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things around to create wealth. How do we move things around without losing all the pieces and destroying the mechanisms? Well, it is a real dilemma; it is not a problem as much as a dilemma. A problem, you learn in school, is something that you can solve. With the right formula, input, and the right data it can be solved. Problems have solutions. What we have is a dilemma; you cannot solve a dilemma. You can only manage and muddle through a dilemma. There is not any clear, single, absolute, a priori value or judgement that drives any of these issues. So my premise for these remarks today is that there is a lot of grayout there and where you stand often depends on where you sit. I think that the issues are people issues. The idea that the Endangered Species Act is making people endangered is becoming very popular. Why can't people come first, and how can you talk about Sucker Fish and not talk about families? It makes good rhetoric. People do come first. It is a people problem. We are the ones that make the decisions, not the owls, the suckers, the squawfish, and not the tortoises. They do not make any of these choices. They do not make any of these decisions. The ecosystems with which these species are associated -- the old growth forests, the pristine wild rivers -- do not have choices either. We can build economic systems that do not drive species to extinction. We know that. We can do that. We just have to be smart enough to go about the job of doing it. All of the things that we are trying to save, conserve, nurture and steward are all things for people. Sure, you can make pantheistic arguments about how nature is right and good unto itself. That is nice rhetoric also. The reality is that we have to live, work, and use nature for our own benefits. It is at the center of, unquestionably, a people problem; a people dilemma. We created it, we can manage it, and we can do it. However, it ain't going to be easy. The Endangered Species Act is the subj ect I was asked to address, and many people are addressing at this conference. It has been on the books for nearly twenty years. It is a very simple statute. It is interesting that it has become a species oriented statute. The opening lines of the Endangered Species Act, the kernel of policy that it was supposed to advance, talks about preserving the ecosystems upon which species depend. It has become a listing exercise, species by species, project by project, action by action, a piecemeal process, despite efforts to broaden the analysis at certain points. It is still a highly fragmented statute in its application and implementation. The goal in the grandest sense of the statute is to preserve what is now popularly called biodiversity, or the interworkings of plants and animals in their natural settings, in their evolved niches. You probably know what the statute does, so I will not bore you with a lawyer's rendition of it, except to tick off the five major elements that are all oriented to what I am going to. talk about later. First is the listing process. This is the process by which species become entitled to the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Associated with that is the critical habitat designation process. You all know that designation of critical habitat is an optional feature of the Endangered Species Act. It is not mandatory, nor for that matter is listing any particular species mandatory, although, there are mechanisms for forcing, by petitioning and by 65