Protecting the Environment

[AOTANI, Masayasu]

Scientists have known for years that human life on Earth depends on the continued survival of many different kinds of plants, animals and other organisms.  That is one reason why governments make laws to protect the environment. 

 

In the United States, a major environmental law is the Endangered Species Act of Nineteen Seventy-Three.  Earlier laws provided only limited ways to protect native animals considered in danger. 

 

A conference in nineteen seventy-three led to a treaty that restricted international buying and selling of plants and animals believed to be harmed by trade.  Later that year, the United States Congress approved the Endangered Species Act. 

 

The law expanded America's list of threatened animal species to include foreign animals.  It defined the words endangered and threatened.  The law extended protection to plants and other organisms.  It also required federal agencies to carry out programs to help guarantee the survival of endangered and threatened species.  Federal agencies were also barred from taking any step that would harm a listed species or destroy or change its living area.

 

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service calls the Endangered Species Act one of the most far-reaching wildlife conservation laws ever approved.  Its purpose is to protect endangered and threatened species and their environments.  It also requires the government to take action to help such species.

 

To get this protection, a plant or animal species must be added to the Federal list of wildlife and plants said to be in the greatest need of help.  Each species is listed as either endangered or threatened.  The two words describe two levels of threat.  An endangered species is one that is close to disappearing from all or much of its living area.  One that is threatened will likely become endangered if nothing is done.

 

A species is added to the list when scientists have confirmed that its survival is threatened.  The threats may include the destruction of its environment, disease and too much hunting or fishing.

 

Government action is taken within one year of the proposal.  The final listing of each proposed species may be published, withdrawn or extended. 

 

After a species has been added to the list, it can receive government protection.  This includes prevention of harmful activities and restrictions on taking, transporting or selling a species.  Officials say they want to increase the population of the listed species to a level where federal protection is no longer required.

 

One recent success story took place earlier this year.  In June, the Department of the Interior announced that it was removing the bald eagle from the list. 

 

Officials say the bald eagle was one of the first species protected under the Endangered Species Act.  But action was taken to help it much earlier.  Beginning in nineteen-forty, federal laws made it illegal to kill a bald eagle.  But continued use of the insect poison DDT after World War Two made the birds' eggs unable to produce young.  This reduced the number of bald eagles in the wild.

 

The government banned the use of DDT in nineteen seventy-two.  And federal agencies began other efforts to save the bald eagle.  The results were so good that in nineteen ninety-five, officials lowered the threat level for the bald eagle from endangered to threatened.

 

In nineteen sixty-three, only four hundred seventeen breeding pairs of bald eagles were known to exist in the lower forty-eight United States.  Each breeding pair consisted of a fully-grown male and a female.  Today, the forty-eight states are home to more than nine thousand pairs.  Officials say the bald eagle in Alaska has never needed protection.  They say between fifty and seventy thousand bald eagles live there.

 

The bald eagle will continue to enjoy federal protection under the Bald Eagle Protection Act of Nineteen Forty.  That law makes it illegal to kill, sell or in any other way hurt eagles, their nests or eggs.  But American officials say they are now sure about the future security of the bald eagle.

 

This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by SooJee Han and Nancy Steinbach.  Brianna Blake was our producer.  I'm Bob Doughty.

 

And I'm Pat Bodnar.  Read and listen to our programs at voaspecialenglish.com.  Join us again at this time next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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