Laura A. Watt, Leigh Raymond, and Meryl L. Eschen

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Laura A. Watt, Leigh Raymond, and Meryl L. Eschen | Reflections: On Preserving Ecological and Cultural Landscapes | Environmental History, 9.4 | The History Cooperative

Reflections: On Preserving Ecological and Cultural Landscapes

"[The purpose of this law is] to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved." Endangered Species Act of 1973, Section 2(b)

"The historical and cultural foundations of the Nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people." National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, Section 1(b)(2) (Emphasis added in both quotes.)

HISTORIC PRESERVATION and protection of endangered species are rarely discussed in the same circles. Each policy is guided by a distinct legal structure based on different laws: the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966. The two statutes do not seem at first glance to have much in common. The ESA addresses concerns regarding biodiversity and extinction while the NHPA seeks to protect distinctive elements of the nation's cultural past. Preventing the extinction of the California condor, in other words, seems quite different from creating a historic district of old Victorian houses.

Despite this contrast, we argue in this essay that the ESA and the NHPA have evolved historically with some striking similarities. Both laws are morally driven preservation statutes seeking to protect rare and distinctive entities threatened by human development. Both offer protection only to a narrow list of individually registered species or historically significant buildings and sites. Yet both originally aspired to much broader preservation goals, as the passages quoted at the beginning of this essay indicate. The ESA is fundamentally aimed at protecting ecosystems, not just single species, and the NHPA ultimately seeks to preserve dynamic systems of place and community, rather than just individual buildings or structures. Both laws initially recognized that neither zoos nor museums are sufficient answers to preservation dilemmas, and in practice they have increasingly attempted to protect resources at a landscape scale.

The two laws seek those similar goals in different ways. The ESA relies on threats of coercion to motivate private property owners to cooperate with habitat protection efforts, for example, while the NHPA primarily employs incentives for preservation. Listing remains a voluntary choice for historic building owners, while many species are listed despite significant protests by affected commercial interests. Yet neither law fully succeeded in preserving at a landscape scale. The ESA has made greater progress, primarily through the innovation of habitat conservation plans (HCPs). But both laws are criticized for numerous shortcomings, including the tendency to preserve either human or ecological resources in a fragmented manner, and to "freeze" formerly vibrant, dynamic landscapes in time. In sum, the statutes continue to fall short of their original mandates to preserve large-scale, integrated landscapes.

In this essay, we present a brief history of these parallel struggles to preserve resources at a landscape level. Through this comparative approach, we hope to stimulate new ideas on landscape preservation that might be less obvious in one setting or the other alone. Many of these ideas are sparked directly by the differences in the design and implementation of each statute. But while such contrasts are intriguing, the similarity of the struggle in two very different contexts leads us to our primary conclusion: There is a fundamental disconnect between current ideas about preservation, which rely on a broad, systems-based understanding of natural and cultural landscapes, and the narrower list-based legal mechanisms with which we have tried to achieve those preservation goals. Yet large-scale preservation remains a worthy goal.

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