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Finding Flexibility in Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act Through Adaptive Governance

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Practical Panarchy for Adaptive Water Governance

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Abstract

The US Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibits federal agency actions likely to jeopardize listed species or adversely modify critical habitat. Scholarship on the application of the ESA characterizes the process as unwaveringly rigid, a legal “hammer.” This chapter draws on lessons derived from applying the ESA in the Klamath Basin along the Oregon-California border, where an integrated implementation strategy lessened rigidities and barriers to change. Collaboration among leaders in the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the US Bureau of Reclamation supported efforts to replace an ecologically and socially fragmented approach to ESA implementation that was fraught with conflict with a more adaptive, flexible, integrated approach to water sharing among competing interests. Keys to success included existing collaborative capacity related to improved tribal-irrigator relations and a shift in local agency culture facilitated by empathic leadership which led to a greater sense of shared responsibility for ESA compliance. This effort exemplifies governmental adaptive capacity for flexibility and evolution within constraints of formal law. A truly bioregional approach to endangered species recovery, however, will necessitate greater integration between federal and nonfederal activities.

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Acknowledgment

This work was developed in part under the Adaptive Water Governance Project, funded by the US National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding from the US National Science Foundation, NSF DBI-1052875.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Hannah Gosnell & Alan Devenish

  2. W. A. Frank College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

    Brian C. Chaffin

  3. Vanderbilt University Law School, Nashville, TN, USA

    J. B. Ruhl

  4. Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Craig A. (Tony) Arnold

  5. S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Robin K. Craig

  6. Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WYO, USA

    Melinda H. Benson

Authors
  1. Hannah Gosnell
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  2. Brian C. Chaffin
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  3. J. B. Ruhl
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  4. Craig A. (Tony) Arnold
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  5. Robin K. Craig
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  6. Melinda H. Benson
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  7. Alan Devenish
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hannah Gosnell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Law and Waters of the West Program, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, USA

    Barbara Cosens

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Lance Gunderson

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Gosnell, H. et al. (2018). Finding Flexibility in Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act Through Adaptive Governance. In: Cosens, B., Gunderson, L. (eds) Practical Panarchy for Adaptive Water Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72472-0_12

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