.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Southwest Region, Draft Recovery Plan for the Mount Graham Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis), First Revision (2011), at http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/Documents/R2ES/MGRS_dRecov_Plan_Revision_Final_May2011.pdf (visited 12 July 2011).

¹ Professor of Political Science, Manhattan College, New York.