Why Global Conservation Matters
Global Conservation Act
The Global Conservation Act of 2010 is a bi-partisan bill that will dramatically enhance the ability of the United States government to address the international conservation crisis.
The Global Conservation Act would:
- Safeguard the freshwater supply of hundreds of millions of people.
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by billions of tons, equivalent to taking millions of automobiles off the roads or eliminating hundreds of coal-fired power plants.
- Provide more than $1.1 trillion of value per year in economic services including disaster mitigation, health protection, fresh water, food production and climate regulation.
- Conserve or ensure sustainable development on millions of square miles of land and sea.
- Prevent the extinction of millions of species.
How it Works
The Global Conservation Act of 2010 has six key components:
- Establishes a National Strategy to Combat the Crisis
- Identifying measurable goals, benchmarks and timeframes for action.
- Coordinating the international conservation activities of all federal agencies.
- Integrating conservation needs into development assistance, key foreign policies, and select security priorities.
- Improving U.S. policies that can undermine conservation abroad.
- Identifies a Conservation Coordinator in the Executive Branch to Ensure Action
- Overseeing implementation of the strategy.
- Certifying the adequacy of agency budgets for implementing the strategy.
- Translating strategic priorities into specific programmatic recommendations to agency heads.
- Measuring progress toward the strategy’s benchmarks.
- Adopts Mechanisms for Consultation, Transparency, and Accountability
- Organizing an interagency working group to ensure agencies have input into the strategy and its implementation.
- Creating a private sector advisory committee to introduce the best scientific expertise and the points of view of important public constituencies.
- Requiring annual progress reports and a major program review that are disseminated broadly.
- Urges the President to Convince Other Nations to Join in a Global Strategy
- Identifying innovative and efficient multilateral mechanisms to allow other donor nations to participate.
- Reducing duplication of efforts among nations and ensuring neglected priorities receive attention.
- Authorizes Funding to Implement the Strategy
