Environmentalists are urging the Trump administration to reverse a decision to freeze funding for important conservation work aimed at protecting iconic at-risk species, which includes anti-poaching patrols for vulnerable elephants and rhinos.

The Center for Biological Diversity sent a notice of intent to sue to the administration on Wednesday over the funding cuts.

“The Trump administration’s funding freeze for anti-poaching patrols and other international conservation work is maddening, heartbreaking, and very illegal,” said Sarah Uhlemann, the Center for Biological Diversity’s international program director, in a press release from the nonprofit environmental organization. “These Fish and Wildlife Service funds help protect elephants, rhinos and other animals across the globe that Americans love. No one voted to sacrifice the world’s most iconic wildlife to satisfy some unelected billionaire’s reckless power trip.”

The funds, administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), support projects like scientific research on the decline of elephants, anti-poaching patrols for rhinos and fighting trafficking of threatened turtle populations in countries without the resources to protect them. The funds are provided by Americans through the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) with the intent of keeping the animals from going extinct.

“This insanity has to stop or some of the world’s most endangered animals will die,” Uhlemann said.

USFWS has stopped the flow of tens of millions in foreign conservation funding, in addition to ordering grant recipients to halt work under their contracts.

The abrupt funding freeze has left a number of nonprofits in disarray globally, forced to lay off staff members and not knowing how they will keep up their vital conservation work.

The legal notice makes it clear that the suspension of funds by USFWS without consideration of the harm it would cause threatened species violates the ESA. It also violates laws that require rational decision-making by agencies, as well as the constitutional separation of powers.

A similar freeze of USAID funds by the Trump administration was found to be illegal by several courts, which ordered the restart of payments. When funding was not resumed by the administration, an order for compliance was set by one court last week. However, that deadline has since been paused by the Supreme Court, which is considering the matter.

“Trump and his unelected cronies are gleefully tearing apart the federal government without care for whom or what it harms. It’s careless, callous, and a violation of the laws that protect us all,” Uhlemann said.

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Layoffs by the Trump administration at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have reached the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), a small but important institute that is responsible for climate models the world relies on.

Kai-Yuan Cheng, an atmospheric scientist who was notified of his firing late last week, said he rushed to finish his work on severe storm forecasting on one hour’s notice.

“I worked to the last minute of my federal employment,” Cheng said, as Science reported. “I tried my best to wrap up my work before I lost access.”

Cheng and nine other GFDL employees were fired from the Princeton, New Jersey, research center, as part of a far-reaching round of layoffs announced by the Trump administration late last month.

Started in 1955, GFDL is responsible for some of the planet’s most highly regarded climate and weather models. They are relied upon for global heating projections, as well as weather forecasting in the United States.

Several of the workers who were fired were in charge of crucial projects, and it is likely that several GFDL projects — including a new type of atmospheric model — will face delays, as will more accurate regional climate predictions.

Tom Di Liberto, an NOAA climate scientist and public affairs specialist who was laid off, told the American Institute of Physics (AIP) that seven of the 25 employees at the Office of Communications had been fired. Additionally, 11 employees were fired from the Environmental Modeling Center.

“Some would say we were already falling behind some of our modeling, and by firing folks like this here, there’s no way you can catch up,” Di Liberto said in a press release from AIP. “It’s a weird way of making America great.”

Last week, the Trump administration fired from 600 to 900 NOAA employees, most of whom were new or recently promoted “probationary” workers.

The American Meteorological Society earlier this week warned that the firings “are likely to cause irreparable harm and have far-reaching consequences for public safety, economic well-being, and the United States’ global leadership.”

The firings have impacted all of NOAA’s labs, which provide research on subjects as diverse as upper-atmospheric pollution and evidence of global warming in the deepest parts of the ocean, reported Science.

Of special concern to GFDL is the latest version of its atmospheric model, AM5. The new model is designed to run at higher frequencies and resolutions, and allows for the use of long-term climate change code to be used in seasonal weather forecasts. The updates required the reworking of model simulations of factors like rainfall, clouds, gravity waves and stratospheric ozone.

Scheduled to be completed this year, AM5 was expected to be the basis of GFDL’s future climate modeling efforts globally, with applications from United Nations climate change reports to insurance companies.

Sources told Science that two scientists who were central to AM5, including one lead, have been fired. Both had been employed as contractors for many years before they were officially hired.

One had given up their citizenship for the job. The researcher will likely stay on to work at the lab on a volunteer basis, hopeful that AM5 will be completed, with likely delays. The researcher said they left the country of their birth partially due to its authoritarian politics, adding that it was ironic and sad to witness similar dynamics coming to the U.S.

“I feel somewhat helpless. I want to push back. I want to do something,” the researcher said.

Some of the firings could face legal challenges, as happened at the National Science Foundation.

In an indication of possible backtracking, the Trump administration issued new guidelines on Tuesday stating that agencies, rather than the White House Office of Personnel Management, were the ultimate authority on whether to implement the firings.

Chris Bretherton, the atmospheric scientist in charge of nonprofit Ai2’s climate modeling, said it was disheartening to watch future climate research leaders at institutions like GFDL being indiscriminately fired.

“Artificial intelligence,” Bretherton said, “cannot compensate for a lack of human intelligence.”

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The United States Supreme Court has voted five to four to weaken rules that govern how much pollution is discharged into the country’s water supply, undermining the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The case involved San Francisco suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after the city was found to have violated the terms of a permit required for the discharge of wastewater pollution into the Pacific Ocean, reported The Washington Post.

San Francisco officials argued that the EPA’s authority had been exceeded due to vague permit rules that made it impossible to tell when a line had been crossed.

The justices ruled that generic prohibitions against violations of water quality standards cannot be imposed by the EPA. The decision could impact businesses, as well as other cities like Boston, New York and Washington, DC that are adjacent to bodies of water.

The opinion by Justice Samuel Alito said the EPA would be blocked from issuing “end result” permits — those that put the permittee in charge of surface water quality, The Guardian reported.

“The agency has adequate tools to obtain needed information from permittees without resorting to end-result requirements,” Justice Alito wrote.

The city’s wastewater permit has 100 pages of detailed effluent limit rules. However, it was objecting to other, less specific standards holding officials responsible for polluting discharge, reported The Washington Post.

During the case’s oral arguments last October, the Biden administration pointed out that generic rules are important safety nets for specific water pollution limits. Officials also said they had been hampered by San Francisco’s lack of information about its discharge, but the city denied that assertion.

“This decision is going to make the job of EPA and other permitting agencies much harder, because the type of limits the court says have to be used are much harder to identify and calculate,” said Becky Hammer, Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney.

Sam Sankar, Earthjustice’s senior vice president for programs, criticized the justices for increasing EPA’s workload while the Trump administration cuts agency staff and spending.

“The majority is saying EPA can still protect water quality if it invests more staff time in issuing each permit,” Sankar said. “I guess they haven’t heard that Trump is gutting the agency.”

San Francisco’s aging water treatment plant — which serves roughly 250,000 residents — combines sewage and stormwater. Heavy rains can cause it to overflow, sending fecal water and other household waste into the Pacific.

The case has split environmental groups that often agree with liberal cities like San Francisco, as well as the EPA.

“The city is wrong,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who authored the dissenting opinion, as The Guardian reported. “The relevant provision of the Clean Water Act directs EPA to impose any more stringent limitation that is necessary to meet… or required to implement any applicable water quality standard.”

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In a new program launched on Friday, England will soon release beavers into its waterways. The return of the “ecosystem engineers” to the wild signals a renewed respect for an animal that was once hunted to extinction.

Eurasian beavers have been extinct in Britain since the 16th century, when they were killed for their meat, fur and castor sacs — glands that secrete castoreum, an oily, strong-smelling substance that was widely used in the making of perfumes, reported AFP.

“After centuries of absence, beavers are beginning to reclaim their rightful place in the English landscape,” a press release from Natural England said. “The beaver’s ability to transform and revitalise our degraded landscape is extraordinary. Natural England believes that their successful reintroduction will play a vital part in restoring rivers and wetlands, addressing the nature crisis and contributing to the delivery of national biodiversity targets including the creation of wildlife-rich habitats and halting the decline in species abundance.”

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The United Kingdom’s government said the release of the industrious rodents would be carefully managed, AFP reported.

In recent years, smaller populations of beavers were reintroduced in enclosures as part of a more extensive “rewilding” effort. Following some illegal releases and escapes, roughly 500 are thought to already be living in England’s wildlands.

Beavers are considered a “keystone species” by biologists for their ability to reshape the surrounding environment by building dams and pools, which benefit other wildlife while helping to prevent drought and flooding.

“Restoring nature means restoring whole ecosystems, and few can beat the beaver in helping bring landscapes to life,” said Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, as reported by The Guardian. “Their eco-engineering creates diverse habitats that are great for local communities and for wildlife. It’s high time for wild releases and excellent that the government is making progress.”

A beaver-created wetland. Beavers create and restore wetland habitats, providing a haven for many species to thrive. Alan Puttock / University of Exeter

The reintroduction efforts have been controversial in Britain, as farmers worry about how the beavers will impact their land, AFP reported.

Tom Bradshaw, head of the National Farmers’ Union, made the argument that landowners need to have the right to use “lethal control” if beavers “end up in the wrong place.”

The new program specifies that “as a last resort, beavers may be trapped and translocated or lethally controlled.”

“Reintroducing beavers is a complex process that requires careful planning and collaboration. Natural England’s licensing approach and criteria aim to achieve a measured pace of reintroduction, and prioritise areas where beavers can thrive without causing significant conflicts with people, agriculture and infrastructure,” the press release said.

Each beaver rewilding proposal is required to provide a 10-year plan in support of their return. The government has pledged to help farmers who make space for the animals on their land.

“The first project that we have licensed for wild release is the National Trust’s Purbeck Beaver Project in Dorset – where beavers are expected to deliver many benefits across the Purbeck Heaths National Nature Reserve including increasing biodiversity, restoring lost wetland habitats and improving the condition of the protected sites across the area. The project was assessed against beaver wild release criteria which have been developed through extensive engagement with stakeholders, in particular with the Environment Agency staff in our integrated project team,” Natural England said.

One of the most nature-depleted areas on the planet, the UK has lost nearly half of its wild species in recent decades, a 2021 parliamentary report said.

Dr. Roisin Campbell-Palmer, head of restoration at the Beaver Trust, called for the widespread granting of licenses, saying the reintroduction effort was a “landmark moment,” reported AFP.

Roisin said England was “generations behind the rest of Europe,” where countries like France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and Germany have come up with plans to help beavers reestablish themselves.

“Reintroducing beavers to the wild is a critical milestone for this government’s plan to protect and restore our natural world,” said Minister for Nature Mary Creagh.

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The COP16 UN Biodiversity Conference in Rome has ended with a plan for nations to contribute $200 billion a year for the protection of the planet’s biodiversity by 2030, but critics say it’s not enough.

The countries came to an agreement on how to contribute the funds. The accord also includes a plan for raising $20 billion annually to finance conservation in developing nations starting this year, with the amount rising to $30 billion a year by 2030, reported The Associated Press.

Following hours of tense discussions, delegates at the conference applauded when the deal was finally reached.

COP16 President Susana Muhamad cried as she ended the meeting, calling it a “historic day,” The Guardian reported.

“We achieved the adoption of the first global plan to finance the conservation of life on Earth,” Muhamad said.

While progress was made at the summit, important issues were deferred, such as the creation of a fund to distribute the money, the existence of subsidies that destroy nature and reducing climate pollution.

Some leaders said the result of the meeting was a win for collaboration.

“Our efforts show that multilateralism can present hope at a time of geopolitical uncertainty,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canadian minister of environment and climate change, as reported by The Guardian.

Calling COP negotiations the “least bad” process, Jean-Luc Crucke, climate and ecological transition minister from Belgium, said the agreement showed that international cooperation on biodiversity was still possible.

“So there is a great significance to these negotiations,” Crucke added, saying that, if humans want to save nature, “there is no other solution than this one.”

The conclusion of COP16 came over two years following the landmark global initiative to safeguard 30 percent of the planet’s land and seas by the end of the decade.

Other summit participants expressed their frustration at a lack of determination concerning the climate crisis.

“Biodiversity cannot wait for a bureaucratic process that lasts [forever], while the environmental crisis continues to get worse,” said Juan Carlos Alurralde Tejada, negotiator from Bolivia. “Forests are burning, rivers are in agony and animals are disappearing.”

Alurralde Tejada expressed concern about the text of the agreement “diluting” biodiversity commitments and creating a path to “indefinite discussion” of who will fund conservation and how the money will be distributed.

The reality of halting biodiversity loss by 2030 is a daunting task, with wildlife populations worldwide having fallen 73 percent from 1970 to 2020, the most recent assessment said.

“Honestly, it’s almost impossible when you see the trends of where things are going,” said Max Fontaine, Madagascar’s environment and development minister. “We are not going in the right direction, we all need to strengthen efforts.”

Datuama Cammue, negotiator from Liberia, said five years was not enough time to implement the conservation targets.

“It will take a lot of financial input and expert input to get it done. With this type of spirit, I really don’t think that it’s possible,” Cammue said.

Wealthy signatories to the previous COP15 agreement had provided just $10.95 billion in funding for biodiversity as of 2022, a report from Campaign for Nature and the Overseas Development Institute said.

Norway’s minister for climate and environment Andreas Bjelland Eriksen said countries needed to “do everything we can” to achieve the 2030 finance goal.

Thursday’s decision presented two major goals: Putting together additional billions in biodiversity funding and deciding which institutions will deliver the money.

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, along with a collection of financial institutions, announced an initiative this week to better incorporate biodiversity loss into sovereign debt financing, Bloomberg reported. However, it is still an area financial institutions have a difficult time monetizing, saying they can’t act without profitable opportunities and clear government guidance.

The final text of the COP16 agreement called for contributions from all sources, including financial institutions and the private sector. It put an emphasis on “innovative schemes,” including debt-for-nature swaps, biodiversity offsets and carbon credits.

The global nature pact and new strategy are not legally binding.

Juliette Landry, senior research fellow at thinktank the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, said the global accord didn’t amount to “perfect accountability, but it provides some blocks to build from.”

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