The Washington Post

September 29, 2022
As temperatures rise and habitats shrink, hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species around the world are at risk of vanishing.

For the first time, the United States is designating a special diplomat to advocate for global biodiversity amid what policymakers here and overseas increasingly recognize as an extinction crisis.

Monica Medina is taking on a new role as special envoy for biodiversity and water resources, the State Department announced Wednesday. She currently serves as the department’s assistant secretary for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs.

The appointment underscores the Biden administration’s desire to protect land and waters not just at home but to also conserve habitats abroad.

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Business Standard

April 15, 2022
At the Our Ocean Conference in Palau, the US officially announced to join the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, a group of more than 90 countries, encouraging the adoption of the global goal to protect and conserve at least 30 per cent of the planet -- land and sea -- by 2030, commonly referred to as "30x30."

Scientists have issued repeated warnings that nature is in a state of crisis, threatened by habitat loss, pollution, overexploitation, invasive species, and climate change.

The ongoing and rapid loss of natural areas across the world poses a grave threat to the health and security of all living things. However, overwhelming scientific evidence shows that conserving at least 30 per cent of the global land and ocean can not only help curb biodiversity loss and prevent extinctions but also store carbon, help prevent future pandemics, and bolster economic growth.

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Campaign For Nature

April 14, 2022
At the Our Ocean Conference in Palau today, the US announced it officially joined the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, a group of more than 90 countries encouraging the adoption of the global goal to protect and conserve at least 30% of the planet— land and sea — by 2030, commonly referred to as “30x30.” 

Scientists have issued repeated warnings that nature is in a state of crisis, threatened by habitat loss, pollution, overexploitation, invasive species, and climate change. The ongoing and rapid loss of natural areas across the world poses a grave threat to the health and security of all living things. However, overwhelming scientific evidence shows that conserving at least 30% of our global land and ocean can not only curb biodiversity loss and prevent extinctions but also store carbon, help prevent future pandemics, and bolster economic growth.

The Biden administration has already pledged to conserve 30% of the United States’ land and sea; it is now pushing for the goal to be adopted at the global scale. The announcement follows the Biden administration’s launch yesterday of a $1 billion program—called the America the Beautiful Challenge—to advance its national 30x30 goal. 

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Yale Environment 360

April 12, 2022
The Biden administration has launched a $1 billion program to advance its goal of conserving 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030.

The program, called the America the Beautiful Challenge, will serve as a “one-stop shop” for states, tribes, territories, non-governmental organizations, and others to apply for numerous grants for conservation and restoration projects, the administration said. It is backed by an initial $440 million in federal funds over five years — the bulk of which comes from the bipartisan infrastructure law that Congress passed last year — and aims to draw private and philanthropic contributions to reach the $1 billion mark.

Early in his tenure, President Joe Biden set a national goal of protecting 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030 in order to combat climate change and biodiversity loss. And last May, the administration published a report outlining its vision for a 10-year “locally led” effort to conserve and restore lands and waters, slash planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and address inequalities in who has access to nature and the outdoors.

The new program “will help mobilize new investments in locally led, voluntary conservation and restoration projects across the country, while making it easier for communities to access these resources,” Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement.

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European Commission

February 4, 2022

During an official visit to the United States this week, Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius deepened EU-US environmental cooperation ahead of upcoming multilateral processes and increased US awareness of key Green Deal priorities. These include climate action, deforestation, biodiversity protection and restoration, circular economy, critical materials and batteries, sustainable blue economy, international ocean governance, plastic pollution and green transition.

He held discussions in Washington DC and New York with a range of US counterparts from the US Administration and Congress, as well as multilateral organisations, reaching out to stakeholders including NGOs, representatives of business and financial sector, philanthropists and university students. In discussion with UN interlocutors, Commissioner focused on combined efforts in pressing areas under the environment and oceans agendas in the run up to the major global events, negotiations and processes taking place in 2022-2023.

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Campaign For Nature

December 17, 2021
Seeking to protect one of the most biodiverse waterways in the world from industrial fishing, the Costa Rican government announced today it is expanding Cocos Island National Park by 27 times. The waters surrounding the tropical Pacific island teems with wildlife, including sharks, rays, dolphins, turtles and whales. 

The government also unveiled the Bicentennial Marine Managed Area, twice the size of the expanded Cocos Island National Park, which will include some no-take areas and strengthen fisheries management. The expansion of the Cocos Island National Park from an area of 2,034 km 2 to 54,844 km 2 and the Bicentennial Marine Management Area from an area of 9,649 km 2 to 106,285.56 km 2 expands the country’s protection of its ocean from 2.7% of its waters to approximately 30%. With these marine protected area expansions, Costa Rica is leading in its global ambition and drive to achieve the global goal of protecting at least 30% of the planet - land and sea - by 2030. 

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E&E News Greenwire

September 24, 2021
Americans have been draining wetlands for farming and development since Colonial times.

But climate change may reverse that tide — from destruction to restoration.

Federal scientists are studying whether heat-trapping carbon dioxide can be sucked out of the atmosphere and sequestered in restored salt marshes, sea grass beds and mangrove swamps. And those wetlands can in turn protect communities along the coast from rising seas and fierce, frequent climate-driven storms.

“The concept that’s forming is that what we need to do is massive-scale ecosystem restoration as soon as possible to begin absorbing as much carbon dioxide as we can and diminish the amount of overshoot that we have in atmospheric greenhouse gases this century,” said Kevin Kroeger, a research chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center.

Across the Lower 48 states, wetlands hold at least 3.2 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent, by one estimate — roughly half the country’s net total greenhouse gas emissions in 2019.

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E&E News

June 2, 2021
Some proponents of a concerted push to protect large swaths of natural spaces across the country are raising concerns that the Biden administration's new conservation proposal is too timid, failing to lay out a plan to truly preserve vulnerable lands and waters.

As the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Interior Department and other agencies begin figuring out the details of the effort — rolled out earlier this month as the "America the Beautiful" initiative — these environmentalists argue that in trying to build consensus around the idea of ramping up conservation, the administration is essentially trading away scientific integrity.

"It's a very big deal that we have a president that recognizes and is willing to take action to preserve nature and address the catastrophic extinction crisis. I don't want to gloss over that. That is huge," said Randi Spivak, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Public Lands Program.

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The Highland County Press

May 8, 2021
The Biden administration plans to broadly define conservation and encourage private landowners to adopt sustainable practices to meet a goal of protecting 30 percent of the land and water in the U.S. by 2030, according to a multi-agency report published Thursday.

The recommendations are short of the most aggressive federal directives congressional Republicans feared would be central to reaching the administration’s “30 by 30” goal, but may still spark objections in a Congress deeply split on how the government should manage its public lands and deal with private landowners, particularly in the West.

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Wall Street Journal

May 6, 2021
The Biden administration wants to preserve wildlife habitats by expanding collaboration with private landowners and state and local governments, with less emphasis on putting more land under federal protection, according to a report issued Thursday.

The report, “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful,” provides a preliminary outline of how the administration can pursue a goal President Biden has set to conserve 30% of the country’s land and water by 2030.

Mr. Biden adopted the 30% target from scientists and environmentalists who say it can help stem animal and plant extinctions, threats to water and food supplies and other environmental crises.

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Campaign For Nature

May 6, 2021
Today the Biden administration released its “America the Beautiful” report. The report lays out guidance for the implementation of the administration’s ambitious plan to protect 30% of the U.S.’s land and sea by 2030.

It provides a vision for a first-of-its-kind decade-long, locally led nationwide effort across public, private, and Tribal lands and waters to restore and conserve America’s lands, waters, and wildlife buoyed by federal support. The report made clear that private land conservation efforts will be voluntary.  

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Campaign For Nature

April 27, 2021
Last week, at Biden’s Earth Day Summit, world leaders made bold and sweeping pledges to slash greenhouse gas emissions—a critical step toward achieving the Paris climate agreement. At the same time, heads of state from France, the U.K., Germany, Gabon and Costa Rica, among others speaking at the Summit, made the powerful case that we can’t solve the climate crisis without tackling the biodiversity crisis. 

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Marine Conservation Institute

April 22, 2021
Today, a little after 8:00 am eastern and before dozens of world leaders participating in the Leader’s Summit on Climate, President Biden set bold greenhouse gas emission reductions for the United States—cutting 2005 emission levels in half by 2030— as US policy. He said in part, “…the US sets out on the road to cut greenhouse gases in half by the end of this decade”.

In less than 100 days, the President has reentered the Paris Climate Accords and proposed groundbreaking legislation (American Jobs Plan) that would make very large investments in clean energy, energy conservation and coastal resilience and restoration*. Contributing to the steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, ocean-based climate solutions like offshore wind, restoring carbon removal ecosystems like marshes and seagrass beds, eliminating bottom trawling from marine sanctuaries and establishing new marine protected areas could play a significant role.

Dr. Lance Morgan, President of Marine Conservation Institute, praised President Biden for his high climate change ambition, and said, “It is so exciting to see the President taking urgently needed action and leading on climate change. The administration recognizes that US commitments to the Paris Climate Accords must include ocean-based solutions and supports the conservation of 30% of our lands and waters which will also address climate change and future resiliency.”

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The Hill - OpEd

April 12, 2021
The Biden administration will soon release its strategy for the recent executive order to conserve at least 30 percent of the nation’s lands and oceans by 2030.  

Like the previously introduced Senate Resolution 372 and House Resolution 835, the 30x30 initiative aligns with recommendations from the scientific and environmental communities to protect 30 to 50 percent of the planet. The initiative can meaningfully increase the quality and quantity of natural areas in the U.S., considering only 12 percent of the roughly 28 percent of federal lands are permanently protected from development and other intensive use.  

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Los Angeles Times - OpEd

April 11, 2021
The frequency of natural disasters has soared in recent decades. Total damage topped $210 billion worldwide in 2020. With climate change, the costs attributed to coastal storms will increase dramatically.

At the same time, coastal habitats such as wetlands and reefs are being lost rapidly. Some 20% of the world’s mangroves were lost over the last four decades. More than half of the Great Barrier Reef was degraded by bleaching in 2020 alone. In California, we have lost more than 90% of our coastal marshes.

Coastal habitats serve as a critical first line of defense, and their loss puts communities at even greater risk from coastal flooding. Coral reefs work as natural breakwaters and reduce flooding by breaking waves offshore. Wetlands such as marshes and mangroves protect coastlines by dampening storm surge and waves; they also prevent erosion and can build new land.

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