Action Alerts

We must restore threatened and endangered species and their habitats to vibrant health

What's At Stake

The globe is experiencing a biodiversity crisis that threatens to unravel the very fabric of life as we know it. Species ranging from wildflowers to wolves, butterflies to blue whales, and corals to condors face mounting challenges to their survival. It does not have to be this way. The Endangered Species Act gives us the tools to help these species survive, and to recover them to healthy numbers. But we must put those tools to work now.

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We need to urge the Biden administration to strengthen Endangered Species Act regulations to achieve the law’s ultimate purpose: to restore threatened and endangered species and their habitats to vibrant health.

Coral reefs are a prime example of species and habitats that require urgent, bold action under the Endangered Species Act. Coral reefs around the world are at risk of ecological collapse. Across the U.S. and beyond, coral reefs have declined dramatically, largely due to climate change, ocean acidification, pollution, coastal development, and unsustainable fishing activities.

A healthy coral reef provides habitat to over a quarter of all marine species on Earth, protects coastlines from getting battered by storms, and provides cultural, subsistence, scientific, economic, and recreational value for coastal communities and their visitors. The fates of corals and humans are intertwined. Corals provide the highest biodiversity of any global ecosystem and are among the Earth’s most threatened.

Saving corals and other threatened species begins with stopping further harm. One way the Endangered Species Act does this is by allowing federal wildlife agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to prohibit intentionally harming or buying and selling threatened species. While the Fish and Wildlife Service chose to enact blanket protections for threatened species decades ago, NMFS has yet to take this crucial step to protect the marine species it’s charged with conserving. That means more than two dozen shark, fish, and 20 coral species, are languishing without meaningful protections from some of the same threats that caused them to be listed in the first place.

Without a blanket rule, corals and other threatened marine species could slide towards extinction while the NMFS determines a specific set of protections for each individual species. The Biden administration must act with the urgency this crisis requires, and institute blanket protections to preserve our precious ocean heritage and ensure that no threatened species are left without safeguards.

The job does not end with stopping harm, however. The ultimate purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to recover all threatened and endangered species to healthy abundance. The law requires all federal agencies to proactively help listed species recover. But this far-reaching, positive aspect of the law has never been fully implemented.

We’re asking the Biden administration to fulfill the full promise of the Act and direct federal agencies to create concrete programs to boost the health of listed species and the habitats they — and we — depend on.

Orange coral, looking like a tree branch, growing in blue water with fish swimming nearby.
Staghorn coral at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park near Key Largo, Florida. (Rolf von Riedmatten / Getty Images)

Delivery to Biden Administration

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

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Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

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Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

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If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

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It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.