Achieving “30 by 30” Requires Ranchers’ Leadership and Expertise

The following opinion is from Kaitlynn Glover, Executive Director, Public Lands Council.

In the wake of Earth Week, the Biden administration is due to release details about their efforts to conserve at least 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030.

What started in California as a localized effort has become the singular environmental rallying cry for politicos in 2021. Details about how the administration plans to achieve “30 by 30”, to date, have been few and far between. In the place of clear and definitive information has been the administration’s call for public feedback. Uncertainty can breed fear, but it also creates space for innovation and leadership.

Public lands ranchers are conservation experts. Cattle and sheep producers have been able to cultivate healthy ecosystems on their private lands and leverage that environmental success onto the federal grazing allotments they manage. They are the ranchers, the original environmentalists who look at an open pasture and know they have improved carbon storage, plant diversity, and thriving wildlife habitats.

Ranchers know that to get where you’re going, you need to first know where you are. This baseline of what will be counted as part of the 30 percent must include diverse landscapes, management styles, and ownerships. The administration should “count” and focus on the conservation activities that improve ecosystems and environmental outcomes, particularly those that encourage further conservation in the future.

There are many existing tools the administration can leverage. Ranchers employ federal conservation programs like EQIP and CRP across millions of acres and multiply environmental investments on private land for the good of the whole ecosystem. Active stewardship on private lands make the surrounding public lands more appealing and healthier too, including for imperiled species. More than 80 percent of endangered and threatened species have critical habitat on private land, so the administration must support the voluntary conservation efforts – and the ranchers who undertake them - that are already so successful.

There are opportunities on public lands, as well. Federal agencies already own more than 28 percent of lands in the United States: 640 million acres, most of which is located in the West. Ranchers are the front-line managers on a little more than one third of those acres. The administration should work with ranchers who improve the health of federal lands by using grazing to turn forests, rangelands, and grasslands into the carbon-storing, wildlife-supporting, highly-resilient ecosystems we see on federal grazing allotments. Ranchers’ management is based on hard data and landscape monitoring that allows them to adjust their grazing activities to make forest lands and watersheds more resilient to environmental and climactic threats. Without question, federal grazing permits – complete with this annual monitoring, environmental safeguards, and nimble adjustments – provide the kind of durable, long-term conservation 30 by 30 is looking for.

In pursuit of these conservation goals, the Biden administration should recognize that “conservation” is different than “preservation”. Some may be inclined to say that preserved lands, set aside through unilateral designation, are the gold standard for conserved lands. Certainly, monuments, wilderness, and national parks are typically heralded as national gems and are often the most recognizable public lands, but solely using those designations to meet the 30 percent goal would be a grave mistake. These designations change ownership, not resource health, and are not the way to achieve meaningful conservation.

Conservation is not a one-time tick-the-box exercise. If the goal is truly to conserve 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030, the Biden administration must rely the expertise of public lands ranchers to improve the health of these lands. By improving organic matter, reducing highly-flammable invasive grasses, and protecting pastures that feed deer, elk, sage grouse and foxes, ranchers and their grazing systems are the leading American conservation tool.

30 by 30 should leverage successful conservation efforts, and there is no practice more successful in conserving hundreds of millions of acres than carefully-managed livestock grazing.