Several conservation advocates shared their views on a federal plan to tweak the Endangered Species Act, saying the plan will make it tougher to start listing procedure. Nearly 175 environmental and social justice organizations have sent a letter to the Obama administration, detailing what they name ‘large roadblocks’.

Brett Hartl, endangered species policy coordinator at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that most of the animals that are presently under the Endangered Species Act today are someway of the other listed because of the efforts made by the ordinary citizens those petitioned to make it happen.

“These pro-industry rules will discourage that public participation, increase frivolous litigation, and prevent many of our most imperiled species from getting the protection they need to survive”, Hartl said.

According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the changes would reflect advances in conservation biology and genetics as well as recent court decisions interpreting the Act’s provisions.

The regulations proposed require petitioners to provide 30 days advance notice of the petition to all states in the range of the species. It also requires to add all information provided by states to the petition before it is finally filed and to legally certify that all relevant information has been provided in the petition.

It can be said that the change in regulations has shifted the entire burden of information collection and analysis onto ordinary citizens. This will discourage petitions and allow more species to slip through the cracks on the way to extinction, said conservationists.

The Endangered Species Act provides citizens the right to petition for protection of species, and a majority of the 1,500 species protected by the Act were the result of citizen petitions.