United for the Ocean

Add your name to stand up for the ocean!

Climate change is changing the landscape of our planet. We know it is limiting nature’s ability to buffer communities impacted by disasters like storms, fires, and floods. We know that nature is important and needs to be protected to mitigate the crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Only 12% of the United States’ land area and 26% of U.S. ocean waters have been conserved as protected areas. Therefore:

• We support the Biden Administration's first ever national conservation goal to conserve 30 percent of lands, waters, and ocean by 2030 to protect nature and ourselves.

• We support the Administration's focus to conserve 30% of lands, waters, and ocean by 2030 while improving access to nature for ALL people, including communities of color & economically disadvantaged communities.

• We urge the Biden Administration to immediately identify ocean conservation actions that will produce outcomes for climate resilience and mitigation and protecting biodiversity. This includes immediately taking action to develop highly and fully protected marine spaces, representative of a diversity of habitat and geography.

• America the Beautiful Initiative must evaluate and measure progress towards the distinct goals of biodiversity conservation and equitable access to nature. These are both important and worthy goals. Often, nature protection and access to nature can complement one another, but the solutions to each of these challenges may look different and should be tracked separately.

• America the Beautiful Initiative must fully address environmental justice and the necessity for a much more equitable distribution of nature’s benefits to ALL people, including communities of color and overburdened communities.

If you can commit to these goals and actions, we can make headway to protect biodiversity, reduce climate impacts and ensure equity in conservation and nature for every American before it is too late.