On July 10, the Trump administration announced a major change to the Endangered Species Act: revising the “regulatory definition of ‘harm'” to exclude “modification or degradation” of a habitat. Previously, inclusion of such actions protected land inhabitant and endangered species from activity such as development or extraction. The change will go into effect on Sept. 14.
Habitat loss is the most direct “threat to the survival of wildlife in the United States,” according to the National Wildlife Foundation. This year, 32.3% of New Hampshire’s land is either under “public ownership or permanently protected,” meaning that it is either state or federally owned or protected privately, such as through a conservation easement. 44.4% of that land is federal, according to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, meaning that it is subject to the ESA change. New Hampshire is also home to 30 endangered species.
Environmental studies professor Christopher Sneddon said that, “from an ecological perspective,” the removal of habitat destruction from the regulatory definition of harm is “ridiculous” and will have a “huge impact” on endangered species. The change “opens up” federally owned land in New Hampshire and Vermont, including the Green and White Mountains, to development that may be “harmful to the ecological function of those forests,” he added.
“It just increases the vulnerability of some of those species that are trying to sustain for a whole variety of reasons, economic, ethical and ecological,” he explained.
Several environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, have already taken joint legal action by suing the Trump administration, according to Earthjustice, an environmental law firm representing the groups. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the Squaxin Island Tribe in Washington have also filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the federal government against the administration in response.
Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests public policy director Matt Leahy said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the “overarching concern” of the act’s change is that it “ignore[s]” the importance of habitats for endangered species.
“Habitat is critical to wildlife species. They need places to be, so to speak,” Leahy said. “This rule makes it perhaps easier to pave over ecologically important areas without doing something to minimize those effects or maybe try to avoid them altogether.”
Leahy said that he believes the Endangered Species Act — first passed in 1973 — has “generated opposition” from people who view it as “a barrier to doing different types of development activities” and explained that losing protected land means the state will “likely lose the species that we’re trying to protect.”
Sneddon added that when thinking about the Endangered Species Act, “charismatic animals” are often the “focus,” but he emphasized the impact on lesser known species as well.
“In terms of endangered plants, fungi, invertebrates, all of those things are going to be enormously affected if it suddenly becomes easier to alter or destroy habitat,” he said.
In an email statement to The Dartmouth, New Hampshire Nature Conservancy policy and external affairs senior director Jim O’Brien wrote that state agencies “are developing” the Threatened and Endangered Species Mitigation Program, that will “require impacts to rare species and habitat to be avoided and minimized before mitigation is considered.”
“While state programs cannot fully replace the role of the federal Endangered Species Act, New Hampshire has an opportunity to demonstrate leadership by ensuring that development, conservation and economic growth can proceed in a way that sustains the wildlife and natural communities that make our state unique,” he wrote.
Vermont Law & Graduate School environmental law professor Christophe Courchesne said that while New Hampshire law “protects certain species,” state agencies are “oftentimes relying on federal science and federal decisions” when making laws that relate to “protecting species habitat and other indirect impacts” of activity.
“I think if you're in a state project in New Hampshire, there's now a pretty meaningful risk that any you know sort of state law protections do get watered down as a result of the federal changes,” he said.
Courchesne said that the definition change “limit[s] the scope” of protection the Endangered Species Act provides.
“I certainly suggest that if there are opportunities for the administration to change those protections, change those plans, change those provisions of various permits and authorization to limit protection, that they will do so using this justification,” Courchesne said.
Courchesne added that the change is a “standing attack on a native species” and is “devastating.”
“It is a real abandonment of the scientific need to protect these species’ habitats,” he explained. “It’s a real blundering of the process in a way that is deeply inconsistent with the science.”
Eliza Dorton '29 is a reporter from Washington, D.C. and is studying English and public policy. Outside the classroom, she enjoys reading and going on walks.
