This is the second of three Public Lands Blog posts on 30x30, President Biden’s commitment to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030. In Part 1, we examined the pace and scale necessary to attain 30x30. In this Part 2, we consider what constitutes protected areas actually being “conserved.” In Part 3, we will offer up specific conservation recommendations that, if implemented, will result in the United States achieving 30 percent by 2030.
Figure 1. The natural security of the United States is in this guy’s hands. Source: The White House.
Top Line: The science says we need 30 percent to really be conserved by 2030. Nature is what nature is and nature needs what nature needs.
In his executive order, President Biden set a goal of “conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030,” and he asked the heads of relevant agencies to submit a report within three months recommending steps the US should take to achieve that goal. Just what does “conserving” mean? It is worth examining this question from three perspectives:
• what President Biden meant
• how departments in his administration are interpreting it
• what nature requires, based on international standards and the best available science
What Did the President Mean?
President Biden did not elaborate in his executive order on what he meant by “conserving.” Perhaps he had in mind Merriam-Webster’s definition of conserve: “to keep in a safe or sound state.” Or perhaps he meant it in the sense of Merriam-Webster’s definition of conservation: “a careful preservation and protection of something.”
Perhaps the President was thinking of the definitions in the Endangered Species Act as appropriate to apply to endangered nature.
The terms “conserve,” “conserving,” and “conservation” mean to use and the use of all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this chapter are no longer necessary.
In this case, “conserving” would mean using all methods and procedures necessary to bring any endangered or threatened ecosystem to the point at which the goal in his executive order has been met.
How Are Departments Interpreting It?
In May 2021, the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, as well as the White House Council on Environmental Quality, issued the requested report (Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful). The report misses the mark in most ways. Among other sins, it seeks to downgrade the meaning of “conserving” by embracing any action or activity that is less than 100 percent exploitative as adequate “conservation” to attain 30x30. My critique of the report can be found in Appendix A of my 2022 report, Forty-Four Conservation Recipes for 30x30: A Cookbook of 22 Administrative and 22 Legislative Opportunities for Government Action to Protect 30 Percent of US Lands by 2030.
In Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful, the agencies stretch—if not break—what is meant by “conserving”:
Notably, the President’s challenge specifically emphasizes the notion of “conservation” of the nation’s natural resources (rather than the related but different concept of “protection” or “preservation”) recognizing that many uses of our lands and waters, including of working lands, can be consistent with the long-term health and sustainability of natural systems. The 30 percent goal also reflects the need to support conservation and restoration efforts across all lands and waters, not solely on public lands, including by incentivizing voluntary stewardship efforts on private lands and by supporting the efforts and visions of States and Tribal Nations. [emphasis added]
Biden baited; his administration switched. Why? To comport with the politically expedient notion that “many uses of our lands and waters, including of working lands, can be consistent with the long-term health and sustainability of natural systems.” Such a notion is based on hope, with neither evidence nor history in support. (Most troubling is the apparent weakening in her position as to what qualifies as conservation between the days of Representative Haaland and the era of Secretary Haaland.)
What Does Nature Require?
A lot of scientific thought and policy development has gone into determining just what “conserve” means and just how little of our lands and waters societies must “conserve” to have functioning ecosystems, both across the landscape (and seascape) and over time.
The gold standard is the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international treaty that the United States was instrumental in developing but that President George H. W. Bush refused to sign in 1992. In 1993, President Bill Clinton, who prevented a second term for the first Bush, signed the treaty and sent it off to the Senate for ratification. In 1994, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended by a vote of 16 to 3 that the full Senate ratify the CBD, which requires a two-thirds vote. But given the chronic dysfunction of the Senate, ratification of the CBD has not yet happened and is highly unlikely to happen, so the United States has only “observer” status as far as the treaty goes. Fortunately, 196 other nations—just about every other nation on Earth—did ratify the treaty. The only other “nation” that has not ratified the CBD is the Holy See.
Not waiting for the US Senate, the Secretariat of the CBD has long been busy. Among other things, it has defined how much of the world’s lands and waters must be “conserved” by 2030 to fulfill the purposes of the CBD. The latest iteration and elaboration is found in Target 3 in the first draft of a new framework for global biodiversity:
Target 3. Ensure that at least 30% globally of land areas and of sea areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes. [emphasis added]
As defined under the CBD, 30 percent “conserved” means either in protected areas (PAs) or through other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). (If you want to go deep on OECMs, see my report.) It does not include “working lands,” as the Biden administration hopes.
Bottom Line: Lowering the standard on nature conservation to up the numbers is like counting a face mask hanging loose from one ear as someone being masked. It’s not going to end well
For More Information
Kerr, Andy. 2022. Forty-Four Conservation Recipes for 30x30: A Cookbook of 22 Administrative and 22 Legislative Opportunities for Government Action to Protect 30 Percent of US Lands by 2030. The Larch Company, Ashland, OR, and Washington, DC.
Kerr, Andy. May 14, 2021. Biden’s Bait and Switch. Public Lands Blog #193.