Tweet“The biodiversity and extinction crises deserve every ounce of our attention and commitment to science and data driven decision-making. We applaud President Biden taking meaningful action. Our nation’s rich biodiversity supports every aspect of life and we can’t afford to let it disappear. These timely initiatives will provide important new tools to track the escalating biodiversity crisis and help inform policy decisions. We hope these announcements catalyze the adoption of a broader national biodiversity strategy for a comprehensive local, state and federal response to combat biodiversity loss.”
Defenders of Wildlife welcomed an announcement by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo that the Biden administration is adopting two major initiatives – the National Nature Assessment and the Natural Capital Account – that will create a stronger scientific and economic foundation for curbing the acceleration of climate change and the extinction crises.
“The biodiversity and extinction crises deserve every ounce of our attention and commitment to science and data driven decision-making. We applaud President Biden taking meaningful action,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, Former president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife. “Our nation’s rich biodiversity supports every aspect of life and we can’t afford to let it disappear. These timely initiatives will provide important new tools to track the escalating biodiversity crisis and help inform policy decisions. We hope these announcements catalyze the adoption of a broader national biodiversity strategy for a comprehensive local, state and federal response to combat biodiversity loss.”
The National Nature Assessment will use current science to paint a comprehensive picture of how our nation’s lands, waters and wildlife are changing over time. This can help us track the benefits of conservation actions, anticipate future change and more directly link changes to national social and economic priorities.
Placing an explicit focus on monitoring the status and trends of our nation's biodiversity would meet one of the major goals of Rep. Joe Neguse’s (D-Colo.) House resolution (H. Res. 69) to establish a national biodiversity strategy.
The Natural Capital Account will create a national, standardized system of environmental metrics for tracking and assessing our natural ecosystems’ contributions to the economy and to society as a whole. Biodiversity is important for its own sake and for the sake of our health and livelihoods. This effort will help to quantify the latter.
For nearly 80 years, Defenders of Wildlife has worked to protect and restore America’s wildlife at risk of extinction, advancing a vision of a future in which wildlife thrives, sustained by broad public support and a resilient network of healthy lands and waters. With a network of more than 2 million supporters, Defenders is an advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard wildlife for generations to come. To learn more, please visit https://defenders.org/newsroom or follow us on Instagram @defendersofwildlife.
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