New York Times - OpEd

December 21, 2020
To slow extinctions and climate change, President-elect Joe Biden has embraced a plan to conserve 30 percent of U.S. land and 30 percent of its ocean waters by 2030. It is perhaps the most ambitious commitment to conservation by a U.S. president. How he proceeds will determine whether he unites or further divides Americans in a pivotal decade for the planet.

The plan is known as “30 by 30.” Behind the catchy phrase is a simple, scientifically informed belief that conserving 30 percent of the planet’s land and 30 percent of its water is required to protect roughly 75 percent of Earth’s species and slow climate change by storing carbon in plants and soil. In the words of a former interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, 30 by 30 is “a kind of synthesizing, consolidating, organizing possibility.”

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Our Daily Planet

December 20, 2020
In November of 2020, the government of Tristan da Cunha, a four-island archipelago in the South Atlantic, announced that it is creating the fourth-largest marine “no-take” reserve in the world. The new marine reserve will encompass 265,347 square miles, making it almost three times larger than the United Kingdom. Tristan da Cunha, a British territory, will protect 90% of the waters around the island chain by banning fishing, mining, and other extractive activities. What makes it so special? “This is a place that has a unique ecosystem that is found nowhere else,” National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala remarked, ant is notable for its kelp forests and as a critical nursery for blue sharks.

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Campaign for Nature

December 17, 2020
The Campaign for Nature has issued the following responses:

Director of Campaign for Nature, Brian O’Donnell said:

“Representative Deb Haaland is an outstanding pick to lead the Department of the Interior.  She has been a leader in the Congress in protecting lands and wildlife and advancing equity and social justice. This is a proud day for the United States.  A department that has disenfranchised Indigenous people and dispossessed them of their territories throughout its history will now be run by an Indigenous woman.  Her nomination won’t right the wrongs of the past, but it is a step forward that is long overdue.”

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Indian Country Today - OpEd

December 17, 2020
Our lands, waters, and tribal communities are currently under siege from biodiversity loss and climate change impacts. As tribal leaders, we recognize that threats to nature and our climate are direct threats to our tribal nations. Progress to safeguard our wildlife and lands in the U.S. has slowed to a near standstill in recent years.

The Trump Administration has taken unprecedented actions to eliminate protections for critical conservation areas and species. Protected areas serve a crucial role in conserving biodiversity, culturally important ecosystems, and mitigating climate change impacts.

President-elect Joe Biden and Congresswoman Deb Haaland are taking direct action to safeguard our environment through an initiative called Thirty by Thirty (30x30) to conserve at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and oceans by 2030.

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NPR

December 8, 2020
President-elect Joe Biden wants to conserve 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030. It's part of a global push to avoid the worst effects of climate change and the decline of the natural world.

National Geographic

December 4, 2020
When the heads of state of 14 nations sat down together in late 2018 to discuss the grim condition of the world’s oceans, there was no certainty that anything consequential would result. The leaders planned 14 gatherings, but met only twice before the pandemic upended their talks.

So when the group announced this week the world’s most far-reaching pact to protect and sustain ocean health, it signaled a bit more than a noteworthy achievement in a complicated time. The agreement, negotiated via the nuance-free tool of video conferencing, also offered hope of a renewed era of global accord on climate, where issues grounded in science might finally trump political posturing.

Overall, the 14 leaders agreed to sustainably manage 100 percent of the oceans under their national jurisdictions by 2025—an area of ocean roughly the size of Africa. Additionally, they vowed to set aside 30 percent of the seas as marine protected areas by 2030, in keeping with the United Nations’ campaign known as “30 by 30.”

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Campaign For Nature

December 2, 2020
Today, the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel), composed of 14 serving world leaders, is putting forward a new ocean action agenda for building a sustainable ocean economy where protection, production and prosperity go hand in hand. In addition to releasing commitments and policy actions designed to transform how the world can protect and use the ocean and ultimately sustainably manage humanity’s impacts on it, the Ocean Panel will also release a new comprehensive report spotlighting ways to accelerate, scale and finance ocean action. 

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New Europe

October 30, 2020
The European Council has endorsed the objectives of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 and the nature protection and restoration targets contained therein, which aim at setting biodiversity on the path to recovery.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has once again shown us the fundamental importance of ecosystems and biodiversity for our health and economic and social stability,” Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Svenja Schulze said. “Biodiversity is our life insurance: it supplies clean air and water, food, building material and clothing. It creates jobs and livelihoods. With the destruction of nature there is also the risk of disease outbreaks and pandemics. Saving biodiversity and global nature conservation is a key to preventing new infectious diseases. As President of the Council I am pleased that today we reached unanimous agreement on stepping up our efforts to address biodiversity loss,” she added.

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National Geographic

October 29, 2020
Absent major policy changes and billions of dollars invested in protecting land and wildlife, the world may see another major pandemic like COVID-19, an international group of scientists warned today.

Conserving biodiversity can preserve human lives, according to their new report, which reviews the latest research on how the decline of habitat and wildlife leaves humans exposed to new, emerging diseases.

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The Hill

October 23, 2020
On October 7, California Governor Gavin Newsom took the bold step of committing the state to a goal of protecting 30 percent of California’s land and coastal waters by 2030. 

The move makes a lot of sense for California. It is a global biodiversity hotspot because of its unique plant diversity, and harbors rich and productive marine ecosystems. But this bounty is threatened by the confluence of the climate crisis, overexploitation and development. Its latest manifestation has been the apocalyptic fires that have burned more than four million acres. 

California has very old trees, including the giant sequoias that are over 3,000 years old. There’s been a lot of fires in those 3,000 years, but the ancient forests survived, because fire was part of the ecology of the system. But the forests could not survive the human assault. Logging these natural treasures started a chain of events that led to the present fires, exacerbated by the heat waves caused by global warming.

The solution to the current crisis is protecting the wild, and restoring and rewilding degraded lands and coasts, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples. A commitment to 30 percent by 2030 — ‘30x30’ — is a great way to start.

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Campaign for Nature

October 23, 2020
Today, the Environment Council of the  European Union committed to protecting at least one-third of its land and seas  by 2030. The 30% protection target is a central component of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, which was formally and finally endorsed today by the European Union’s Environment Council after its May 2020 release by the European Commission. In the strategy, the EU also commits to advocating for the 30% target at the global level.

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The New York Times

October 23, 2020
The European Union’s Environment Council on Friday endorsed the proposal by the president of the European Union to create protected areas for 30 percent of the continent’s land and water by 2030, along with legally binding measures to tighten forest protections.

But Europe’s governing body also was criticized by environmental and climate activists for not curbing agricultural subsidies that drive pollution.

Britain, Canada and the state of California have made similar conservation pledges in recent months. Their promises, mostly without detailed road maps, come in the wake of a major United Nations-backed scientific report that calls for transformative changes in the way humans use the Earth’s land and waters in order to avoid dire consequences, including threats to the global food supply and health.

[…]

The conservation group, Campaign for Nature, approved the move, saying in a statement that “the litmus test will now be the effective implementation of the strategy,” particularly by the member nations of the European Union.

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The Guardian

October 22, 2020
A US senator has introduced a proposal to conserve 30% of the country’s lands and seas in the next 10 years, amid a surge of similar proposals.

The initiative, brought by the New Mexico senator Tom Udall last week, is called the “30 by 30” plan. In the US, 12% of land area is protected, according to Udall, mostly in Alaska and the west. If passed, the resolution would align the United States with international goals to protect and preserve nearly a third of the world’s land and water by 2030.

“The United States faces a conservation and climate crisis, with nature in a steep decline and greenhouse gas emissions not declining at the rate scientists say is needed,” according to the proposal. “Nature, like the climate, is nearing a tipping point.”

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Thomson Reuters

October 20, 2020
As recent headlines about forest blazes, melting glaciers and sinking islands have made clear, the natural world is in peril. And with repeated warnings about the grim state of biodiversity - and, at the same time, promising predictions about the role of nature in boosting our economies and protecting our health - we need a change in the way we are protecting nature, more than ever before. 

Right now, government officials in countries around the globe, from Canada to Australia, are beginning to take note of a solution critical to a global effort to stop the breakdown of nature. That is partnering with indigenous peoples and local communities who have successfully conserved the biodiversity on their lands for millennia, using traditional knowledge passed down through generations. 

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Scuba Diving

October 19, 2020
Loss of tourism revenue from continued COVID travel restrictions is straining the budgets of marine protected areas around the world, reducing conservation activities and stressing the communities reliant on a steady flow of eco-tourists. These strains come as the push to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030 gains global momentum.

[…]

“There is a myth, right? That we have to choose between the economy and the environment,” said Dr. Enric Sala. An ecologist, Sala is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence who founded the Pristine Seas program and is one of the leaders of the Campaign for Nature. Both initiatives aim to persuade world leaders to establish new marine protected areas.

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