Petitioning for Federal Listing

[David Remucal]

I have a question about petitioning for elevating species for federal listing. It seems the petitioners are typically non-academic and non-governmental organizations. Do gardens ever act as petitioning bodies or would that be a conflict of interest because of the possibility of obtaining federal grants for a species once it is federally listed?

[Katie Heineman]

I am not an expert on this necessarily – but I think the reason that gardens are not typically the engine behind listing petitions has less to do with conflict of interest and more to do with skill set. For certain petitions, there might be legal or advocacy resources required to move the petition forward that a garden may be less likely to have as part of their mission compared to, say, a native plant society or more policy-focused nonprofit. However, I suppose it might be uncomfortable for a garden to petition for listing of a species if it’s somehow a contentious topic with a funding entity, but I don’t think that would stop “most of us”.  Is there a certain species you’re thinking about? Maybe we can have a breakout group about petitioning at the CPC National Meeting.

[David Remucal]

Thanks, Katie. Since Polemonium lacustre (previously Polemonium occidentale ssp. leedyi) was elevated to species from a subspecies it seems appropriate to try to get it listed federally. We should have a pretty strong case. We have already started the process with the Minnesota and Wisconsin native plant society’s but I was curious if we should potentially also be putting our garden’s name behind the effort.

I’d think a breakout group about petitioning at the CPC meeting would be a great idea.

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