As we celebrate Earth Day this April 22 and reflect on how far environmental stewardship has come, we have an opportunity to reimagine conservation to speed up action and get results to meet today’s challenges.
When Earth Day first began in 1970, it was in the midst of a remarkable wave of environmental legislation: the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act and other landmark laws fundamentally changed America’s relationship with its natural resources.
These laws were responses to the conservation challenges of the time—rivers so polluted they caught fire, wildlife icons on the brink of extinction and air quality that threatened public health.
Yet over the decades, these well-intentioned laws have calcified into bureaucratic processes that impede progress due to a fear of reform and misguided belief that only regulation can solve these issues. Today’s conservation challenges—including stubbornly low endangered species recovery rates, habitat fragmentation on private land and a colossal need to better manage our federal lands—require more nimble, incentive-based and collaborative approaches that work at the speed and scale needed.
We must renew our nation’s commitment to protecting our land, water and wildlife with a new set of solutions. A new report from my organization, the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) titled “10 Ideas for the Interior Department” offers a compelling vision for how conservation can work faster and more effectively using incentives, market-based approaches and “green tape” relief. Here are three innovative examples that are part of our bold new vision for conservation:
Triple the rate of endangered species recovery
Despite being law for half a century, the Endangered Species Act has led to the recovery and delisting of only about 3% of listed species. The rest sadly remain stuck on the brink. We propose a bold goal: tripling this recovery rate to 10% by recovering an additional 120 species.
The key insight here is that the current regulatory approach often turns endangered species into liabilities for private landowners rather than assets to be stewarded. Given that two-thirds of listed species depend on private lands for their survival, this creates a fundamental misalignment of incentives.
When a species is no longer in danger of extinction and now needs to be recovered, we recommend shifting away from punitive regulations and toward incentive-based approaches that reward conservation progress.
For example, by rescinding the agency’s “blanket rule” that imposes one-size-fits-all strict regulations on threatened species without consideration of whether that approach actually benefits individual species, the Interior Department could create a clear, science-based pathway that rewards recovery progress.
When landowners see tangible benefits from recovering a species on their property rather than potential restrictions, conservation becomes opportunity rather than obligation.
Cut “green tape” for voluntary conservation
Another striking statistic: approximately 80% of endangered species are “management dependent,” meaning they require active habitat restoration to recover—they won’t make it if simply left alone. Yet the current system makes this proactive conservation nearly impossible by miring it in regulatory delays.
We propose cutting the approval time for voluntary conservation agreements from nearly a year to just 60 days. This would free up federal agencies, states and landowners to actually implement the conservation actions these species desperately need. Conservation should be easy to do, not subjected to the same bureaucratic hurdles as development projects.
Smart pricing for national park stewardship
America’s national parks face dual challenges: record visitation straining resources and a $22 billion maintenance backlog of crumbling bridges, failing sewers and eroded trails. PERC’s report proposes a proven solution used by parks worldwide—charging international visitors more than domestic ones.
With approximately 14 million annual international visitors paying the same entry fees as Americans (who already support parks through their taxes), this differential pricing could raise $1.2 billion a year going directly to the parks, while having minimal impact on visitation patterns. This is common practice at global “bucket list” destinations including the Galapagos Islands and Kruger National Park.
The approach represents a broader philosophical shift—linking conservation funding more directly to use, creating sustainable funding streams outside the political appropriations process and giving local park superintendents greater flexibility to address their unique challenges.
The next era of conservation
As we mark Earth Day 2025, these ideas remind us that effective conservation doesn’t have to be about regulation—it’s about alignment. The most successful conservation policies align economic incentives with conservation outcomes, making stewardship the obvious choice rather than the mandated one.
The conservation era that brought us the first Earth Day was about regulation and litigation–slowing things down. But the next era must focus on speed, incentives and voluntary stewardship to accelerate conservation. Conservation challenges have evolved dramatically since 1970. At PERC, we’re offering a bold new vision that recognizes our approach to solving them must evolve as well.
Brian Yablonski is CEO at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a nonprofit institute based in Bozeman, Montana, that creates innovative conservation solutions through markets and incentives.
