Once a world leader in creating public lands, US now leads world in shrinking them

[MBS]

Two articles report the findings of an article in the May 31 issue of the journal Science, authored by Rachel Golden Kroner of Conservation International and colleagues.

1. https://www.minnpost.com/earth-journal/2019/06/once-a-world-leader-in-creating-public-lands-u-s-now-leads-in-shrinking-them/?

“Degazettement” is rather an opaque and unlovely word, but maybe worth knowing if you care about the future of public lands, for it helps describe an unhappy trend to reduce their extent, protection status and ecological value. In a sense, “degazetting” a protected landscape is akin to “delisting” a protected species — an action that removes it from a roster of special conservation concern. Where delisting is generally justified by species recovery, however, degazetted lands are typically relieved of their protective boundaries for the benefit of private exploiters — like mining and logging companies — with government influence. Such erasures are proliferating, and accelerating, both in the United States and around the world, according to new findings published in the journal Science.

In what is claimed to be “the most comprehensive global review to date of the extent, trends and proximate causes” of these rollbacks, researchers led by Rachel E. Golden Kroner of Conservation International looked at a suite of actions known as PADDD, for “protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement.”. .
. . . of the 269 rollbacks on U.S. public lands that the researchers found in records from 1892 to 2017 — affecting a half-million square kilometers across 229 protected areas in 44 states — 90 percent have been enacted in this millennium. That surpasses a global figure of 78 percent for the same period, which I guess means the nation that once led the world in protecting public lands has also come to set the pace for un-protecting them. . . .

Of course, these accelerating trends to roll back land protections are occurring just as the world’s extinction-minded ecologists suggest we need to dramatically expand global efforts in habitat conservation to head off catastrophic species losses.
This is especially critical in regions of the highest diversity — Amazonia, say. But the PADDD picture there is discouraging, too. . .

2. See also: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/largest-reduction-of-protected-lands-under-trump-843457/

U.S. Sees Largest Reduction of Protected Lands in History Under Trump
The Trump Administration is responsible for causing the largest reduction of protected public lands in U.S. history, according to a comprehensive study published this week in the journal Science. In 2017, the study noted, President Trump enacted two of the largest reductions of federally protected lands, shrinking Bears Ears by 85 percent and Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument in southern Utah by 51 percent. Also in 2017, Congress voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and natural gas development. By removing federal protections, the study said, Trump is opening up these lands to oil and natural gas companies. And while the 2017 reductions are now being argued in federal court, the study said, the government already has plans to downgrade or downsize nine more land and marine national monuments...

The study was conducted by 21 international scientists analyzing 200 years of data about protected areas. The scientists found that vast reduction of federal lands is a relatively recent phenomenon; 90 percent of reductions in U.S. federal lands have occurred since the year 2000. This is part of a disturbing global trend, where 78 percent of global land reductions have taken place since 2000. The study also found that lands in the Amazon are quickly losing protections as well. And, this all contributes to climate change.

“[Protected lands] play such an important role in mitigating climate change, in serving as a protective habitat for animals and birds,” Rachel Golden Kroner, the lead author on the study, told CNN. And, she told the Grist, “Biodiversity and the web of life on Earth is in trouble. And it’s up to us to do something about it.” “As human pressures on the biosphere accelerate, it is critical to strengthen—not roll back—conservation efforts,” the study authors concluded.

[Submariner]

1. Trump administration announces plans to expand hunting and fishing access in wildlife refuges

The Trump administration announced a plan Wednesday to expand access even further to protected federal lands for hunting and fishing. The plan seeks to increase access across 1.4 million acres of public land in 74 national wildlife refuges and 15 national fish hatcheries.

The department also plans to update hunting and fishing regulations at refuges across the U.S. to more closely match state regulations, U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in a statement on Wednesday.
"President Trump is committed to expanding public access on public lands, and this proposal is executing on that directive by opening and increasing more access to hunting and fishing by the Fish and Wildlife Service at more stations and across more acres than ever before," Bernhardt's statement said. "Hunting and fishing are more than just traditional pastimes as they are also vital to the conservation of our lands and waters, our outdoor recreation economy, and our American way of life."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-announces-plans-to-expand-hunting-and-fishing-access-in-wildlife-refuges/

[MBS]

2. yup, part of their plan for environmental pillaging on all fronts.

Among the long list of dangerous and evil deeds of this regime, their environmental destruction – at a time when thoughtful and knowledgeable environmental stewardship is needed more desperately than ever – is one of the most unforgivable and(unless we can repeal and replace this mafia very soon) irreversible . I am furious and heartbroken at their willful destruction of our natural heritage.

[Blue_Tires]

3. So, has anybody asked the middle class in the flyover states what they think about this?

[CrispyQ]

5. There are a ton of repubs who love our public lands.

For hiking, camping, hunting, fishing. Cory Gardner has a fine line to walk on this issue. Stand with the GOP or lose support in outdoor loving Colorado? I will work hard for his Democratic challenger in 2020.

[raccoon]

4. So we're still number one? :sarcasm: nt