30% by 2030
Click on the button above to view the USGS Protected Areas Dashboard
Select extent: State
Select your State from the drop-down menu
Add Gap 1 + GAP 2 % = ?
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5. If your State has 30% or more when adding GAP 1 and GAP 2 areas, Congratulations! Your State is on target with permanent legal protections on 30% of its territory.
Most states are far from it but include lands and waters that are subject to extractive activities (GAP 3: mining, logging, agriculture, etc.) and vehicle traffic which does not qualify for the 30 x 30 mandate because it doesn't help biodiversity or nature recovery.
States need to move GAP 3 lands into GAP 1 and GAP 2 management scenarios using administrative mechanisms until they reach 30% and issue permanent legal protections on the 30%.
DREISS 2022 GAP Codes explained:
GAP 1-permanent protection from conversion and management plan to maintain the natural state.
GAP 2 - permanent protection from conversion and management plan to maintain a primarily natural state, management plan may degrade quality of natural communities (i.e. suppress disturbances.)
GAP 3 - Permanent protections in majority but subject to extractive uses (forestry, mining, and vehicle traffic including off-road vehicles.)
GAP 4 - Lacking conservation mandates - allows conversion and management is largely unknown.
We must hold our governments accountable and demand true, permanent, and legal protections and transparency on 30% of all lands and waters by 2030
No more shortcuts! We have no time to waste.
In the above USGS dashboard, you can see that the entire U.S.A. only has about 12 % of lands that are permanently protected – the vast majority of which are found in the Western U.S.- and only 23% of America’s Oceans have real legal protections.
Background:
Nature is Running Out of Space on Planet Earth
Species populations have declined an average of 69% over the last 50 years (Living Planet Report) - 75 % is considered a mass extinction.
The drivers of this biodiversity crisis are anthropogenic: habitat loss, species overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, climate change, and disease.
Human population is only projected to grow - from current 8 billion to close to 10 Billion people by 2050.
Biodiversity, or the biological variety of life on Earth, is essential for human survival and well-being including for food security, medicine, ecosystem services such as pollination and climate regulation, disease control, and human biome resilience. It is what maintains our biosphere.
The Solution
In 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted during COP 15 with 23 targets.
Target #3 is what we colloquially call the 30 x 30 target: an ambitious commitment to permanently protect 30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal, and marine areas by 2030.
The goal seeks to protect and restore 30% by 2030 so that by 2050, the extinction rate can be decreased tenfold and the abundance of native wild species can come back to healthy and resilient levels through natural progression.
The implementation of the 2022 framework is coordinated globally by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP), and the World Conservation Monitoring Center. In the US, it is monitored by the United States Geological Survey Agency (USGS).
Executive Order (#14008) was issued in 2021 in the U.S. to “tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad. This order highlights that currently, according to the official USGS dashboard , only 12 % of lands are permanently protected (see image below.)
Forests host 80% of terrestrial life and are vital for carbon sequestration- forests need to be prioritized for 30 x 30 and obtain full, permanent, legal protections against logging and traffic.
We have 5 more years to put permanent legal protections on 30% of all lands and waters, especially ecosystems of high ecological integrity such as forests.
The Example of Maryland
In May of 2024, Governor Moore announced that we have reached 30% of protected lands and are now moving towards 40% by 2040. However, the USGS official GAP shows 0.08% of territory in GAP 1 and 2.57% in GAP 2. This adds up to 2.65% of Marylands territory, far less than the 30% we need.
We sent this letter to the Governor:
2. We received this answer from the Secretaries of Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Planning, confirming our suspicion that GAP 3 lands are being counted for 30 x 30 in Maryland. As in many other states, MD calls this "conservation" which misleads people to believe we're on target.
3. We sent a letter demanding transparency and accountability:
Next Steps:
Obtain as much media coverage as possible (tricky in election time)
Get as many organizations and other States to back up 30 x 30
Set up a state-wide petition, asking for transparency and true 30 x 30
Help us protect 30% by 2030 in your state!
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