conservation burden

The two general hypotheses tested are: (l) the magnitude of the reduction in aggregate demand attributable to a specific policy instrument is a function of the socioeconomic and structural characteristics of households in a given community and (2) the choice of the policy instrument influences the distribution of water savings or "conservation burden" among household classes based on these characteristics.

As a result, the composition of aggregate demand in a particular community is an important determinant of aggregate demand reduction and the distribution of conservation burden among household classes.

The Conservation Burden: Differential Impacts of Policy Instruments

Figure 2 shows the reduction in aggregate demand and potential for uneven incidence of conservation burden associated with a uniform price increase from [P.sub.0] to [P.sub.1] for two hypothetical classes of households, each with a different demand curve.

The composition of aggregate demand also may influence the reduction in demand and the distribution of conservation burden associated with non-price policies.

Comments submitted by the tribes on the recovery team's earlier plan, however, indicated their strong view that the plan did not meet the agencies' trust responsibility toward the tribes, because it failed to establish adequate goals for restoration of the fish and it placed an undue emphasis on tribal harvest in allocating the conservation burden.(222)

Accordingly, any trust paradigm in the realm of wildlife conservation must account for the equitable distribution of the conservation burden between tribes and the majority society.

Matters such as identifying the necessary degree of conservation, translating the conservation need into appropriate management actions, and distributing the conservation burden equitably between the tribes and the federal government are complicated by the scientific uncertainty inherent in wildlife management.

In other words, if long-term measures and institutional overhaul are required to realign the conservation burden, or recover the species to harvestable levels, agencies that by their nature are often predisposed to responding to short-term political concerns may seek to recharacterize their trust obligation to reflect and incorporate the political and practical pressures facing them.

Currently, the ESA affords no mechanism for allocating the conservation burden between multiple private landowners or between private rights holders and public lands.

Economic analysis is important in distributing the conservation burdens among the public and private landowners, but it must not be allowed to dictate the biological requisites of the recovery plan.