By Anne Millbrooke, Bozeman
President Teddy Roosevelt saw “conservation as a national duty.” As he said in a 1908 speech, conservation is “the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the Nation.”
During his presidency, Roosevelt provided federal protection for almost 230 million acres of land: 150 national forests, five national parks, the first 51 federal bird reservations, the first 18 national monuments, and the first four national game preserves.
States and local governments, as well as other nations, adopted the conservation ethic and followed the example of protecting areas.
Times and politicians have changed.
The journal Science published “The Uncertain Future of Protected Lands and Waters” in in the May 31, 2019 issue. Therein, 21 authors from ten countries report that protected areas are losing protection around the world and that the United States is leading the way.
“As human pressures on the biosphere accelerate, it is critical to strengthen—not roll back—conservation efforts,” those authors stress. Afterall, only 15% of the land and 7.3% of the oceans globally have any protection.
What can we do?
We can demand monitoring and reporting of proposed “protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement” (PADDD).
We can promote safeguards in the organic legislation, or amendments thereto, for each protected area.
We can provide incentives for permanence, such as local community benefits from areas shielded from development.
We can require environmental impact statements for any proposed PADDD event.
We can require public consultation in any decision regarding a proposed PADDD event.
We can insist upon clear, plain English, and visual representation of the proposed PADDD event and legalize associated with the proposal.
We can help pass laws requiring decision-makers deliberate on PADDD proposals separately from other issues.
We can require that PADDD proposals gain approval from multiple parties.
We can direct our donations to protected areas with safeguards in place.
We can encourage lenders to lend only to protected areas with safeguards in place.
We can temper local land pressures and claims with a little restraint in recognition of the public good served by protected areas.
We can lobby for laws requiring that proposed and actual PADDD events be reported to the World Database of Protected Areas.
To learn that the United States is the worst of 76 nations studied is horrible news, but the increase of PADDDs is mostly a very recent phenomena.
The majority PADDD proposals and events to date have been for industrial development; that is true in the United States as well as globally. Industrial degradation has been for forestry, oil and gas extraction, mining, and infrastructure.
The forestry industry, for example, does not simply log. It removes trees that protect watersheds, it increases carbon emissions, and it (and its associated road-building) fragments wildlife habitat. None of that is appropriate in a protected area. Log outside protected areas. And I say that having grown up in a household supported the earnings of a logger!
Whether national, state, or local, protected areas are for the people, not for corporate profit-taking!
We need to return to the conservation ethic that prompted the United States to invent the protected areas concept and practice in the first place, initially with Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks. Yellowstone National Park was established, according to its organic act, to protect the area “from injury or spoilation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within.”
Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird.”
We can protect nature, biodiversity, watersheds, clean air, clean water, ecosystems, and the outdoor recreation economy, by designating protected areas and by strengthening the protection of our protected areas.
As the Science article clearly states, protected lands and waters have an uncertain future. But we can provide permanence for protected areas.
Conservation is our responsibility, our duty.