News For Immediate Release
November 13, 2020
Contact: Kat Dwyer, 406-587-9591, kdwyer@perc.org
(Bozeman, Montana)—On Thursday, November 12, PERC was named as a finalist for the 2020 Templeton Freedom Award presented by the Atlas Network. This acknowledgment recognizes PERC’s leadership in endangered species recovery through the advancement of our recent Endangered Species Act reform recommendations.
“It is an honor to be one of six finalists for the prestigious Templeton Freedom Award”, said Brian Yablonski, CEO of PERC. Making it to this final round was an accomplishment in and of itself. This opportunity has enabled us to share the positive impact PERC’s market-based conservation is having on the environment with an even larger audience. Well done to the PERC team for all of your hard work and congratulations to the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies for winning the award.”
PERC’s reforms increase endangered species recovery by aligning the incentives of landowners and species. Specifically, the reforms proposed restoring a “two-step” approach to the Endangered Species Act, clarifying species-specific listing and delisting criteria, and rolling back regulatory expansions that discourage private conservation. These recommendations were aligned with reforms signed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on August 12, 2019.
As part of PERC’s “Recovering Endangered Species” initiative, recommendations were also made to reduce wild horse and burro populations, which currently stand at more than three times the public range’s capacity, causing stress on the ecosystem and competition with endangered species. Through an incentive-payment adoption program suggested by PERC, the Bureau of Land Management has increased horse and burro adoptions by 91% in the first year of the program, saving taxpayers $170 million in future costs.
PERC is grateful to have been nominated for the prestigious award and are proud to be a part of the Atlas Network alongside so many other innovative groups promoting individual freedom and human flourishing.
