If our Outlaw Prez was told that injecting pulverized\u00a0elephant trunks would speed up the extraction of coal, oil, and gas, he\u2019d subsidize poachers to kill every pachyderm in Asia and Africa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Elephants are perhaps the most iconic of the world\u2019s 16,000\u00a0species the International Union for Conservation and Nature <\/a>has listed as \u201cendangered\u201d or \u201ccritically endangered.\u201c\u00a0Of those, 1,300 live in the United States. Amid all the\u00a0other nefarious and murderous activity the Trump regime has engaged in so far in 2026, the White House on Wednesday announced the U.S. would withdraw from 66 international organizations, including the IUCN. (Here\u2019s the\u00a0White House list of all 66<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Nobody should be surprised by the withdrawal from\u00a0the International Panel on Climate Change\u00a0\u00a0or the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Trump and several members of the regime\u00a0have made clear they think they know more than the overwhelming majority of climate scientists. They\u00a0are\u00a0determined to erase data\u00a0or rewrite it to prove that \u201cclimate alarmism,\u201d as they label it, is the\u00a0\u201choax\u201d they assert. Several other international organizations that deal with climate or environmental matters are also being abandoned. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u2014taking a breather from fantasizing about doing even more to Cuba than\u00a0was done to Venezuela \u2014\u00a0called the organizations \u201cwasteful\u201d and \u201cmismanaged\u201d and, most crucially, not aligned with White House priorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n And nobody should be surprised that the IUCN found a place on the White House roster of\u00a0targets for withdrawal. After all, Trump\u2019s crew have proposed a new interpretation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act that redefines \u201charm\u201d so that habitat destruction only counts if it directly kills or injures individual animals, rather than as part of a broader ecological harm that leads to species declines. Indeed, habitat loss is the leading cause of harm to endangered species. Trump cries crocodile tears for raptors killed by wind turbine blades, but shows no mercy for wildlife when it comes to setting policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n There is a profound injustice embedded in the U.S. withdrawal. Much of the planet\u2019s remaining biodiversity exists in the Global South, often stewarded by Indigenous and local communities facing immense pressure from mining, logging, and agribusiness. Pressure that includes numerous murders of environment defenders. The IUCN has increasingly centered these communities, recognizing that conservation without justice is unsustainable. The U.S. exit\u00a0abandons not only endangered species but also people \u2014 particularly those who protect forests, wetlands, and reefs at enormous personal risk.<\/p>\n There was a moment nearly 80 years ago when humanity took stock of itself and its fellow beings on the planet and decided \u2014 however haltingly and imperfectly \u2014 to catalog, defend, and cherish the web of life that sustains all of us. In 1948, that recognition\u00a0birthed the IUCN,\u00a0a coalition of governments and civil society that functions\u00a0as the world\u2019s most rigorous ledger of species survival and loss, assembling scientists, governments, and individuals into a shared project of identifying which species are disappearing, why, and what can still be done to save them. It\u2019s\u00a0the global authority on extinction,\u00a0and that is precisely why Trump\u00a0wants nothing to do with it. He\u2019s\u00a0contemptuous of\u00a0domestic endangered species law, hostile\u00a0toward science in general, and\u00a0brazenly\u00a0allied\u00a0with extractive industries that view wildlife protections as obstacles to be bulldozed.<\/p>\n IUCN\u2019s core work is unambiguous. Via its\u00a0Red List of Threatened Species, the organization provides the scientific foundation for\u00a0species protections worldwide, assessing extinction risk using standardized criteria applied across borders and political systems. More than 169,000 species have been evaluated \u2014 mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, bugs, plants, fungi \u2014 making the Red List the single most authoritative measure of biodiversity loss on the planet. Governments use it to design laws. Courts use it to weigh evidence. Conservation funding flows from it.\u00a0IUCN does not merely document extinction.\u00a0It assigns responsibility. It identifies drivers \u2014 habitat destruction, overexploitation, pollution, invasive species \u2014 and, crucially, names the policies that accelerate or slow those forces.\u00a0For a president\u00a0allergic to accountability, that function is intolerable.\u00a0<\/p>\n The IUCN won\u2019t vanish because the U.S. leaves, but its\u00a0departure could spur other nations to withdraw as well. It\u2019s also not hyperbole to think Trump might try to intimidate or bribe other nations to withdraw.<\/p>\n We\u2019re in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. That is, we\u2019re wiping out great swaths of the other creatures and plants living with us on Earth. There is an ongoing\u00a0insect apocalypse and a bird apocalypse. Although neither the IUCN nor the Endangered Species Act have conquered extinction, they\u2019ve had tremendous positive impacts. But\u00a0at the White House there\u2019s no mercy for species on the precipice.<\/p>\n Consider the Florida panther,\u00a0a cougar whose survival depends on large, connected habitats in a state relentlessly consumed by sprawl, highways, and speculation. Federal biologists have repeatedly warned that weakening habitat protections could push the panther back toward extinction. Yet the Trump regime\u00a0systematically rolled back the\u00a0regulatory tools designed to prevent that outcome, privileging developers and road builders over one of the most endangered mammals in North America. (Full Disclosure: I am a member of the Seminole panther clan.)<\/p>\n Then there \u2018s\u00a0Chinook salmon, a keystone species for ecosystems, fisheries, and Indigenous nations across the Pacific Northwest. Salmon runs have collapsed over the decades under the weight of dams, warming rivers, and habitat destruction. Efforts by Indigenous peoples and environmental activists worked to dismantle some dams to spur a return of the salmon. And some have done so<\/a>. Trump-era agencies on the other hand repeatedly intervened to undermine protections for salmon in favor of agribusiness water deliveries and hydropower operations, even as scientists warned of irreversible population losses. When salmon disappear, entire river ecosystems unravel.\u00a0<\/p>\n IUCN\u2019s budget, roughly $200 million annually, relies heavily on government support. The United States has historically been among the most significant contributors through direct funding, project administrative support, and U.S.-based non-governmental institutional partners. Analysts consistently place U.S.-linked annual contributions\u00a0in the tens of millions of dollars per year, far from all of it government funding. Those funds support species assessments, conservation planning, and on-the-ground projects \u2014 particularly in biodiversity-rich countries that lack domestic resources to do this work alone. The\u00a0decision to pull that support is not fiscal prudence. It\u2019s ecological slaughter\u00a0via\u00a0spreadsheet.<\/p>\n Defenders of the withdrawal argue that the United States should focus on conservation at home. This argument collapses under its own weight. First, as noted, the same administration abandoning IUCN has systematically weakened endangered species protections domestically. Second, biodiversity is transboundary by definition. Migratory birds, marine species, genetic diversity, and disease dynamics do not recognize national sovereignty. Third, the U.S. itself benefits directly from IUCN science, which informs domestic wildlife management, environmental impact assessments, and species recovery plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n The deeper motive is ideological. Trumpism rejects the premise that humans owe obligations to nonhuman life unless immediate profit can be extracted. In this worldview, extinction is not a failure \u2014 it is merely the collateral damage of\u00a0success. The market decides. The bulldozer follows.<\/p>\n This posture places the United States in open opposition to the widely held scientific view\u00a0that Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction, driven overwhelmingly by human activity. IUCN\u2019s Species Survival Commission \u2014 a global network of more than 10,000 volunteer experts \u2014 exists to counter precisely this kind of willful blindness by translating data into action. Walking away from that is something the Trump regime\u00a0frames\u00a0as nationalism. It is instead abdication, sabotage. It strips the United States of moral authority, scientific credibility, and diplomatic leverage all the while\u00a0it normalizes government shrugs over extinction.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s been argued in some forums that these withdrawals\u00a0don\u2019t matter in the long run because Trump will be gone and the United States can rejoin all these organizations, the IUCN included. True enough, but the impacts of these withdrawals will cause damage that in some cases will take decades to fix. And no fixes will be coming before the White House has been fumigated in 2029, assuming Trump doesn\u2019t make himself president for life. As with so many other matters, only a\u00a0House, Senate, and White House\u00a0run by Democrats with spine can reverse all the damage of backward, counterproductive, and sometimes evil\u00a0Trumpian and Project 2025 policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n So what should\u00a0be done when there is the political clout to make it happen?<\/p>\n Congress should reclaim its constitutional role by locking in U.S. participation in core international scientific and conservation institutions, including IUCN, and barring unilateral executive withdrawals without legislative approval.<\/p>\n States, universities, tribes, and civil society organizations should deepen direct engagement with IUCN commissions, ensuring that American scientists and conservationists remain embedded in global efforts even when federal leadership collapses.<\/p>\n Americans should understand that attacks on endangered species are not symbolic. They are predictive. A government willing to erase panthers\u00a0and salmon from the map will not hesitate to sacrifice communities, workers, or futures when they stand in the way.<\/p>\n The IUCN exists to hold humanity accountable, to demand that extinction is not shrugged off as inevitable. Abandoning this institution\u00a0is declaring war on the living world, shrugging off moral responsibility, and normalizing the wholesale destruction of species for political expediency and good ol\u2019 greed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The global conservation community \u2014 from scientists and Indigenous stewards to local NGOs \u2014 can be expected to\u00a0mobilize. The IUCN\u2019s network, a 1,400-member union of governments and civil society, will still operate\u00a0without the United States. Perhaps, if good fortune smiles on us,\u00a0the next bundle of American leaders will be wiser.<\/p>\n \u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n Crossposted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places<\/a>
You can also catch me at meteorblades.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If our Outlaw Prez was told that injecting pulverized\u00a0elephant trunks would speed up the extraction of coal, oil,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-404615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}