TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110590/1105640.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.1 KB | 125 lines

                                                                                ESSAY, Page 102

Down with the God Squad


By Ted Gup


    Imagine revising Genesis. In the new version Noah stands on
the gangplank to the ark, reviewing the species of the world
pair by pair, deciding on a purely economic basis which
creatures to save and which to consign to the deepening waters.
He turns away the pests, the serpents and other species he
deems useless to man or too costly to take along. If such a
vision strains the imagination, consider the call by some Bush
Administration officials to amend the Endangered Species Act.
Their aim is to expand greatly the powers of a committee of
political appointees that already can exempt species from the
protection of the act when man's economic interests so
dictate. The committee is commonly known as the "God Squad,"
not for its collective wisdom but because the decisions it may
render were once left to an even higher authority.

    Noah's directive was to preserve all species. Modern man has
no such option. Some species are already doomed, the incidental
victims of logging, mining, dams and the fragmentation of their
habitats. Almost daily we face another agonizing conflict
between ecology and economics. In the Pacific Northwest
loggers' jobs are pitted against the need to save ancient
forests, the habitat of spotted owls. In the Southwest a $582
million water project is delayed because it threatens the
squawfish. In Arizona a $200 million observatory was held up on
behalf of some 150 rare Mount Graham red squirrels. Are all
these species worth saving? And who among us is fit to make
such decisions?

    The preservation of species is a task involving a volatile
mix of biology, politics, economics and morality. For 17 years
the Endangered Species Act has provided a "911" distress line
for life forms teetering on the edge. But its
species-by-species approach does little to avert conflict. Man
cannot manage nature through a series of ad hoc rescue
attempts, ignoring the underlying causes for the loss of
biodiversity. The answer is not to dilute the Endangered
Species Act but to better anticipate the consequences of human
activity, focusing on entire ecosystems rather than on single
species. By the time a creature joins the endangered list it
may be too late, the genetic stock impoverished, its habitat
destroyed.

    Species preservation depends upon political resolve. Costs
of conservation can be stunning, appearing all the more so when
weighed against the abstract value of a species. Increasingly,
biologists intent on saving a species are heard to cite either
its usefulness to man or the dangers to man attendant upon its
loss. Thus the tropical rain forests are said to hold
medicinal, agricultural and scientific wealth. This kind of
argument, credible as it may be, reflects scientists'
perceptions that only appeals to man's self-interest will
generate public support for conservation. But anthropocentric
arguments legitimatize the notion that species must justify
their right to exist by proving their utility to man. That
leaves the vast majority of species defenseless and debases the
fundamental reason for preserving them -- their intrinsic
worth.

    Precisely what makes the Endangered Species Act unique is
that it views the world not through man's eyes but from the
high ground of the Creation. It sets no test for survival and
respects the meek as it does the mighty. The humpback whale and
the black rhinoceros enjoy no greater protection than the
noonday snail and the lakeside daisy. Recently an inch-long
unpigmented eyeless shrimp found in a sinkhole near
Gainesville, Fla., joined the ranks of the imperiled. In
shielding the humblest species, the act expresses its highest
reverence for diversity, and has evolved into an almost sacred
covenant defining the nation's relationship with nature.

    In recent months, Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter Jr.,
Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan and some in Congress have
suggested amending the law and letting the God Squad make the
toughest calls. That would be the effective demise of the act.
The Senate last week defeated a measure that would have
empowered the God Squad to settle the dispute over timbering
the ancient forests. But the broader question remains. Ruling
on a species' fate has eternal consequences. A political
appointee's vision dims beyond the next election. Matters of
such gravity ought to reflect society's broadest interests.
Biologists, environmentalists, theologians, historians and,
yes, representatives of industry have a claim to participate
in such decisions. Some in this Administration and its
predecessor have criticized the Endangered Species Act and
shown a willingness to subordinate biological evidence to
political expediency. Such was the case with the spotted owl
and the Mount Graham squirrel.

    Today species are vanishing on a grand scale. There are
1,116 imperiled species on the list, an additional 3,600
candidate species behind them. Some will die out waiting to be
listed. These numbers are only a pale reflection of a wider
problem. In tropical rain forests, loss of habitat is pushing
at least 20,000 species a year into extinction, according to
Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson. If the U.S. is to
influence policy overseas, it will be by dint of example, not
rhetoric. Wealthy nations must check their own appetites
before asking far greater sacrifices of poorer nations.

    A relative newcomer on earth, man knows little about the
species with whom he shares the landscape. Fewer than 1.4
million of earth's tens of millions of species have been named,
much less examined for their part in making the planet more
hospitable. How then do we measure each loss or know when we
have severed a vital link with nature? Observes noted
paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould: "It would be a very bleak
world with cockroaches and dogs and not much else." The final
blessing of the Endangered Species Act is that it preserves
the elements that stir man's sense of wonder. That benefit
alone is too precious for the God Squad to barter away.