The EPA’s “Strategies” outline protective measures for pesticides that pose a risk to listed species and their designated critical habitats. The strategies have been/will be published as documents for each major pesticide category—herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides. They result from extensive stakeholder input and assessments contributed by various agricultural organizations, industry, and governmental agencies, and they aim to balance the use of pesticides with the need to protect endangered species and environmental health.
In August 2024, the EPA published the final Herbicide Strategy. This 79-page document reflects the EPA’s process to identify runoff/erosion and spray drift mitigation to protect listed species. By identifying mitigations to protect endangered plants, listed animal species that depend on plants would also be protected. This includes animals that depend on plants for food and shelter (habitat). Protective measures described in the Herbicide Strategy alone should reduce population-level impacts on over 900 listed ESA species in the lower 48 states.
Like herbicides, EPA’s strategies for fungicides, insecticides, and rodenticides will identify the need for, the level of, and the geographic placement of mitigations to protect listed species. The strategies themselves do not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use; rather, they are measures from which the EPA expects to choose when reducing exposure to listed species, as necessary, for a specific active ingredient, use site, and application method. Farmers and pesticide applicators must follow the protections printed on labels and bulletins located on the website Bulletins Live! Two.