HAGÅTÑA, Guam— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed critical habitat protections for dozens of rare species across Micronesia but failed to safeguard areas of essential habitat on U.S. military lands in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The agency’s decision exempts military installations from critical habitat designation under the Endangered Species Act. It relies instead on internal management plans under the Sikes Act that conservationists say lack enforceable protections and fail to ensure the conservation of the species.

Under a 2022 legal agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity, the Service was required to finally designate critical habitat for species protected as endangered or threatened in 2015, instead of relying on the Sikes Act.

“These species were already pushed to the brink, and the federal government just chose to leave some of their most important habitat unprotected,” said Maxx Phillips, Hawai‘i and Pacific Islands director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Fish and Wildlife Service can’t claim to be serious about preventing extinction while carving out massive loopholes for the military. If we’re going to save these species, we need real habitat protections everywhere they still survive, including on federal lands.”

The Service’s proposed exemption addresses 19 species and more than 18,000 acres across Guam and Tinian, including rare animals and plants found nowhere else on Earth. These animals and plants face mounting threats from habitat destruction, invasive species, development and climate change, along with military expansion and training activities associated with the relocation of thousands of U.S. Marines from Okinawa. Many of these species survive in small, fragmented populations, making the protection of all remaining habitat essential for their survival and recovery.

The decision to exclude military lands ignores the reality that many of the species’ remaining populations occur on or near U.S. Department of Defense property. It also fails to demonstrate that military management plans provide conservation benefits equivalent to critical habitat protections, as required under the Endangered Species Act.

“The federal government’s refusal to designate critical habitat on military lands is yet another example of this country’s penchant of placing the military industrial complex above everything else,” said Julian Aguon, human rights attorney with Blue Ocean Law. “These species are part of the living heritage of our islands. When they disappear, we lose irreplaceable pieces of our ecosystems and our culture. And we have already lost so much, including so many of our cultural practitioners, those who love these lands and have spent their lives caring for them, people like the late Auntie Frances Cabrera Meno, who was a part of this case from the beginning.”

Under the Endangered Species Act, critical habitat protection is one of the law’s most powerful tools for preventing extinction. Federal agencies must avoid actions that destroy or harm these protected areas. Studies have shown that endangered species with protected critical habitat are far more likely to recover than those without it.

The Service’s reliance on military management plans instead of formal critical habitat protections leaves these species vulnerable.

The rule also designates far less habitat than is necessary to support the recovery of these species and appears to focus primarily on areas of current occupancy rather than identifying additional habitat needed for long-term survival. Scientists have emphasized that many of these species will require expanded and connected habitat to recover, particularly as climate change intensifies threats such as stronger storms, drought and shifting ecosystems across the islands.

“Critical habitat protections exist precisely to ensure federal agencies can’t destroy the natural places that endangered animals and plants depend on,” said Phillips. “Allowing the military to police itself undermines the entire purpose of the Endangered Species Act.”

In 2004 the Service excluded more than 17,000 acres of essential habitat for sihek (Guam kingfisher) and fanihi (Mariana fruit bat) based on a promise by the U.S. Navy to protect many of these acres as the Guam National Wildlife Refuge and to remove brown tree snakes and to develop a fruit bat colony protection plan.

Instead, the Navy destroyed essential habitat in the refuge to build Camp Blaz, has made little progress removing brown tree snakes and the last bat colony disappeared years ago.

Today’s decision repeats those same mistakes by relying on unenforceable plans while failing to protect the full extent of habitat these species need to survive.

The Center and its partners are reviewing today’s decision and considering next steps.

Background

In 2021 the Center filed a legal challenge after the Service failed for years to designate critical habitat for species that were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 2015. A legal settlement required the agency to complete the long overdue protections.

The species live across Guam and the Mariana Islands and include animals such as the Pacific sheath-tailed bat, Slevin’s skink and the Mariana eight-spot butterfly, along with numerous rare plants. Many have extremely small populations and limited ranges, making habitat protection essential for their survival.

Scientists warn that the islands are experiencing an accelerating extinction crisis as habitat loss, invasive species and climate change intensify.