Outdoor Recreation Will Benefit from this Ambitious Climate Goal

Today, Outdoor Alliance released a policy report entitled “How Outdoor Recreationists Can Support 30x30,” which explores how the outdoor community and a diverse approach to conserving public lands and waters can help the 30x30 conservation goal succeed.

30x30 is an ambitious plan, arising out of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, to conserve 30% of the world’s lands and waters by 2030 in order to protect biodiversity and the climate. 30x30 has garnered broad support and has spawned resolutions at the state level and in Congress. The outdoor community is enthusiastic about this effort, and we see great potential in its implementation to not only protect biodiversity and advance climate protections, but also to support outdoor recreation, the outdoor recreation economy, and equitable access to the outdoors.

The policy report, authored by Outdoor Alliance’s Policy Director, Louis Geltman, and Land Use Planning & GIS Manager, Levi Rose, explores how the outdoor recreation community can be involved in making 30x30 successful. Along with pursuing protections like Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers, we see great potential and great need for flexible protections for frontcountry landscapes near population centers, which will help improve equitable access to the outdoors, support quality of life and economic development, and support biodiversity and climate. The report looks at how an expansive approach to 30x30 will mean more inclusivity, greater political momentum, and more communities that see the direct benefits of conservation.

Adam Cramer, Executive Director of Outdoor Alliance, said, “The only way 30x30 will succeed is if everyone is able to see a bit of themselves in it. While everyone stands to benefit from climate resilience, we need to build a true diversity of stakeholders with equity in the 30x30 goals, regardless of where they live or how they experience the outdoors.”

“30x30 is an ambitious goal and one that our community should enthusiastically support,” said Outdoor Alliance’s Policy Director, Louis Geltman, “Wilderness, Wild and Scenic Rivers, and other conservation measures are crucial for protecting biodiversity and mitigating the effects of climate change. Purposefully supplementing these approaches with more flexible protections, parks, and close-to-home greenspaces will help build a community of support around 30x30 and help us meet the ambitious goals that science says we need to achieve.”

"From the beginning, we understood the possible implications of 30x30, but we were really intrigued by the potential for an inclusive and flexible approach to defining protection. We reviewed climate science, integrated GIS data, and created a vision that embraces the contributions of imperfect protections and highlights specific opportunities for engagement from the outdoor community," said Levi Rose, Land Use Planning & GIS Manager at Outdoor Alliance.

Our vision for how the outdoor recreation community can help to support an inclusive and successful implementation of 30x30 is outlined in the full policy report here. Among the most important takeaways are:

The conservation and climate community have not yet coalesced around a measurement framework for what counts as “protected.” However, the most commonly cited figure for the percentage of land currently protected – 12% – is based on the USGS’s GAP methodology and includes designations like Wilderness, National Parks, and Wild and Scenic Rivers (you can see the full chart in the appendix of the paper). We strongly support a big push to expand these protections, but also see an important role—reflected in 30x30’s language—for additional, more flexible protections, including on state and private land.
The greater the extent to which 30x30 can support benefits in addition to biodiversity—for example local parks, urban green infrastructure, and close-to-home outdoor recreation opportunities—the more support the 30x30 goal is likely to attract. Finding innovative approaches to conservation will be key for areas of the country without a lot of federal public land, as well as for advancing equitable access, recreation, and the other benefits of conservation that will help to build and maintain support for 30x30.
Outdoor Alliance recommends an approach that includes Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), an approach that aligns with how the architects of 30x30 suggest protecting an additional 20 percent of lands and waters as “climate stabilization areas.” An OECM may not have biodiversity conservation as its primary objective, but still provides important conservation benefits. Incorporating OECMs into the 30x30 framework is a way to account for imperfect protections, build support for 30x30, and pursue novel approaches to conservation at scale. A broad base of support and nontraditional approaches to conservation will be essential to achieving 30x30.
Outdoor Alliance strongly supports an inclusive approach to 30x30 to ensure that implementation decisions are not just made equitably and inclusively, but support direct benefits to communities that have been denied, or lack ready access to the outdoors. This approach is just, and will also help to build the broad support necessary for 30x30’s success.

In all, we’re incredibly excited about 30x30 and see it as an opportunity to put our community’s advocacy power to work protecting biodiversity, mitigating climate change, and helping to give more people ready access to the outdoors. Expect to hear lots more from us about this in the days and months to come.

If you’re as enthusiastic about 30x30 as we are, you can share your support for by asking the new administration and Congress to take urgent action on climate and conservation issues.