The State Wildlife Grant Program: Measuring the Public Value of a Proactive Conservation Program

Abstract

Abstract The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's State Wildlife Grant (SWG) Program was designed as a proactive species conservation program to aid state fish and wildlife agencies in preventing nonplant species from becoming listed as threatened or endangered (T&E) under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. In this paper, we use four criteria to evaluate whether the SWG Program can be considered successful: 1) value is created (increased) in the short term; 2) value is created (increased) in the long term; 3) the value created is public; and 4) the value created is the value that was intended per the original goals of the program. Our analysis indicates the SWG Program has added US $3 billion in short-term value to local economies and supported the creation of about 18,000 jobs between 2001 until 2015. We use the example of the whooping crane Grus americana to calculate the long-term value of this single T&E species as US $103.5 million annually and argue that the SWG Program helps to maintain this value through supported species-conservation activities. Next, we look at two instances of species receiving proactive SWG Program conservation dollars: the oblong rock snail Leptoxis compacta and several North American bat species (Chiroptera spp.). These species and the conservation actions that benefit them demonstrate how public value is created or maintained through services these species naturally provide that benefit human health and economic well-being. Finally, we evaluate whether the SWG Program is creating the value it was designed to create by showing that T&E spending (expenditure) growth rates decreased after the SWG Program began. We find that the decrease in spending does not correlate with fewer species being removed from consideration as a T&E candidate for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, nor does spending correlate with fewer species being delisted (taken off the list) after being listed as T&E species. Allowing for a 5-y time lag, we are also able to show that the SWG Program has been used in 55% of T&E-listed species that were later delisted under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and 24% of candidate species later removed from consideration for T&E listing as a result of recovery or better information. We argue that these results demonstrate that the SWG Program meets or is potentially meeting all four criteria for an effective public program.