Due to the rapid industrial development over the past 300 years, the Earth’s biodiversity has taken an extreme hit—increased pollution, resource depletion, habitat destruction, and climate change—yet many protective measures are being aggressively targeted by the current presidential administration. Over the past few weeks, President Donald Trump has attempted to modify the Endangered Species Act based on individual interpretation rather than the existing written word.
Although I do not believe in textualism, it is inconsistent to utilize the method with certain legislation and not others. Republicans tend to utilize century-old statutes to accommodate rapidly changing modern weaponry, yet they don’t want to hold environmental legislation to the same standards.
President Donald Trump’s administration has made it clear that the environment is of little importance; they frame ecological protection as a hindrance to our country’s economic development. From dismantling national parks and increasing logging to loosening protections on endangered species and halting renewable energy production, Trump has enabled destruction on all fronts.
Our current presidential administration’s move to repeal policy conservation efforts is an attack on ecosystems across the country. From the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone Park or Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, citizens and foreign travelers alike flock to American landscapes. These currently protected parks could be stripped of resources due to capitalistic greed. We must preserve the shape of this nation, and conservation efforts must persist.
American conservation efforts can be very effective in reviving species in danger of extinction. One species long associated with the U.S. was removed from the endangered species list in 2007 due to successful conservation efforts. The bald eagle has been a prominent symbol of American freedom and independence since 1782, when it was designated as the national bird. This is just one of the many success stories from the U.S. endangered species list. These success stories are truly a testament to the necessity of maintaining a broad list of species in the interest of their conservation. With such a deep-rooted legacy, one would expect traditional nationalists to champion the protection of animals such as the eagle rather than enable their extinction, turning them into mythical creatures like the dodo bird.
Like the shifts in policy toward conservation efforts, the timber shortage is yet another issue that is being mismanaged. Increasing logging on protected lands is not the solution. There are countless reasons why it’s unfeasible—from a lack of expertise in sustainable forestry, to legal barriers, worker shortages, sawmill closures, and infrastructure inefficiencies, and the lack of investments into sawmills from private investors. Despite Trump thinking that his executive order, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” may be a good idea, it is neither practical nor sustainable. This proposal claims that logging would decrease wildfires, when in reality, it only increases the severity.
If logging on federal lands were to occur, it would have drastic repercussions: removal of critical habitats for endangered species, loss of biodiversity, increased risks of wildfires, disruption of carbon sequestration, increased soil erosion, reduced water quality, and changes to local microclimates.
Not only are habitats being attacked by logging, but they are also being threatened by Trump’s proposal to redefine “harm” in environmental legislation. Currently, habitat destruction is covered under the umbrella of “harm.” The proposed edit aims to rescind this current definition by claiming “the existing regulatory definition of ‘harm,’ which includes habitat modification, runs contrary to the best meaning of the statutory term ‘take’” in the ESA. Under Trump’s redefinition, habitat loss—the largest contributor to species extinction and endangerment—would not count as harm.
Rather than reducing the ESA to the definition of “take,” as the actual ‘taking’ of species is less common than it used to be due to industrialization, instead, I propose we expand the ESA to increase land usage and destruction regulations. Although the current ESA definition of “harm” includes habitat conservation and aims to prevent habitat devastation, thrifty individuals often find ways around this extension of “harm,” making minor adjustments to their plans, thereby minimizing the impact on endangered species rather than halting the project altogether.
As difficult as it may be, what might be best for the planet is a return to our roots. As hominins evolved eventually leading to the rise of Homo sapiens, we were living in social groups of around 30 people where everyone knew one another as hunter-gatherers. Some groups, like the Hadza in Tanzania, still live like this today. Although the lifestyle is not as comfortable and the rate of mortality is higher, there are many benefits, including less metabolic disease and minimal destruction to the environment.
Although this might seem impossible, this would provide us with the checks and balances of fairer treatment towards one another, preventing repercussions, including being exiled from one’s group. As we evolved and moved across environments, our resources and food opportunities changed, along with the advancement of fire, which resulted in increased meat consumption. To optimize hunting, individuals had to work together, increasing both our socialization and cooperation abilities. As a result, it was evolutionarily beneficial to work together and have good social relationships with each other and the environment. Now, there is a shift, at least in the industrialized world, from group to individual efforts. This difference, I believe, is due to the ego we have either acquired or built. Put simply, the industrial world rejects the idea of cohesion between humans and nature.
All this being said, scientists and researchers would not be as successful without our technological advancements. Vehicles allowing archeologists the ability to travel to and excavate sites at locations have led to optimal preservational conditions, safer archaeological digging, and isotypic analysis technology. This has furthered our knowledge of our evolutionary history and given us a better understanding of ourselves and ancestors. Despite all the technological benefits and necessary advancements to advance our understanding of our natural world and past, I believe there is more we could be doing to be more sustainable and lessen our impacts on the environment and species that inhabit it.
Our intelligence has given us both the capacity for destruction and the potential for empathy, creativity, and cooperation. It is precisely because of this that it is our responsibility to do better. With conservation efforts and legislation like the ESA, species, like our beloved Bald Eagle, have been brought back from the brink of extinction, and successful climate policies have shown that positive change is possible when we do our due diligence and take responsibility for our actions. The duality of human impact on the environment—our capacity to destroy and to preserve—should drive us to make choices that better the livelihood of all species and not just our own.
After all, much like the freedom and lack of limitations the Bald Eagle represents, Earth has the freedom to sustain itself without us, but we cannot sustain ourselves without the Earth. As we observed with the COVID-19 pandemic, with minimal human activity, the environment can heal itself. During this time, we saw a resurgence in biodiversity and clearer waters, seen through the return of dolphins and swans to the Venice canals. However, if we push too many species to extinction, the biological food chain and its systems will be severely disrupted, inadvertently causing a chain reaction of extinction. Despite being a product of Mother Nature ourselves, the human race is her biggest threat. No matter how small a change you think you can make, any positive change is better than doing nothing at all to help the future generations of both our species and others.
Katie Merriam ’26 (kmerriam@college.harvard.edu) wishes people cared about animals and the environment as much as they do about money and status.