This session builds on the success of land trusts’ advocacy for full permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to show how this critical program can be used to meet the great challenges of our time: the climate crisis and persistent disparities in access to nature for underserved communities. We will present an update on implementation of full permanent funding since passage of the Great American Outdoors Act in 2020, the importance of LWCF to the Biden Administration’s America the Beautiful initiative, and examples of how LWCF advances climate and equity goals.
The America the Beautiful initiative recognizes what we in the conservation community have long known: land is our greatest asset in the fight against climate change. We will present models for success using the LWCF toolbox to keep forests as forests for carbon sequestration and water storage/quality, create connected landscapes to preserve biodiversity, and protect floodplains and coastal buffers to increase resilience using both public and private land