• Land

Great American Outdoors Act Poised to Pass Congress Despite Last Minute Effort to Block It

• Great American Outdoors Act
• Land and Water Conservation Fund
• National Parks
• oil and gas
• royalties

The Great American Outdoors Act, which provides $900m annually for parks and conservation of lands and billions to repair our national parks, is expected to pass the House of Representatives today despite a last-ditch effort to stop it by Congressman Rob Bishop of Utah. 

Why This Matters:  Permanent funding for parks and conservation is long overdue — on top of the environmental benefits, it creates jobs and helps ensure that every American has access to nature.

• Land

Passage of Historic Conservation Bill Delayed; the Need To Conserve on Private Lands Grows

• #30x30
• conservation
• Great American Outdoors Act
• Land and Water Conservation Fund
• Race for Nature

The House was set to vote to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, which will provide nearly $1B annually for parks and other conservation, but a group of Western Republicans has raised procedural hurdles that will delay final passage until late July, The Hill reported yesterday.  And, a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) urges the United States to launch a major effort—a “Race for Nature” — to help the nation’s agricultural producers, who are facing a bleak economic future, by increasing opportunities to pay them for their conservation efforts.

Why This Matters:  As the CAP Report explains, “Family farmers and ranchers need lifelines…Bold and swift investment in nature conservation can provide one.”

• Land

Confederate Monuments Must Go. Parks Must Be For Everyone.

• Atlanta
• Confederate Monuments
• conservation
• Decatur
• environment
• Environmental Justice
• Land and Water Conservation Fund
• Monuments
• parks
• Stone Mountain

By Monica Medina and Miro Korenha Monuments have been much in the news lately. In Decatur, Georgia on Thursday night, thanks to a Judge’s order, the county finally took down the Confederate Monument in the central square.  It is one of a few monuments to the Confederacy remaining in Atlanta.  State law protects them, unfortunately, […]

• People

Interview of the Week: Gary Strieker, Executive Producer, This American Land

• #30x30
• #climatechange
• environment
• Land and Water Conservation Fund
• sustainability

https://www.thisamericanland.org/

• Land

Park Service Closes Shenandoah National Park But Some DC Monuments Remain Open

• #30x30
• #conservationist
• Appalachian Trail
• conservation
• environment
• hike
• Land and Water Conservation Fund
• science

The National Park Service continues to close parks on a piecemeal basis, this week Shenandoah National Park closed, but even after an appeal from D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) to close them before the weekend crowds descend, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials in Washington, D.C. remain open.

Why This Matters:  Delegate Holmes Norton is right when she argues that “Federal agencies must do their part to flatten the curve,” but the Park Service is certainly not leading by example. 

• Land

The Blue Ridge Parkway: Built by the CCC and Now Protected By the Land & Water Conservation Fund

• #30x30
• Blue Ridge Parkway
• Civilian Conservation Corps
• Land and Water Conservation Fund
• stimulus
• This American Land

The Blue Ridge Parkway — first conceived in 1933 to connect Skyline Drive to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — is a feast for the eyes, designed by landscape architects specifically to showcase a variety of vistas and views.  But preserving them requires conserving parcels along the boundaries of the Park, which, as This […]