Protection for endangered species means a great deal to the Ocean Genome Legacy Center—and to the U.S. Congress, if the text of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is any indication. Polls show that more than 80 percent of Americans also support the ESA. However, a proposed change to the interpretation of one word in the ESA could undermine the enforcement of this popular act.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently proposed a narrower interpretation of “harm” in the ESA, effectively defining harm solely as direct injury to individual members of endangered species, rather than to the species themselves or their habitats. They argue that the current definition, which includes habitat protection, does not adhere to the “single best meaning of the ESA.” So, how does this change align with the stated purpose of the act? Unfortunately, not very well.

Here is what the ESA states as its purpose:

The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve purposes of [this act].

In other words, the ESA’s stated purpose is to protect species rather than individuals, and the mechanism for achieving this goal is the conservation of ecosystems. This is clearly stated in black and white.

So, where does the definition of harm come into play? The word harm is mentioned exactly three times in the ESA. It appears once in the definition of “take,” which means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct. The other two mentions are in the exceptions, where it states there is no penalty for taking an endangered species in self-defense, i.e., to prevent bodily “harm” to the taker.

But the ESA does not just forbid the taking of endangered species; it also requires their conservation. The terms conservation, conserve, and conserving appear 68 times in the ESA—a testament to the importance of this concept in the act. Here’s how the ESA defines these terms:

The terms “conserve,” “conserving,” and “conservation” mean to use and the use of all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this Act are no longer necessary. Such methods and procedures include, but are not limited to, all activities associated with scientific resources management such as research, census, law enforcement, habitat acquisition and maintenance, propagation, live trapping, and transplantation, and, in the extraordinary case where population pressures within a given ecosystem cannot be otherwise relieved, may include regulated taking.

So, the prohibition against “taking” is just one of the many ways the ESA can be enforced.

In a just world, this new, narrower definition of “harm” should not affect the enforcement of the ESA at all, since the act clearly provides many other methods of enforcement, including the protection of habitat.

Unfortunately, this is not how the law works. In practice, under this revised definition, the U.S. government can choose not to uphold the ESA’s clear purpose and can refrain from enforcing its protections, at least until the courts compel them to do so. If that happens, endangered species will be harmed by any reasonable definition of the word.