Biological Diversity and the States: Implementing the Biodiversity Convention in the USA

Abstract

"The protection of species and their ecosystems has become an issue of international importance. Although several other treaties address issues of wildlife management in a piecemeal fashion, the Biodiversity Convention, opened for signature at the 1992 Rio Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), is the first to establish substantial expectations that signatory nations will protect species diversity regardless of species rarity or economic value. The institutional and ecological implications of managing wildlife as a common pool resource has finally reached the national and international policy agendas.

"Most nations which are organized into federal systems implement their treaties either through federal legislation which is binding upon their constituent parts or through recognition by the central government of state laws as sufficient for treaty compliance (M. Chandler 1993, 156-157). The United States policy is that treaty obligations are implemented primarily through federal legislation. However, under the U. S. Constitution, some policy issues are within the constitutional purview of the states rather than the national government, and treaties which address such issues generate legal and constitutional difficulties during implementation (M. Chandler, 155).

"While in theory the power of the federal government over wildlife is considerable, in practice the states have been allowed a great deal of latitude in regulating wildlife. Several factors affect the rate and effectiveness of state implementation strategies: the compliance mechanisms chosen by the federal government, the institutional relationships already in place for intergovernmental cooperation, and the organizational structures of the states' wildlife management systems. This paper analyzes the cooperative strategies for wildlife management which have evolved between American federal and state governments and examines possible state-level institutional change which would enhance national response to any new treaty obligations under the Biodiversity Convention."