Revised Endangered Species Act Strengthens Regulatory Certainty for Forest Landowners

Washington, D.C. – The Forest Landowners Association (FLA) applauds the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) proposed rule revisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to provide greater regulatory certainty for private forest landowners. The four proposed revisions include:

• Listing and critical habitat: Restoring the 2019 rules for listing, delisting, and critical habitat determinations, ensuring decisions use the best available science, consider economic impacts, and clarify processes for unoccupied habitat and the “foreseeable future.”
• Interagency cooperation: Reinstating the 2019 consultation framework, restoring definitions, removing 2024 offset provisions, and aligning section 7 procedures with statutory text in response to the Loper Bright decision.
• Threatened species protections: Eliminating the “blanket rule” and requiring species-specific 4(d) rules to ensure protections are tailored, necessary, and consistent with statutory requirements.
• Critical habitat exclusions: Reinstating the 2020 framework for weighing economic, national security, and other impacts in critical habitat exclusions to provide transparency and predictability while safeguarding species.

Through these changes, USFWS Director Brian Nesvik, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and the Trump administration recognize the vital role private working forests play in providing clean air, safe drinking water, diverse wildlife habitat, and supporting rural economies.

For years, FLA has stressed that the Endangered Species Act must work with landowners, not against them, to achieve meaningful conservation outcomes. More than two-thirds of at-risk and listed species rely on private lands. Effective conservation requires policies that recognize the critical role that family forest landowners play in maintaining healthy habitats, supporting wildlife recovery, and sustaining the domestic timber supply.

“These revisions recognize the stewardship private forest landowners have provided for generations,” said Scott Jones, CEO of the Forest Landowners Association. “By treating landowners as partners, the Administration gives them the clarity and confidence to continue practices that keep working forests healthy, productive, and essential for conservation.”

FLA will continue working with the USFWS, Congress, and partner organizations to ensure ESA implementation reflects real-world stewardship practices and recognizes family forest landowners as essential contributors to species recovery and habitat management.

Learn more about the revisions in the Department of Interior’s press release.