Senator Tom Udall and Dr. Enric Sala explain why Americans must protect 30x30 in this YouTube video.
A May 2019 United Nations report says that the world is currently facing an extinction crisis, with over one million species endangered globally.
1,300 species are threatened or endangered in the U.S. today.
Some experts estimate that one-third of all species could be extinct by 2070.
The U. N. report says this is due to human activities. These culprits are, in descending order:
(1) changes in land and sea use
(2) direct exploitation of organisms
(3) climate change
(4) pollution
(5) invasive alien species
Why does this matter?
The Hall of Biodiversity in New York’s American Museum of Natural History notes:
“In the past, natural events caused large-scale transformations of the environment and five global mass extinctions. Now, ecosystems are again undergoing a massive loss of biodiversity. This time, the changes are caused mainly by human activity… following the invention of agriculture around 10,000 years ago and the resulting population boom, our impact has intensified.”
The world’s five prior extinctions were brought about by a variety of factors including glaciation (Ordovician extinction); global warming and change in ocean chemistry (Permian extinction); asteroid impact (Cretaceous extinction).
On January 27, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. Section 214 of this order is to “protect America’s natural treasures, increase reforestation, improve access to recreation, and increase resilience to wildfires and storms, referred to as #30 x 30. 450 state and Local officials support this.
This matches one of Biden’s campaign promises of “Protecting biodiversity, slowing extinction rates, and helping leverage natural climate solutions by conserving 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030.”