Abigail Black, Guest Contributor
President Biden is on the verge of protecting more land than any other modern first-term President in American history: he’s already protected 1.5 million acres of American public land as new national monuments – a space as big as the state of Delaware.
As an environmental policy professional, resident of Northern California, nature lover, tribal justice activist, and anxious global citizen of this climate-changing earth, I am grateful to the Biden administration, the Department of the Interior, and the BLM for using the update of the Northwest California Integrated Management Plan (NCIP) to respond to the call to action that we work together to conserve, connect, and restore 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030 for the sake of our economy, our health, and our well-being.
Why? Because hundreds of the worlds’ leading scientists have warned that a rapid loss of natural space is resulting in a mass extinction, exacerbated by climate change – and we have until 2030 before we reach a tipping point – a point of no return – where the effects of a warming climate, increase in extreme weather events, and species extinction will lead to irreversible collapse of local and global systems. (You can read about these details in the yearly reports generated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or “IPCC”).
In the face of this crisis, scientists have urged us to conserve at least 30% of the planet’s lands and waters by 2030 (“30×30”) in order to avoid this point of no return.
I was pleased to learn that NCIP, the guiding management document for 382,000 acres of lands and waters in Northwest California, would finally be updated after over 30 years! Specifically, a new draft of the 1992 document is being updated to include the most up-to-date science, traditional ecological knowledge, and lessons learned as they pertain to forest and fire management. It will also better reflect the way the California government is beginning to value tribal communities, who have cared for these lands and waters since time immemorial.
Some of the most notable updates of the Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that make up the NCIP, include: protections for Wild and Scenic Rivers, designation of Areas of Environmental Concern (ACEC’s) and Wilderness Study Areas (WSA’s), as well as positive implications for addressing climate change.
Choosing to update this Plan is a huge leap towards addressing both national and state goals to protect 30% of land and waters by 2030 and in so doing, address impacts of climate change.
There will be a final, 30-day protest period once the Preliminary Proposed RMP/Final EIS is published and that is expected to start in early June, 2024.
I sincerely look forward to the next 25 years of witnessing and experiencing the positive impacts of these management changes. I remain hopeful as I read about the Biden administration’s great strides towards possibly meeting our national and state goals.