The next few years promise to include an array of new additions to the Endangered Species List, including several in our area. It’s time for a national dialog about a fair allocation of costs and how to achieve these goals in an age of epic extinctions.

Helping endangered species recover from the brink of destruction is one of those concepts that most Americans support, but which imposes burdens predominantly on rural communities. Northern spotted owls transformed Pacific Northwest forestry. Protecting marbled murrelets shapes everything from new coastal wind-energy projects to state park walking trails. Snowy plover nests impact our use of local beaches and ocean dunes.

Last month after long delays, 44 more species in Oregon and Washington began the laborious regulatory steps that may move them onto the federal Endangered Species List. As a result of an effort by the Obama administration to end pending lawsuits by wildlife advocates, a nationwide total of more than 250 candidate species will be shepherded through the listing process, along with hundreds of others in more-preliminary stages of consideration for protection.

Some of these species are instantly recognizable, while others are so obscure that only a few biologists can instantly call them to mind.

As a general matter, human beings are better off in environments that support a thriving biological diversity. Inconvenient as it may be to avoid harming things like jumping slugs, the fact that they survive means that conditions here are also good for us. Just like slugs, we need clean water, land and air. We enjoy a healthy ocean, forests and rivers. Our economic activities in some cases contributed to putting these species at risk.

By the same token, these are national protections that may have intense local consequences. If we are the frontline for saving these species for the nation, our fellow citizens should be prepared to help bear the burdens.

In these times of epic extinction threats, it is time for a more systematic approach to these issues. The time for piecemeal protection of isolated species has nearly passed. We need a smarter and more effective strategy.

– Reprinted from The Daily Astorian, an East Oregonian Publishing Group newspaper.