I need to clarify some points from your December 24 editorial, “Monkeying With Wildlife Rule Puts Vanishing Species at Risk.''

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission enacted major changes to the imperiled species listing process in 1999 when a well-balanced citizen panel suggested a more scientific and internationally proven process that was not controversial at the time. FWC staff [is] currently proposing to update and enhance this process, and these changes are separate from the controversy you describe.

The controversy is based on the fact that the red-cockaded woodpecker has moved from the “threatened'' category down to “species of special concern;'' manatees could move from “endangered'' down to “threatened'' and gopher tortoises may move from “species of special concern'' up to “threatened.''

Due to concern by environmental groups, the Commission agreed to take a hard look at the listing process.

As noted in your editorial, we also found that the primary concern is the state's use of the term “endangered'' -- for the same condition the international standard calls “critically endangered.''

[T]he current naming of categories was based on the fact that the old listing process by the state had defined endangered very similarly to the international definition for critically endangered. Both terms describe the same condition with different words. Furthermore, these categories define only the level of threat to survival of a species, not protective measures required to rescue it.

In this battle of semantics, we risk forgetting the new process depends on management plans for each listed species. We didn't require management plans in the old process, and that is where the protective measures will be found. Also, newly mandated plans may open possibilities for landowner incentives and other innovative ways to ensure long-term existence of imperiled species -- a measure the Tribune called for in its editorial.

The Tribune's editorial was on target in suggesting we need to look at an array of measures to preserve wildlife. To do this we must all work together, not against each other, to nurture the wildlife Floridians treasure so deeply. We risk losing so much if we fail.