Re[2]: Resolution on Endangered Species

angela_kantola@mail.fws.gov
Mon, 04 Mar 96 11:43:34 MST

Mike Jaqua asks: "Has the Christian Environmental Council of the Evangelical
Environmental Network considered the damage the Endangered Species Act has done
to private property rights in this country? ...the Endangered Species Act has
gone way too far in promoting the rights" of animals over the rights of man.

I'd like to offer a couple of brief thoughts on Mike's comments. First, I hope
we would seek the truth about what the _real_ impacts of the Act have been.
Second, I hope we would take a prayerful, careful approach to what property
"rights" should mean for us as believers.

1. Mike's characterization of the impacts of the Act is a common misconception,
and one which unfortunately been widely spread by "property rights" groups in
this country. In consulting on projects reviewed under Section 7 of the Act,
from 1987 - 1991, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine
Fisheries Services completed:

16,161 informal consultations.

2,050 formal consultations.
181 (9% of formal consultations) contained jeopardy biological
opinions.

Of the 181 jeopardy biological opinions, the Services identified reasonable and
prudent alternatives for all but 23 projects (i.e. the Services permitted 99.9%
of all projects they reviewed).

2. I think Scripture makes it pretty clear that we don't really "own" anything,
but rather, are stewards acting in God's behalf. Clearly this should affect our
thinking about any property we "own."

Food for thought and prayer, anyway.

+++++++++++++++++

Angela T. Kantola

"As long as we worship at the altar of individual self-fulfillment, personal
freedom, and material success, we will be good stewards of nothing but our own
shortsighted selfishness.