WildEarth Guardians v. Haaland

The federal district court for the Central District of California set aside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS’s) 2019 determination that listing the Joshua tree as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act was not warranted. The court found that the FWS “selectively relied on beneficial data and failed to consider and evaluate the contrary data” regarding climate change’s adverse impacts on Joshua trees. In addition, the court found that the FWS’s findings regarding the threats posed by climate change and wildfire were “unsupported, speculative, or irrational,” including the FWS’s findings that Joshua trees would be able to persist at 138°F and would be able to migrate to climate refugia. Because the FWS failed to consider contrary data on climate change’s adverse effects or explain its decision not to consider such data, the FWS’s conclusion that Joshua trees were not threatened in a significant portion of their range was also arbitrary and capricious. Because the FWS’s conclusion that existing regulatory mechanisms were adequate to protect Joshua trees was based on the arbitrary and capricious determination that they did not warrant listing, the court also found the conclusion regarding the adequacy of regulatory mechanisms to be arbitrary and capricious. Although the court’s finding on this point was not based on the FWS’s alleged failure to consider the threat posed to Joshua trees by inadequate regulatory mechanisms addressing climate change, the court said the FWS should consider this issue on remand.

WildEarth Guardians filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Central District of California challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS’s) decision not to list the Joshua tree as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The complaint alleged that the Joshua tree—“an icon of the Southern California desert”—faced eradication by the end of the century due to climate change and “other often related and synergistic threats” such as prolonged droughts, increasing fire, and habitat loss. WildEarth Guardians said FWS failed to adequately analyze and impermissibly dismissed these significant threats to habitat and also erroneously discounted and failed to adequately consider how the lack of existing regulatory mechanisms to address climate change could impact the Joshua tree. In addition, the complaint asserted that FWS arbitrarily and capriciously found that Joshua trees were not threatened throughout a significant portion of their range and failed to use best available science by disregarding models that provided information on the future status of Joshua trees.