Good plan. Let's fund it. 

California's 30x30 initiative was launched three years ago when Gov. Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-82-20, which called for a plan to protect 30 percent of California's lands and coastal waters by 2030. The goal aligns with a science-driven global 30x30 campaign to protect nature worldwide and head off the twin crises of extinction and climate disruption.

On Feb. 21, 2020, California state Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) introduced Assembly Bill 3030, declaring "the goal of the state to conserve at least 30 percent of the land and 30 percent of the ocean within the state by 2030."

That's why the Sierra Club is part of the Power in Nature Coalition—community groups, conservation organizations, land trusts, and Native American tribes in every part of California, working to protect biodiversity, take real action on climate, and create equity by safeguarding California's lands and waters for future generations.

This isn't the first time I've written about the 30x30 campaign in this space, and it likely won't be the last. I bring it up now because 30x30 just had a watershed moment: a Sacramento oversight hearing, the traditional signal that things are getting real. When the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee convened on Feb. 28, the 30x30 initiative took a big step away from the realm of policy documents and toward the real world.

Thanks to the Power in Nature coalition, the committee heard from a lot of Californians about just how important it is that the Legislature fulfill its commitment to conservation by funding the 30x30 initiative. Those who spoke noted that the 30x30 goal is the bare minimum needed to save nature and reduce biodiversity loss. Preserving the integrity of existing ecosystems means more climate resilience. The climate-driven threats to California's ecosystems should no longer need to be recited as we are now being forced to cope with increased wildfire, extreme heat, drought, and sea level rise, years sooner than anticipated.

The key document of 30x30 is the Pathways Strategy, which sets a target of conserving an additional 6 million acres of California's land and half a million acres of coastal waters by 2030 to meet the target expressed by the name of the program.

The California Natural Resources Agency has done a great job in putting together that strategy, developing innovative data tools to support it, and working to involve stakeholders in planning efforts.

But, as several people pointed out on Feb. 28, a strategy, data, and stakeholder meetings will not by themselves result in the conservation of 6 million acres in seven years. The state needs to put serious money into supporting the acquisition, restoration, and ongoing management of its lands and waters, including capacity-building at state agencies, tribes, land trusts, and community-based organizations.

And therein lies the rub. The latest state budget proposal inflicts deep cuts in the programs necessary to meet this goal. The California Coastal Conservancy's 30x30 funding is proposed to be cut by two-thirds. Water Conservation Board funding is proposed to be cut by $239 million. Critical capacity building programs such as the Climate Smart Lands Program are slated for a 30 percent reduction.

If the Legislature and the Newsom administration are going to fulfill their commitment, they need to fund the programs essential to achieving the goal. Otherwise, 30x30 will only be a broken promise and not the action we need to survive the worst impacts of climate change.

A big part of that would consist of taking advantage of opportunities to increase conservation designations and management on public lands. The state should be supporting efforts to create new national monuments, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas. The state should also be looking at new state parks, ecological areas, wildlife areas, and improved conservation management of state demonstration forests.

Closer to home, the state should, for instance, make sure that the 12,000 acres of undeveloped coastal land around the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant—otherwise up for grabs when the plant shuts down—is placed in conservation.

We've been here before. The California plan, in concert with the Biden administration's America the Beautiful plan, represents potential large-scale conservation on a scale not seen in 60 years. The 1964 Wilderness Act was created to preserve and protect certain lands "in their natural condition" and thus "secure for present and future generations the benefits of wilderness." It started out with 9.1 million acres conserved as wilderness, and 40 years later had brought wilderness protections to 43 million acres in the national parks system and 21 million acres of the national wildlife refuge system.

By comparison, 30x30 does not exclusively focus on wilderness, including both private and public lands and seeking also to enhance working agricultural lands, prioritizing support of tribally led conservation and restoration priorities, and measuring success by how well conservation efforts support the objectives of protecting biodiversity, increasing access to nature, and mitigating and building resilience to climate change.

Then as now, all we need is the will and the money.

To help encourage the state on both of those fronts, go to powerinnature.org. Δ

Andrew Christie is the director of the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club. Respond with a letter to the editor emailed to [email protected].