New York state agencies working on draft plan for tallying acres toward conservation goal
By Gwendolyn Craig
New York state’s “30-by-30” law piggybacks President Joe Biden’s executive order calling “to conserve, connect, and restore 30% of lands and waters by 2030 for the sake of our economy, our health and our well-being.” The state law notes “just 12% of total U.S. land is conserved or protected, while approximately 19% of New York state land is currently conserved or protected,” according to the Center for American Progress in a 2018 report.
But not everyone agrees with the 19% figure, and not everyone agrees what counts as conservation and protection.
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The Department of Environmental Conservation and the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation are slated to release a draft on July 1 of what could count. The public will have an opportunity to provide comments before it is delivered to Gov. Kathy Hochul.
At a Feb. 7 state environmental conservation budget hearing, Jessica Ottney Mahar, New York policy and strategy director of The Nature Conservancy said the state needs to assess not just quantity but quality of the land that will meet the 30% goals, and land acquisition isn’t the only way to do it.
“The Nature Conservancy has been studying how species are going to be needing to change and move, and how we need to protect a representative amount of each stage on Earth, each ecosystem type or geographical setting,” Ottney Mahar said.
Protect the Adirondacks did its own statewide assessment of protected lands and found 6,220,150 acres of land and water, or about 20% of the state, are currently protected. The number includes the state’s two forest preserves, its parks, forests, municipal lands, federal lands, various easements and certain nonprofit-owned lands. The state needs more than 3 million acres more to meet its goals, the report said.
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“We protect less than 10,000 acres a year at current levels,” said Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks. “It’ll take 300 years to meet the 2030 goals. That’s unacceptable.”
Ottney Mahar wasn’t as keen to provide specific numbers of what has been conserved and what is needed to meet the state’s goals. She said the DEC and Parks still need to define what counts.
Katie Petronis, DEC’s deputy commissioner of natural resources, also said the state can’t yet know a baseline until it identifies what counts. There are some obvious contributors such as forest preserve and land trust properties that have permanent protections, she said.
Some environmental groups think wetland protections and regulations could count. Petronis said certain incentive tools, such as tax law programs, are not permanent since people can enroll or opt out, so it’s unclear if those will be included.
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Once the DEC and Parks issue a draft 30-by-30 criteria, there will be a public hearing and a comment period.
Photo at top: Aerial view of intact forests along the North Branch of the Boquet River on the Ben Wever Farm property, now protected by a conservation easement in partnership with the Adirondack Land Trust. Photo by Becca Halter/ Adirondack Land Trust
NYS owns 3.5 million acres out 0f 6 million in the ADK.
Bauer would like to see that number at 5.9999999 Million Acres.
The .0000001 left over would belong to Mr. Bauer, of course.
Yep.
30 X 30 sounds like state sanctioned removal of private lands from private hands, as well as denying public access to public lands.