Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, USA.
Conserv Biol. 2024 Apr;38(2):e14200. doi: 10.1111/cobi.14200. Epub 2024 Feb 11.
Preemptive conservation efforts to reduce threats have been credited with precluding the need to list some imperiled species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). Such efforts can result in outcomes where species are conserved and regulatory costs associated with ESA listing are avoided. Yet, the extent and type of conservation effort involved in achieving preclusion from listing are not well understood. We quantified the attributes of conservation efforts identified as important for 43 species whose preclusion from listing was attributed to conservation efforts, as described in U.S. Federal Register documents that report the decisions not to list. We considered 2 features of preemptive conservation: effort applied (measured as the number of conservation initiatives) and number of conservation partners involved. We also quantified the type and location of conservation actions. We found a mean of 4.3 initiatives (range 1-22) and 8.2 partners (range 1-31) documented per precluded species; both measures of conservation effort were significantly and positively associated with the species' range area and the proportion of private land across its range. The number of initiatives was also positively related to the number of threats affecting a species. Locations of conservation actions varied; more species had actions on public land than on private land (p = 0.003). Numbers of species with restorative actions (e.g., invasive species control) were similar to numbers with prohibitive actions. Our findings highlight relationships between species' context and preemptive conservation activities, providing a first cross-species analysis of conservation efforts for species that were precluded from listing under the ESA due to conservation.
预防性保护措施被认为可以减少威胁，从而避免某些濒危物种被列入美国濒危物种法案（ESA）。这些努力可以实现物种保护，并避免与 ESA 列入相关的监管成本。然而，实现免于列入名单的预防性保护措施的程度和类型尚不清楚。我们量化了在联邦登记册文件中被确定为对 43 种免于列入名单的物种的保护措施的重要属性，这些物种的免于列入名单归因于保护措施。我们考虑了预防性保护的两个特征：应用的努力（以保护倡议的数量衡量）和参与的保护伙伴数量。我们还量化了保护行动的类型和地点。我们发现，每个被排除的物种平均有 4.3 项举措（范围 1-22）和 8.2 个伙伴（范围 1-31）；这两个保护措施的衡量标准都与物种的分布范围面积和分布范围内私人土地的比例呈显著正相关。倡议的数量也与影响物种的威胁数量呈正相关。保护行动的地点各不相同；更多的物种在公有土地上采取行动，而不是在私有土地上（p=0.003）。具有恢复性行动（例如，控制入侵物种）的物种数量与具有禁止性行动的物种数量相似。我们的研究结果强调了物种背景与预防性保护活动之间的关系，为由于保护而被列入 ESA 的物种的保护措施提供了首次跨物种分析。
