Apr 30, 2023
A joint statement below from Mark Magaña, Founding Member And Co-chair, America The Beautiful For All Coalition; Founding President & CEO of GreenLatinos, and Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, Founding Member And Co-chair, America The Beautiful For All Coalition; Executive Director, Children’s Environmental Health Network:
“Today, we celebrate the Biden Harris Administration’s announcement of the draft Bureau of Land Management Public Lands rule. Earlier this year, our coalition released a policy agenda with twenty actions that this Administration and Congress can take to advance the goal of conserving 30% of US lands, freshwater and ocean by 2030 through a Justice40 lens. In just two months, we have seen action by the Biden Administration on several priorities.
“BLM lands represent nearly 40% of America’s most iconic and vital public lands. Prioritizing conservation and Tribal co-stewardship in the BLM mission will buffer nearly 250 million acres against the worst impacts of climate change, including wildfire and extreme weather. It will help safeguard clean water, air and wildlife habitat while regenerating a diverse and passionate agency workforce which is essential to protecting public health and cultural connections to the land. The Public Lands Rule is a crucial step towards achieving the administration’s America the Beautiful Initiative goals–and rural, frontline, and communities of color will need continued support to protect lands that run deep in their culture and stories.”
Statement from Tara Thornton, Wildlife Workgroup Co-Lead, America The Beautiful For All Coalition; Deputy Director for the Endangered Species Coalition:
“Today’s historic announcement by the Biden Administration to “rebalance” the mission of the Bureau of Land Management couldn’t come soon enough. As we face a biodiversity crisis that scientists estimate could spell the extinction for millions of species in the next several decades, protecting these public lands will offer a lifeline to those most vulnerable species.”
Statement from Jerry Otero, Public Lands Workgroup Co-Lead, America The Beautiful For All Coalition; Policy Director for the Grand Canyon Trust:
“The America the Beautiful for All Public Lands Group supports the proposed Bureau of Land Management rulemaking that modernizes outdated land management policies. This rulemaking moves us in the right direction to provide needed policy balance for co-management and co-stewardship, reducing pollution on public lands, protecting sensitive cultural resources, and creating meaningful opportunities for historically excluded at risk communities. This effort will help advance the America the Beautiful for All Coalition mission, a once in a generation opportunity to protect and preserve public lands and reduce climate change causing carbon emissions by 2030.”
About Us:
The America the Beautiful for All Coalition consists of 150 organizations working collectively to thwart the rapidly advancing impacts of climate change; stem the loss of biodiversity; increase more equitable access to nature’s benefits; and ensure at least 40% of conservation spending occurs in communities of color and frontline communities that have historically seen little to no conservation investments. Member organizations range in focus from urban parks and green space, Indigenous rights, public lands protection, public health, wildlife, outdoor recreation and freshwater and ocean conservation — all representative of identities and issue areas that have traditionally been underrepresented in conservation decision-making in the United States.
