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Although the Office of Pesticide Programs has included endangered species considerations in its risk assessments for many years, the Endangered Species Protection Program (ESPP), as an entity, started in 1988. It is largely voluntary at the present time and relies on cooperation between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), EPA Regions, States, and pesticide users. ESPP is located in the Field and External Affairs Division (FEAD) of the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP). The information at this site is similar to what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expects to distribute once our Endangered Species Protection Program is in effect. The limitations on pesticide use are not law at this time, but are being provided now for your use in voluntarily protecting endangered species from harm due to pesticide use. We encourage you to use this information. We also welcome your comments. The Endangered Species Act is intended to protect and promote the recovery of animals and plants that are in danger of becoming extinct due to the activities of people. Under the Act, EPA must ensure that use of pesticides it registers will not result in harm to the species listed as endangered and threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or to habitat critical to those species' survival. To implement the Endangered Species Protection Program, labels of certain pesticides will direct users to bulletins with information similar to what appears here. This program will protect endangered and threatened species from harm due to pesticide use. ESPP has two goals:
Protection of endangered and threatened species In order to protect listed species from detrimental effects from the use of pesticides, we do the following:
Minimizing the impact on pesticide users We cannot adequately protect endangered species without having some impact on pesticide users. In order to minimize the impact, we try to assist users in dealing with the impacts of the program. Some of the things we try to do are:
The Program has come a long way since 1988 and we hope it will continue to evolve so that endangered and threatened species will be protected in areas where pesticides are in use and that this protection will be accomplished with a minimal impact on pesticide users. These questions and answers on the endangered species program were prepared in 1999 for a national workshop on endangered species.
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