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Forty years ago in America, it was a different time.
A Republican president, Richard Nixon, sent a special message to Congress in early 1972, outlining the need for comprehensive protection of the environment. "This is the environmental awakening," he wrote. One of Mr. Nixon's many goals was to address endangered species and "permit protective measures to be undertaken before a species is so depleted that regeneration is difficult or impossible."
Incredibly, in light of what we see in Washington today, a Democratic-controlled Congress passed legislation, and on Dec. 28, 1973, Mr. Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act.
Over the intervening 40 years, there have been highs and lows.
Many of those highs are related to species we enjoy here in Florida.
The bald eagle and the brown pelican came back from the brink of oblivion. That was largely due to the banning of DDT, but other protections under Endangered Species Act aided their recovery. The peregrine falcon was de-listed in 1994.
The alligator came back so strongly that some might now consider it a nuisance.
The Florida panther, reduced to about 30 to 50 adults, has started to extend its range again. The key deer, down to a couple dozen individuals, has spread across many islands in the keys. The manatee population has almost doubled since the early 1990s.
Then there have been lows. Government has engaged in well-publicized fights over animals such as the spotted owl in the Northwest and the snail darter fish in Tennessee. Embattled loggers, cattle growers, landowners and others point to these as examples of an overzealous government supporting an unreasonable law.
Now, there is a serious threat to the Endangered Species Act.
The Endangered Species Management Self-Determination Act (Senate Bill 1731), introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., would hand more of the decision-making on endangered species to the states. Each new listing of an endangered species would require a joint resolution of Congress as well as approval of the governors in states affected. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would have to pay landowners more than the market value of their land if its value was reduced by an endangered-species listing. The Fish and Wildlife service would be barred from managing or monitoring species that occur only within one state.
Translation: Economics would gain the upper hand over species protection.
In Florida, we care about the environment because we see every day how important it is in our lives - and even in supporting our economy. Let's hope the nation's lawmakers continue to see the value of a law that, 40 years ago, changed the way we look at the plants and animals that share this Earth with us.