This new report from the Wilderness Society and the Aspen Institute underscores that “Public lands in the United States are natural allies in efforts to address climate change, wildlife loss and to improve community health via access to nature. Their sheer scale, scope and reach offer the unmatched potential to absorb large amounts of carbon emissions, provide habitat for wildlife need to survive and adapt to rising temperatures, and create space for people and communities to flourish. Unfortunately, public lands in America are not managed in a way that prioritizes addressing these crises.”
Here are several vitally important change recommendations the report urges policymakers to make:
1. Manage U.S. public lands first and foremost for conservation by prioritizing the protection of vulnerable lands, restoration of damaged areas, and responsible development of renewable energy and associated transmission rather than fossil fuel extraction. (As of 2017, 42% of the nation’s coal, 24% of crude oil, 13% of natural gas, and just 5% of renewable energy comes from public lands.)
2. Manage the entire system of U.S. public lands and waters—including those places open to the public at the municipal, regional, state and federal levels—as an indispensable part of a national strategy to reduce emissions and improve the health and resilience of communities.
3. The Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture should redesign federal public land management to prioritize climate change as a central component of the missions of their various management agencies.
4. Manage the public lands system in the context of a national strategy for biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation.
5. Modernize public lands management guiding principles from “multiple use” to “public use,” creating a system that addresses the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.
6. Evolve from managing public land units in isolation to instead managing them as essential components of complex, integrated landscape ecosystems consisting of federal, state, and other public lands, tribal lands, and private ownership.
7. Engage with communities by centering equity in policy decision making and implementation to ensure the equitable access of all to public lands, however they are defined.
8. Acknowledge the role of public parks at a neighborhood scale as a vital entry point in accessing public lands for residents of communities that lack access to bigger national parks, particularly youth.
9. Congress should direct a substantial portion of the new funds appropriated through the Great American Outdoors Act to the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program, a program that funds parks that serve urban areas.
10. Future stimulus bills should support a Youth Conservation Corps to build links between youth and the outdoors. These links can build a connection to skills and careers in parks and public lands.
The United States must catch up with other nations of the world in attaining the 30/30 goal: 30% of our land returned to a fully natural state by 2030. Natural lands such as forests, prairies, or wetlands are natural carbon sinks - they drawdown significant amounts of carbon from our atmosphere. The 30/30 goal is essential to protect biodiversity and address our climate emergency. These recommendations will help in this regard as well.
Read this report here.