Now that Donald Trump has reassumed the presidency of the United States, scientists and legal scholars are bracing for his potential dismantling of a host of the country’s most pivotal environmental and conservation-oriented policies. One of those, among many, is the Endangered Species Act.
Approved by Congress in 1973, the ESA directs the management of threatened and endangered species and has been a cornerstone of conservation in the United States. “It’s an incredibly powerful statute and among the strongest wildlife protection laws in the world,” says Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School in South Royalton.