7749

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7749
• Author: Kohm, K. A., ed.
• Title: Editor
• USFW Year: Series
• USFW - Doc Type: 1991
• Copyright Material: YES

LIFE IN JEOPARDY Ol~I
PRIVATE PROPERTY
by
HOLMES ROLSTON III
THE ENDAAIGERED SPECIES ACT Of 1973 1S One Of the mOSt eXClt-
ing measures ever to be passed by the U.S. Congress, perhaps to
be passed by any nation. On the surface, the act might seem
analogous to other environmental legislation-about clean air,
soil, and water or timber and range management-in that it
protects people from harm done by other people. But the Endan-
gered Species Act, which indeed protects people from harm,
mandates protecting nonhuman species, whooping cranes and
whorled pogonias. The U.S. Supreme Court, interpreting the
act, insisted that "Congress-intended endangered species to be
afforded the highest of priorities, ...and that the plain intent of
Congress in enacting this statute was to halt and reverse the
trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost."'
Implementing this legislation has proved to deepen our range
of moral concern-more so, perhaps, than Congress and the
original supporters of the act expected. We have to ask, "What is
it about species that is of value?"And that takes us deeper into a
concept of natural value than does most natural resource legis-
lation, past the usual economic and utilitarian values attached
to natural resources. The act values rare species in nontradi-
tional and hitherto unstated ways. It challenges property rights
with a higher priority afforded to endangered species. But more
than that, past even a deep humanistic concern, we have to ask
43