Saving America’s Biodiversity – How Did the Biden Administration Do?

by Henry Barbaro

Like many countries throughout the world, America is experiencing a “biodiversity crisis.”  According to the U.S. EPA, over 1,300 of America’s plant and animal species are endangered or threatened.  As described in the 2023 report by NatureServe, “Biodiversity in Focus: United States Edition,” 34% of plants and 40% of animals are at risk of extinction, and 41% of ecosystems are at risk of range-wide collapse.  

The United States is losing a football field worth of land to development every 30 seconds. The consequential impacts to wildlife and ecosystems are directly correlated to America’s growing population which leads to widespread habitat degradation and loss, and the extirpation and possible extinction of mammals, birds, fish, insects, and other forms of life.

To address this relentless loss of wildlife habitat and America’s biological heritage, in May 2021 the Biden administration issued an executive order directing federal officials to protect 30% of both the country’s lands and marine areas by 2030 (i.e., “30×30 plan”), also known as Biden’s “America the Beautiful” initiative. The plan would serve as a crucial step toward stopping our nation’s wildlife extinction crisis by preserving America’s most biologically rich ecosystems.

As of 2022, 13% (about 305 million acres) of the land area of the U.S. was considered to be “protected,” which includes 42,826 parcels owned/managed by federal, state, tribal, and municipal-level agencies/authorities. (The U.S. also had a total 871 National Marine Protected Areas, covering an additional 794 million acres, or 26% of the total marine area under U.S. jurisdiction.)

U.S. Remains a Conservation Leader – For Now

Since the late 1800’s, America has made great strides toward protecting millions of acres of land, but most of these efforts have been based on preserving geological or scenic features (e.g., mountains), tribal landscapes of cultural significance, or vast inhospitable landscapes.  For example, of the 305 million acres of protected land in America, 157 million acres are federally-owned in Alaska.  These areas are comprised of boreal forest and tundra which, due to extreme cold temperatures for most of the year and a short growing season, are low in species diversity.  It is also noteworthy that without Alaska’s acreage, the percentage of protected land within the contiguous U.S. would drop to only 6.5% — a far cry from 30%.  This raises two important questions — Is the (arbitrary) “30%” goal achievable in the next five or even 50 years? Is the quality of protected land more important than the quantity?

When the Grand Canyon (a truly amazing geological formation) became a national park 100 years ago, America’s population was 106 million.  Since then, our nation has overseen the widespread destruction of vital habitat areas and a significant loss of wildlife.  With the U.S. population now at 342 million, the time has come to focus on saving what remains of our dwindling biodiversity.  America must prioritize protecting areas with threatened species and stop the further decline of our most vulnerable ecosystems.

In “Biodiversity in Focus,”  Dr. Sean T. O’Brien, President and CEO of NatureServe emphasized that, “The plants, animals, and ecosystems found in our state, tribal, and federal lands are key components of our cultural and natural heritage. We should be proud of the biodiversity in our backyard and should prioritize protecting what is here, now.”

A year prior (2022), the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation published a report titled “This Map Shows Where Biodiversity Is Most at Risk in America,” which delineated the “concentrations of imperiled biodiversity” – places most likely to have plants and animals at high risk of global extinction.

Source: “This Map Shows Where Biodiversity Is Most at Risk in America,” April 18, 2022

According to Walter Jetz, an ecologist who leads Yale University’s biodiversity mapping efforts, policymakers must make data-driven decisions about which areas to protect. Otherwise “you might gain a large percentage of area protected but you have done very little in actually safeguarding species.”

Across the continental United States, private land makes up almost 70% of areas with important concentrations of unprotected imperiled species.  The region southwest of Austin, growing fast and with little protected land, is an example where, despite pressure from housing developments and groundwater depletion, habitat for six imperiled species — a warbler, a bat, two salamanders and two plants — still exists.

Now that the geographic precision is available, private individuals and conservation groups can focus more accurately on preventing extinctions. An excellent mapping tool was provided in the scientific paper “U.S. protected lands mismatch biodiversity priorities,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.  The mapping indicates areas of high priority for expansion of conservation in the U.S. to protect America’s unique species. It is based on an analysis of endemic species (i.e., restricted to a specific range) of amphibians, mammals, birds, freshwater fish, reptiles, and trees.  The highest-priority areas are mostly in the Southeast, California, and Texas. These areas cover a relatively small portion of the country but are inordinately important for biodiversity. 

The scientific paper, titled “U.S. protected lands mismatch biodiversity priorities” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) in 2015, identified areas of high priority for expansion of conservation in the U.S. needed to protect America’s unique species. It is based on an analysis of endemic species (i.e., restricted to a specific range) of amphibians, mammals, birds, freshwater fish, reptiles, and trees.  The highest-priority areas are mostly in the Southeast, California, and Texas. These areas cover a relatively small portion of the country but are inordinately important for biodiversity. 

When comparing the mapped “priority index”with a map of identified conservation lands, and all federally owned lands, it becomes clear that most of America’s protected lands are in the West although, for the most part, the most vulnerable biodiversity is in the Southeast. The mismatch has historical roots – as stated above, America’s conservation pioneers set out to protect landscapes, not biodiversity.  Hence, our nation’s biodiversity hotspots match up poorly with the areas already under protection.

Summary of Findings

The reports above are unified in their conclusions — meeting the goal of the 30×30 conservation plan requires targeted land acquisition, land use restrictions, and management to maximize value for biodiversity conservation. These reports spotlight the species, ecosystems, and locations where land conservation programs and investment are most needed, with southeastern U.S. having the highest priority for species protection.  Moreover, meeting the “30% land area” goal is not very meaningful if the land has low biodiversity potential.

President Biden has received praise for designating eight “land conservation” national monuments (and a marine sanctuary) — one each in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas, and four in California.  The total area of these new national monuments is an impressive 3,046,537 acres.  These areas have cultural significance (e.g., historical tribal lands), and serve as wildlife habitat.  These designations essentially prohibited extractive activities (e.g., mining) or solar farms on existing federal land.

However, there are several drawbacks with Biden’s national monuments:

1. Less than 20% of the newly-designated land area (three of the eight monuments) had any prominent biological diversity;
2. The “land conservation” sites already had some modicum of protection because they were on existing federal land, with little risk of development.  The monuments were a reclassification of federal land rather than an addition of land, such as acquiring private lands that have no formal protections;
3. All of the “land conservation” monuments are located in the West.  His largest monument in the East is a 57-acre site in Newcastle, Maine.

Overall, the Biden administration provided notable protections only to federal lands in western U.S., most of which has low biodiversity, and did not make progress toward creating any national wildlife lands (refuges or parks) through the acquisition of private land.

Unfortunately, the administration’s efforts to save America’s beleaguered wildlife were more than offset by President Biden’s immigration policies.  By implementing various “open border” policies, the Biden administration effectively spiked our nation’s population growth through mass immigration – an annual average of 3.5 million immigrants, 2.5 million of whom were unauthorized.  Relative to protecting biodiversity, this was a serious misstep.  Some of the most threatened habitat and species in America are in close proximity to population centers (e.g., in California and Texas) where immigrants are drawn to because of the higher demand for migrant labor.

In the final analysis, for the reasons cited above, Joe Biden warrants a low grade for meeting the objectives of the 30×30 plan and “protecting nature” in America.

Conclusion

As America becomes more densely populated, our nation’s natural areas are in decline and threatened with development, along with land prices rapidly rising.  This has a double-whammy effect when it comes to identifying candidate sites for biodiversity conservation.  The days of securing large tracts of untrammeled land areas, for preserving critical habitat and ecosystems, are fading away.

Indeed, like so many other examples of limited and dwindling resources (e.g., water, farmland), it is becoming more of a challenge to maintain an immigration system that admits large numbers of newcomers every year without sacrificing America’s rich biological heritage and, ultimately, the quality of life of our home country.

Immigration-driven population growth is the main impediment to preserving America’s biodiversity. For the 30×30 plan to come even close to fruition our leaders must take steps (e.g., E-Verify, end birthright citizenship, limit chain migration) toward population stabilization.  Until that happens, we will continue to lose species and ecosystems – forever.