by Amy Kenney | Apr 22, 2020 | Uncategorized
Like so many others, I find solace in nature during these uncertain and scary times. My family is so grateful to have access to hiking trails and a garden to tend. And my time in nature reminds me about the work I and so many others were focused on before the pandemic upended our lives: promoting the protection of at least 30 percent of our ocean.
On this Earth Day—on its 50th anniversary—the case for protecting nature has never been as relevant and urgent. What kind of world will we leave to our children and grandchildren? Can we recommit to better relationship with nature and wildlife?
We need a healthy ocean, clean air and rivers, our parks and wilderness areas. These are natural assets, not luxuries. It’s important that we view them as such given their important role to provide food, support jobs, unite communities, and give people needed sanctuary from the modern bustle, a place to find personal, familial, and even spiritual fulfillment.
This pandemic reminds us how important and threatened nature is. The evidence is sobering:
- A million species are at risk of extinction worldwide.
- Three-fourths of the planet’s lands and two-thirds of its ocean environments have been “severely altered” by human activity.
- Half of all freshwater and saltwater wetlands in the contiguous 48 states have succumbed to development.
- Only 12 percent of America’s lands and less than one percent of ocean areas around the continental United States are protected.
Although we haven’t exactly been here before, we have faced environmental challenges in the past and summoned the will to act decisively to address them.
This occurred most notably in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA, and the advent of Earth Day. These actions and many more were part of a nationwide awakening to the widespread benefits of protecting nature and wildlife.
The intervening years have brought mixed news, including the creation of national monuments on land and at sea—by presidents from both parties. Then, a recent attempt to reverse two of those designations under the current administration.
Outside the U.S., government leaders are seizing the conservation mantle. The island nation of Palau, for example, has designated 80 percent of its ocean territory as a marine reserve, prohibiting large-scale fishing and other destructive activities. Chile, the United Kingdom and Canada, among many other nations, have also taken strides to better protect nature.
Today there is a growing global movement to protect at least 30 percent of the planet by 2030, a target based on a strong foundation of scientific studies.
The world is losing species to extinction at a rate not seen in millennia. Many experts believe we are in a ‘mass extinction’ period. A variety of factors are driving this crisis, including loss of habitat and climate change.
Research shows that protecting at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean areas would reduce extinctions and help keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a key threshold for limiting the negative consequences and immense costs of climate change.
Achieving 30 by 30 protection would also pay huge dividends for people by safeguarding global food supplies and helping preserve clean air and clean water. These benefits are vital to us all but especially to the billions of people on the margins. This includes tens of millions in the U.S. In meeting the 30 by 30 target, we must work toward a more equitable and inclusion vision for nature conservation.
Watching leaders around the country act swiftly and responsibly to flatten the COVID-19 curve gives me hope that we can come together to save our natural world. The clock is ticking and 2030 will arrive quicker than we imagine.
Now is the time to recommit to protecting nature, in our own yards and communities and across the globe.
by Amy Kenney | Jan 8, 2020 | Uncategorized
Our country needs more—not fewer—marine national monuments
Imagine standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, marveling at ancient layers of rock, the distant ribbon of the Colorado River, and the purity of an immense environment teeming with flora and fauna. Now imagine shrugging and stepping aside as mining and drilling companies move in to destroy eons of geologic artistry.
Almost unthinkable. Yet something similar could happen to some of the country’s most spectacular and biodiverse ocean environments if the Trump Administration follows through on its threats to weaken or eliminate protections in some of our country’s marine national monuments.
According to NOAA, these areas, including those targeted by the White House—the Pacific Remote Islands, Rose Atoll, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts marine national monuments—were created “to protect…abundant and diverse coral, fish, and seabird populations; facilitate exploration and scientific research; and promote public education regarding the value of these national treasures.”
That value is enormous. Marine monuments and other highly protected areas of the ocean are safe havens for sea life to feed, breed, and flourish. Even better, these whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish, corals and other organisms swim and spread outside the protected areas’ boundaries, enriching nearby fisheries and ecosystems.
Scientists tell us the ocean is disproportionately harmed by climate change, absorbing more carbon and in most cases heating up faster than land areas. An increasing number of studies show that the wildlife in safeguarded areas—and in fact, the areas themselves—are more resilient to climate change than are unprotected regions, and that they recover faster after disruptions such as heat waves and hurricanes. With the global climate crisis unfolding in real time, the ocean and its creatures need places to heal and recover. And they need it now.
For coastal residents, tourists, communities, and economies, the benefits of ocean sanctuaries are significant: cleaner seas, more species thriving, and an ecosystem in balance. This in turn helps seafood businesses, anglers, fishing charters, whale watching outfitters, and so many others.
The positive and widespread impact of ocean safe havens calls to mind the words of President Theodore Roosevelt when he designated the Grand Canyon as a national monument in 1908. “You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you.”
He was the first of 17 presidents—nine republicans and eight democrats—to use the 1906 Antiquities Act to safeguard extraordinary expanses of land or ocean. These decisions were not made lightly, and many of the designations—including the Grand Canyon—came over the objections of corporate interests bent on exploiting the lands or waters for short-term profit. It is worth pointing out that, over the long term, none of the industries that opposed land or marine protections suffered major declines as a result of losing those fights.
It’s clear that the U.S. needs more, not fewer, marine monuments, and that these areas should cover a broader range of habitats, including seagrass beds, kelp and mangrove forests, deep-sea corals and more. Right now less than three percent of the ocean worldwide is fully protected—meaning that no extractive activity is allowed.
That’s a paltry number, considering what’s at stake. Aside from the benefits noted above, the ocean harbors a mind-boggling array of irreplaceable life. These include the world’s oldest known living organism—a species of black coral that began growing more than 4,200 years ago, around the time ancient Egyptians were building the pyramids. Today that coral is soldiering on in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the northwest Hawaiian Islands, protected—for now—from human destruction. Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, the only marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean, is home to corals that thrive more than 12,000 feet beneath the surface as part of a diverse and extraordinary ecosystem. The monument’s signature canyons and seamounts conspire to steer currents that carry food for whales, dolphins, turtles, sharks, and many more species that live in or migrate through the area.
Those are just a snapshot of the wonders and benefits found within our marine monuments. Although most of us will never stand at the edge of these places and marvel at their beauty, we can all see the value in protecting them—for ocean life and for us, our children, and grandchildren.
By reducing or eliminating existing monuments, our leaders would essentially be putting the interests of a few over the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people and the planet they call home. Americans wouldn’t tolerate that in the Grand Canyon, and we shouldn’t stand for it in our ocean either.
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