PEER filed the request to bring American conservation law into agreement with the posture taken by international scientific bodies. Is Leaking, documents the abandonment of international Endangered Species Act protections by the Department of Interior over the past decade and the resulting detriment to global biodiversity. PEER's listing petition, while the largest ever filed, is not without precedent. Years of studied inaction by the Department of Interior have left the vast majority of internationally recognized life in peril outside of recognition by the Endangered Species Act. The PEER report documents the U.S. has maintained a de facto moratorium on foreign listings in the face of a growing global endangered species crisis.
International treaties have loopholes allowing continued trade in affected species.
The Endangered Species Act has added teeth necessary to prevent extinctions. The PEER report cites failure to properly list the African elephant under the Endangered Species Act as contributing to a two-thirds drop in population. At the very moment Secretary Babbitt spoke of clarion calls, his own agency was blocking attempts to update international wildlife protections. The PEER petition requests that the World Conservation Union Red List be used as the basis for species classification. PEER is a national alliance representing state and federal employees who seek to expose and remedy misconduct, non-enforcement of resource protection laws and poor performance in the environmental agencies where they work.