The Political Economy of Endangered Species Conservation

The Political Economy of Endangered Species Consveration Jay O'Laughlin University of Idaho One of the many definitions of politics is the authoritative allocation of values (Easton 1953). Economics is concerned with the allocation of scarce resources (Samuelson 1976). Combining these definitions, political economy is the authoritative allocation of scarce resources based on values. Environmental issues are subjects of disagreement arising from different perspectives and values. Recognition of these differences reveals choices for resolving issues and their allocation implications, such as who gets the benefits, and who pays the costs. The question policy-makers face is how a representative set of values can be integrated into environmental policy decisions. The conservation of species threatened or endangered by extinction is an example of a policy choice where contending values have been politically allocated. The remainder of this paper is based on a slide presentation, and in place attempts to describe copyrighted images such as political cartoons and the covers of books and magazines. Economic Activity and Biodiversity Conservation As the book titled Saving All the Parts: Reconciling Economics and the Endangered Species Act (Barker 1993) implies, the policy choice mechanisms in the ESA reconcile economic issues in favor of saving protected species, with almost no consideration of economic consequences. The ESA begins with a statement about economics: The Congress finds and declares that ... various species of fish, wildlife and plants have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation. (ESA sec.2). The law is designed to redress the perceived imbalance between economic activity and species conservation. The goal of the ESA is conserving biological diversity, which in its simplest terms is the variety of life and its processes, including the variety of living things, the genetic differences among them, and the communities and ecosystems in which they occur (Keystone Center 1991). Although there are other laws focused on specific organisms, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, or specific places, such as the National Forest Management Act of 1976, the ESA is the only cross-cutting law for protecting all biodiversity, everywhere that it is imperiled. Along with the