Road to 30: Urban Conservation
This story map is the sixth installation of our ongoing “Road to 30” series exploring the vision of protecting 30 percent of our land and water by 2030. In this storymap, we’ll explore how conservation efforts in urban areas can help address environmental injustice and the nature and climate crises simultaneously, and put locally-led conservation efforts that benefit people as well as nature into practice.
Across America, natural areas that we rely on for clean air and water, biodiversity, outdoor recreation, and local economies are disappearing. From habitat fragmentation to the widespread impacts of climate change, lands and waters throughout the country are being lost to development and degradation every day. To combat this crisis, scientists are urging that we conserve 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030.
There is not just one path to conservation. Finding diverse and innovative ways to protect landscapes that support local communities and preserve the land’s specific values will be critical in achieving the “30x30” goal. As we explore ways to reach the 30x30 goal we are reminded that protected and public lands are the traditional homelands of indigenous peoples. As the 30x30 effort moves forward, collaborative conservation led by indigenous communities will be essential to its success. Currently, about 12 percent of American lands are protected. While we still have a ways to go, strong leadership and grassroots momentum are bringing us closer to the goal.
Urban Conservation
Often, conservation invokes images of wide-open landscapes, from vast mountain ranges to great rivers. While those places may have the greatest acreage available for conservation, protecting urban areas is vitally important to making the 30x30 goal beneficial for all Americans. Cities cover just 3.5 percent of America’s lands, but are home to 63 percent of the population. The concentration of urban population is growing, increasing by 12 percent between 2000 and 2010. Urban parks and green spaces are the way that most Americans regularly interact with nature, giving their relatively small acreage an outsized impact on local communities.
If their negative impacts are mitigated and managed, cities can address current environmental issues and injustices while also actively supporting biodiversity, climate mitigation, public health, and equitable access to nature. Urban parks and green spaces are an effective way to accomplish these disparate but connected goals.
Development and Sprawl
There are many reasons why cities are not often associated with conservation. Urban sprawl and rapid development use up resources and degrade natural areas. In 32 states, the expansion of urban areas has been the top driver of nature loss over the past decade. However, strategic planning for concentrated urban areas, that by default use less land and share resources such as energy infrastructure and public transportation, can mitigate environmental impacts. Urban parks and green spaces integrate conservation into existing cities, and can transition retired industrial facilities or empty lots into beneficial community spaces.
Pollution
Cities generate concentrated air and water pollution that impacts residents and biodiversity in the surrounding ecosystem. Ozone and other common air pollutants exacerbate respiratory diseases such as asthma and can increase cancer risks. As water runoff holding pollutants flows downstream, it continues to affect ecosystems far beyond the city. Green spaces help to keep our air and water clean. Trees improve air quality by removing pollutants emitted by cars, industrial plants, and other energy infrastructure. In Atlanta, trees remove 19 million pounds of air pollutants every year.
Heat
Cities with minimal green space can have temperatures that are 1 to 7 degrees hotter than nearby open areas, called the heat island effect. This has several detrimental effects on the environment and public health. Hotter temperatures increase energy consumption, which leads to an increase in greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. As water runoff temperatures rise, water quality plummets and can continue to impact stream health and wildlife downstream. Higher temperatures impact public health, especially for sensitive populations. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, heat contributes to an average of 700 deaths each year.
Unequal Access to Nature
Green spaces in cities are concentrated in wealthy neighborhoods. In San Francisco, tree cover varies widely between neighborhoods, with one wealthy neighborhood having 30 percent canopy cover compared to between 5 and 7 percent in a nearby historically low-income and immigrant neighborhood. In addition to mitigating the heat island effect, communities with less green spaces are exposed to higher levels of air pollution. Intentional urban conservation efforts can make parks more accessible to lower income and racially diverse communities. Many communities have not historically been engaged by the conservation movement because of racial, economic and other barriers, which often overlap with environmental injustices such as disproportionate exposure to pollution and inequitable access to nature.
Public Health
In the United States, 100 million people do not live within a 10-minute walk of a park. Increasing urban parks expands recreation opportunities to more Americans, and directly benefits the community’s economy and public health. Studies show that contact with nature is correlated with lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, quicker recovery from surgery, increased survival from heart attacks, improved pregnancy outcomes, and reduced rates of obesity and diabetes. Urban green spaces demonstrably improve mental health, with lower rates of depression and lower self-reported stress.
Climate Mitigation and Resilience
As our country faces a devastating climate crisis, with wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding impacting cities and rural areas alike, small protected areas in cities can have big impacts on climate mitigation and resilience. For example, parks and green space in cities decrease stormwater flooding and can help reduce the threat of rising seas and heat waves. Trees in urban areas reduce energy costs, as the shade decreases nearby buildings’ energy consumption. One tree in Los Angeles has the greenhouse gas reduction equivalent of 3 to 5 trees in a forest, because of its additional energy consumption reduction. Since 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption is generated by commercial and residential buildings, increasing urban forests and tree cover can have a significant impact on climate change.
Making cities into healthy, equitable, and enjoyable places to live is a vital piece of protecting America’s lands and waters. Planning and implementing parks and green spaces must be a collaborative and community-led process to ensure that development reflects the values, wishes, and needs of each individual community. Planning processes must consider possible negative impacts, including gentrification resulting from greener streets and closer parks.
Getting to 30 percent protected land and water must address environmental injustices and create opportunities for the majority of Americans who live in urban areas. Elected officials, city planners, and policymakers should take advantage of the exceptional opportunities within urban conservation to protect biodiversity, mitigate climate change and other environmental hazards, improve public health, and guarantee that all Americans have access to nature.
LEARN MORE THROUGH THE INTERACTIVE STORYMAP
For more information, visit westernpriorities.org. To learn more about the 30x30 goal and to participate in discussions about this bold vision, visit RoadTo30.org. Sign up for Look West to get daily public lands and energy news sent to your inbox, or subscribe to Go West, Young Podcast.”
Read the rest of the Road to 30 storymap series here:
