It will take Biden years to restore the wildlife protection laws that Trump canceled

The new President Biden could take a long time to restore the wildlife protections that Trump had canceled

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

Despite efforts, new President Biden may take a long time to erase the horrors and restore Trump's canceled wildlife protections. Biden has already announced that on day one of his tenure he will begin working to address Trump's changes to the Endangered Species Act and other laws.

When the president-elect walks through the door of the White House with his dog, he will inherit a Migratory Bird Treaty Act that no longer protects birds, a watered down Endangered Species Act, and a policy that allows hunters to enter Alaska to crawl into bear dens. and wolves and shoot mothers and their cubs.

And this only in the US. The Trump administration has allowed the importation of endangered elephant and rhino carcasses, as well as lions, as hunting trophies, overturning the ban on the practice enacted when Biden was Barack Obama's vice president. It is not news that Trump has weakened federal wildlife protections. What is emerging these days is that it will take years of hard work by the Biden administration to erase these horrors and protect the animals.

"For the past four years, the Trump administration has been working overtime to weaken the Endangered Species Act, ignoring warnings from scientists around the world that we are experiencing an unprecedented extinction crisis," said Noah Greenwald, director of endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity.

In addition to weakening wildlife protections, the Trump administration has not done much to mitigate climate change by favoring the oil industry. Last year, two major reports from scientists around the world supported the discovery that human activity triggered the sixth major extinction event, threatening to wipe out wildlife on a massive scale.

In May 2019, a UN group determined that 1 million species are at risk of extinction - "more than any other period in human history."
Four months later, top ornithologists from the US government and academia reported that 3 billion birds have disappeared in North America over the past 50 years. Of course, it can't just be Trump's fault but in light of this alarming data, the old administration should have done what it could to mitigate the damage. Instead it did just the opposite.

The story of Biden seems different, since as a senator he co-sponsored legislation to ban the practice of breeding animals to be killed by hunters. And in March during the Democratic presidential primary, he supported a ban on taking hunting trophies out of Africa.

"For decades, the Endangered Species Act has protected our most vulnerable wildlife from extinction," Biden said on his Facebook page. “Now, President Trump wants to throw it all away. At a time when climate change is pushing our planet to the brink, we should strengthen protections, not weaken them, ”he said.

For decades, the Endangered Species Act has protected our most vulnerable wildlife from extinction. Now, President Trump…

Posted by Joe Biden on Monday, August 12, 2019

What Biden Can Do

Biden's administration is expected to begin drafting a policy to reverse Trump's new rules the day he takes office to have the first progress in 2021. It should immediately start drafting the Endangered Species Act and the Bird Treaty, drafting a draft legal policy, submit it for public comment, then write a final draft. A process that usually takes more than a year.

Federal courts may have made Biden's job easier. Judges have repeatedly rejected Trump's environmental rules, including his recent decision not to fine private citizens and industry when they unintentionally kill huge numbers of birds. The bird treaty called on industries to cover pits for oil residues that birds confuse with bodies of water. And dozens of birds die every year after landing there.

Despite the losses in court, Trump managed to overturn at least 125 environmental regulations. Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society's Legislative Fund, said the Trump administration "has launched an all-out war on wildlife."

For years, Republicans in Congress have unsuccessfully tried to change the Endangered Species Act for the benefit of industry, ranchers, and farmers who were limited to practices that scientists considered harmful to wildlife. But the Trump administration found ways to circumvent this by introducing new rules that preserved protections for "endangered" plants and animals, but canceled them for those listed as "threatened," a less dangerous state.

Re-enter the Paris Agreement

Although it does not directly affect animals, Biden has already announced that he intends to bring the US back into the Paris climate agreement, signed during COP21.

Promises that we hope will be translated into reality.

Sources of reference: The Washington Post