In the background: the Sheep Range, the largest remaining intact, wild landscape in Nevada.
This entire region, part of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, is threatened by proposed military bombing
and operations from the nearby US Air Force Nellis Test and Training Range. Credit Brian Beffort.
By Christian Gerlach, Our Wild America Organizer
Nevada’s Public Lands had a major victory on May 21, 2021, with the Nevada Legislature's passage of Assembly Joint Resolution 3 (AJR3) in support of protecting 30% of Nevada's lands and waters by the year 2030. In doing this, Nevada's Legislature became the first in the nation to endorse this goal. This success was a team effort by many coalition partners, the Toiyabe Chapter Legislative Committee, and Our Wild America volunteers and staff working in Nevada. We worked hard on toolkits to get several letters to the editor, opinion editorials, blog posts, and lots of public testimony that kept the pressure up on decision makers to pass AJR3.
AJR3 was introduced by Assemblywoman Cecila Gonzalez and co-sponsoered by Assemblywoman Leslie Cohen, Assemblyman Steven Yeager, and Assemblyman Howard Watts. AJR3 urges various actions relating to the protection and conservation of 30 percent of Nevada’s lands, forests, and waters by the year 2030. Sections of the resolution call for the permanent protection of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and the designation of the Avi Kwa Ame/Spirit Mountain National Monument.
Protecting 30% of Nevada’s lands and waters benefits communities, biodiversity, ad the climate. Public lands, waters and forests protect the health of people, wildlife, and the planet. Many of these places are under threat and are disappearing. Every year in the United States, we lose a million acres of nature to development. We need bold actions like AJR3 to combat the existential threats of climate change and one million species at risk of extinction around the world. Scientists tell us that in order to combat extinction and climate change, we need to protect 30% of the US’s lands and waters by 2030 and eventually 50% by 2050.
Right now only 12% of our country’s public lands are protected, reaching that goal means safeguarding more public lands, creating everything from more wilderness areas to more neighborhood green spaces. Nevada can play a huge role in this effort with more than 80% percent of our lands being mostly undeveloped, federally managed public lands. Only 15% of Nevada's public lands are protectd, making up 4% of the country's protected lands. Between 1990 and 2018, Nevada lost 6.2% of its public lands, some 3,749,878 million acres. Protecting more lands will make more water available, leading to habitat for Nevada's biodiversity and more carbon dioxide being removed from our atmosphere, all leading to a healthier planet.
We have a moral and societal duty to stop the climate and extinction crises for future generations. Conserving more nature will make our communities healthier and safer, both now and in the future. We thank the Nevada Legislature for taking a strong step toward these goals by passing AJR3. Now we need Congree to heed this resolution by protecting more of Nevada’s public lands, such as the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.
You can help!
Together, we can do our part to protect more of Nevada’s public lands. Thank you!!