President Joe Biden signed an executive order that directs the Department of the Interior to protect 30 percent of the country’s lands and oceans by 2030. The 30×30 goal is said to be part of Biden’s larger plan to preserve wildlife and combat global warming.
Under the order, the Department will “determine how to measure the country’s progress toward the 30×30 goal and outline steps to achieve it,” according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
“This is a crucial step to stopping the wildlife extinction crisis, which threatens the future of all life on our planet,” Kierán Suckling, executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said. “We’ve got to preserve the most biologically rich ecosystems to have any hope of bringing nature back from the brink.”
According to the United Nations, more than 1 million plant and animal species are nearing extinction and “habitat loss and degradation remains the largest driver of extinction in the United States and around the world,” the Center for Biological Diversity reported. And human activity is said to be the main cause.
“Human activity got us to this heartbreaking point and we’re grateful the Biden administration will address this global crisis by working to protect 30 percent of the nation’s lands and oceans by 2030,” Suckling said.
Conservationists applauded President Biden’s move and urge him to continue to protect the country’s land and ocean waters by 50 percent by 2050.
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