Around 100 frontline conservation advocates met in Washington, D.C. last week for meetings organized by the\u00a0\u201cAmerica the Beautiful for All Coalition.\u201d Participants came from across the U.S.\u2014from Maine to the Marianas, Alaska to Puerto Rico, and everywhere in between.<\/p>\n
The coalition is the largest and most diverse environmental coalition ever assembled for the most ambitious land and water conservation goal ever set in the United States. We are helping to connect, restore, and conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 by uniting land, freshwater, ocean, wildlife, community, recreation, and equity advocates across the nation. We are also working to ensure at least 40% of conservation investments are made in communities of color and frontline communities that have historically seen little to no investment in conservation and equitable access to nature.<\/p>\n
Our coalition met with federal officials, including Senate staff, House committee staff, and senior leadership at the White House, Department of the Interior, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency. We also participated in panel discussions and presentations, and met briefly with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.<\/p>\n
We spoke about existing conservation measures taking place in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. Our recommendations to these government leaders highlighted three important themes:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Prioritize US territories with conservation jobs, programs, and funding<\/strong><\/p>\n The Biden administration\u2019s \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d initiative should prioritize ocean conservation for U.S. territories, as they are home to the largest, most strongly protected marine areas and the highest levels of biodiversity in the United States. But the U.S. territories do not receive federal funding that is proportional to the conservation burden that they carry. In the Pacific, the first step toward actively managing our territories\u2019 marine national monuments \u2014designated in 2009 by the Bush administration\u2014is to develop and publish final management plans so they can be implemented. In the U.S. Caribbean, capacity has been created for local stakeholders to lead conservation efforts but the local conservation community still does not receive the resources and support needed.\u00a0 Lack of funding will undermine the United States\u2019 long term ability to protect ocean resources because capacity and funding are failing to reach frontline ocean conservation communities.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Restore conservation management and decision-making power to the territories<\/strong><\/p>\n In particular, the federal government should engage the Puerto Rican, American Samoan, Chamorro, and other Micronesian peoples and territorial governments who are long-time stewards and owners of these resources. The U.S. should also explore further opportunities for the territories to co-manage the federally protected areas and other natural resources in territorial waters. This would increase access for several Indigenous and frontline communities to lead and collaborate in natural resources management in line with the Biden administration\u2019s\u00a0Justice40 Initiative.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Engage with territorial governments to determine the unique ocean conservation needs of Indigenous citizens in the territories<\/strong><\/p>\n The Biden administration recently announced a\u00a0consultation policy\u00a0to guide the federal government in engaging with Native Hawaiians. This policy should be extended to all Indigenous peoples in the territories. The federal government uses other models to engage with Native peoples in Alaska and the contiguous United States, and those should also be explored to determine the most appropriate way to engage with Indigenous peoples in the territories. Likewise, for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, further mechanisms need to be explored to shift decision-making power to local communities in the U.S. Caribbean.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Staff and budget capacity, as well as\u00a0equitable community engagement, are critical to achieve conservation impacts.\u00a0 The Biden administration\u2019s conservation goals are laudable, but ocean conservation success in the U.S. can only be achieved when federal dollars make their way to Indigenous and frontline communities, and when those citizens have decision-making power and are active in the management of ocean resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Around 100 frontline conservation advocates met in Washington, D.C. last week for meetings organized by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":331236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[320],"class_list":["post-391311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}