[Coral-List] Impact of listing 66 coral species on coral research

[Shortfin Mako Shark]

Eugene et al.
 
You are correct, no such plan exists for Acropora. The Act requires agencies to designate critical habitat and implement recovery plans. However,according to the CBD only 45 percent of listed species have designated critical habitat. The agency has recently begun to designate critical habitat concurrently with listing of species (NOAA GC directs its staff to follow this guidance), as required by the law, but recovery plans are somewhat controversial. In fact, NMFS and FWS interpret the ESA somewhat differently. The ESA instructs federal agencies to implement” recovery plans, but the FWS has repeatedly maintained that recovery plans are not regulatory and instead are merely guidance documents. Interestingly, the agency has recently taken a stance to delisted species that have not met the criteria specified in the recovery plan (e.g. FWS 2008). In addition, recovery plans are designed not only with specific recovery goals associated with time-lines,
 but they need to be reviewed and updated on a regular basis; I believe every five years. The ESA is a management tool, but I would suspect that most of the policy folks want it revised. The Act is among the most difficult to implement and many question whether the process is sucessful at recovering and de-listing species. 
 
 
 
 
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From: Eugene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
>To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov 
>Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 12:35 PM
>Subject: [Coral-List] Impact of listing 66 coral species on coral research
>
>Thanks (shortfin_mako_shark at yahoo..com) for explaining Section 4 of 
>the ESA Act. So when was Acropora put on the list? Has a recovery 
>plan been enacted? NMFS did designate a "critical habitat" for 
>Acropora. It includes large areas where Acropora never did exist. (I 
>was excluded from the team that made the designation) I am not aware 
>of a plan to save it from extinction. Gene
>-- 
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>No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
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>University of South Florida
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