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Anti-conservation incentives: the Endangered Species Act is endangering species.

Article Excerpt
In early 2006, landowners in Boiling Springs Lakes, N.C., began clear-cutting timber from their property after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that development could threaten local red-cockaded woodpecker populations. The FWS released a map showing clusters of the woodpecker in the area and announced plans to identify additional habitat for the endangered bird. That prompted landowners to grab their chainsaws to clear their property of the trees in which the woodpeckers make their homes before their land could be designated as endangered species habitat.

Residents of Boiling Springs Lakes are not anti-environmental or particularly hostile to endangered birds. Red-cockaded woodpeckers have thrived there for years. "People are just afraid a bird might fly in and make a nest and their property is worth nothing," Boiling Springs Lakes mayor Joan Kinney told local papers. "It is causing a tremendous amount of clear-cutting." As one local resident told a reporter, "You had to get in line to get somebody with a chain saw.... I have not a single pine tree left. Folks around here are terrified of the prospect of losing their property. That causes people to get out there and find out what they can do to protect themselves." In just eight months, the city issued 368 logging permits but few building permits, leaving many empty lots throughout the area.

The rampant clear-cutting in Boiling Springs Lakes was a predictable, if highly regrettable, consequence of the economic incentives the Endangered Species Act (ESA) creates for private landowners. Under Section 9 of the act, it is illegal for a private landowner to engage in activities that could "harm" an endangered species, including habitat modification, without first obtaining a federal permit. Knowing violations can lead to fines of up to $25,000 and even jail time. As a practical matter, the law requires private landowners to obtain permission from the FWS before modifying endangered species habitat on their own land. However, it is not illegal to modify land that might become endangered species habitat some day in the future, nor are landowners required to take affirmative steps to maintain endangered species habitat. So, in Boiling Springs Lakes as elsewhere, landowners seek to avoid the burden of the ESA by eliminating potential species habitat on their land.

ANECDOTES AND DATA

Economists have been critical of the ESA's perverse incentives for years. In the most basic terms, the act penalizes and thus discourages the creation...

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