Acting for Endangered Species
Subtitle: The Statutory Ark
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: April 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780700611720
Subjects: Endangered species & extinction of species; Environment law; Wildlife Conservation; Law and legislation; Environmental Law; Legal Reference / Law Profession; Wildlife; Law; USA; Legal History; Environmental; Environmental Conservation & Protection - Endangered Species; Environmental Conservation & Protection - General; Endangered species; United States
Description: "When Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, it did so in the belief that threats to emblematic creatures like bison or commercial crops such as fish could be resolved simply by placing limits on hunting and trade. Few lawmakers could have foreseen how the implementation of that law would change over the years, as the directive to save seemingly insignificant species would extend to the protection of entire ecosystems.

As the courts have interpreted the law in the light of a better understanding of science, the ESA increasingly has become a tool used to block development projects and restrict private land use.".

"Acting for Endangered Species demonstrates that litigation and judicial decision-making have played a far more important role in shaping the modern environmental movement than has been previously thought. It focuses on two major controversies that developed over the implementation of the Act: a Supreme Court-ordered delay in dam construction when a fish called the snail darter was declared endangered and a threat to logging in the Northwest in the interest of saving the spotted owl.

In reviewing these seminal cases, Petersen demonstrates the complex interplay among government, science, environmentalism, and natural resource industries in shaping endangered species policy in America."--BOOK JACKET.