Identifying key federal, state, and private lands strategies for achieving 30 × 30 in the United States

Abstract

Achieving ambitious goals to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 (“30 × 30”) will require a multiscale baseline understanding of current protections, key decisionmakers, and policy tools for moving forward. To help conservationists and decisionmakers support the science‐based call to address the biodiversity and climate crises, we analyze the current spatial patterns of biodiversity and carbon in the United States relative to protected areas and present a typology for classifying land contributions toward the 30 × 30 goals. Analyses demonstrate that 30% is achievable nationally, but spatial heterogeneity highlights the need for tailored approaches from a mix of authorities at federal, regional, and state scales. Current land protections rarely overlap with areas essential for conserving imperiled species biodiversity and mitigating climate change. One‐fifth of unprotected biodiversity hotspots and over 8% carbon‐rich areas face a higher risk of land conversion by 2050. In contrast, 3.6% of key biodiversity areas and 15.6% of carbon‐rich areas may experience higher climate exposure. Policy considerations for making practical, substantive progress toward ecologically meaningful achievement of 30 × 30 goal include the need for significant investments in public and private lands conservation.

Co‐benefits for terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services available from contrasting land protection policies in the contiguous United States

“…For example, recreation ROI was greatest near urban areas because variation in population overwhelms other differences, and we would expect to see a similar pattern for other ecosystem services that depend on proximity to people (e.g., water withdrawal, Figure S3). However, using an alternate biodiversity benefit with a distinct spatial distribution, for example, rarity-weighted richness or irreplaceability (Albuquerque & Beier, 2016), may result in reduced potential for co-benefits in prioritizations than we observed (Belote et al, 2021;Dreiss & Malcom, 2022).…”

“…Finally, we examined benefit trade-offs by ecoregions and for three national thematic policies: protecting habitats buffering current Gap 1 and 2 protected areas ("Expand"), upgrading protections for GAP 3 protected areas ("Upgrade"), and supporting other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) in areas buffering federally recognized Indigenous lands ("Indigenous"). These policies were chosen from suggestions that frequently arise in discussions around how to meet 30 × 30 (Carroll & Noss, 2021;Dreiss & Malcom, 2022).…”

Mature and old-growth forests contribute to large-scale conservation targets in the conterminous United States

“…In general, for all non-federal lands, a combination of regulatory improvements and incentives could retain more MOG (Dreiss and Malcolm, 2022). This might include conservation easements, fee-title acquisitions, and carbon offsets that result in verifiable conservation gains over status quo management.…”

Choice of prioritization method impacts recommendations for climate‐informed bird conservation in the United States

“…The variety of prioritization approaches used by scientists and practitioners can involve critical trade‐offs in potential opportunities for climate‐informed conservation at broad spatial scales (McKerrow et al 2018, Wilson et al 2019, Dreiss and Malcom 2022). Alternative methods may direct resource managers to different lands for protection, and thus varying recommendations for meeting area‐based targets.…”

“…Effective strategies for identifying priorities may also differ by geographic region, taxonomic group and scale of implementation. Despite these implications, the performance and consequences of alternative methods are largely unknown (Game et al 2013, Albuquerque and Beier 2015, Belote et al 2021, Dreiss and Malcom 2022). This lack of evaluation limits the efficacy of biodiversity conservation efforts in a rapidly changing world.…”