Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Good planets are hard to find out tempered zones and tropic climbs and run through currents and thriving seas Winds blowing through freezing trees and strong ozone and safe sunshine Good planets are hard to find. Yeah.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Hello K SQUID listeners. It's every other Sunday again and you're listening to Sustainability Now, a bi weekly case Good radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschitz. In October 2020, Governor Newsom issued Executive Order N82 20, which established a state goal of conserving 30% of California's lands and coastal waters by 2030. Known as 30 by 30, the 30 by 30 goal is intended to help accelerate conservation of our lands and coastal waters through voluntary collaborative action with partners across the state.
Five years later, how well has 30 by 30 met its goals? My guest today is Megan Hertel, Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat at the California Natural Resources Agency, who recently drafted and published the 2025 Annual Progress Report on 30 by 30 in coordination with the Governor's office.
Before Joining the agency, Ms. Hertel spent over a decade with Audubon California holding several positions, including Director of Land and Water Conservation, where she led statewide conservation programs focused on inland water and working land strategies.
Megan holds a Master's of Arts in Environmental Science and Policy from Clark University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Florida.
Megan Hurtl, welcome to Sustainability Now.
[00:02:07] Speaker C: Thanks, Ronnie. I'm super glad to be here today.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Well, let's begin by talking about the California Natural Resources Agency. I mean, I imagine that many people know it exists, but I'm not sure that very many people know what it does.
So what does it do? How's it organized? What kind of authority does it have and who runs it?
[00:02:29] Speaker C: Great question. And we never assume that the public in California knows the ins and outs of government agencies. So I'm always glad to get this question and provide a peek behind the curtain.
So California Natural Resources Agency, it's a cabinet level agency, so with the Governor's office within California government and underneath this agency, there are 27 different departments, conservancies and commissions that make it up. And now these are a lot of the entities that the public will know and love. Things like Cal Fire, State Parks, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and many of the funding entities like the State Coastal Conservancy or the Wildlife Conservation Board. So it's a really broad swath of different departments and conservancies and commissions. And in a nutshell, the job of the California Natural Resource agency and the 27 different entities that make it up is really to care for the natural, the cultural and the historical resources of California.
The tagline that we love to use is that we're on a mission to help all Californians and nature thrive together.
Now, Secretary Wade Crowfoot is the lead of California Natural Resources Agency and has been for many years and is doing a really great job pushing and setting the agenda for how we take care of those natural resources in California.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: And what sort of authority does. Do these different, you know, entities have? I mean, what. What can they do? You know, which ones of them only do recommendations?
You know, I know that. That different. Different entities have different powers.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: Oh, that's true. Ronnie, how long do we have for this, for this radio interview? Because I think that might take me more than an hour to go through all of their different ones.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: But you don't have to go through all of them. It takes.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Totally joking. I would never put your listeners. Never put your listeners through that.
No. But I'll give a couple that I think will be really helpful. So the scope of work of the different entities within California Natural Resources Agency is really broad. And so we've got groups like State Parks or California Department of Fish and Wildlife that actually own and operate land in California, land that sometimes is open to the public for recreation or at other times is closed to take care of the ecological resources on it. One of the roles of the entities of CNRA is actually land management and caring for land. And then you've got entities that do regulations. So again, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, right, they're responsible for making sure that many of the species and habitats that make California so great are protected and are doing well in the state. They issue permits for building. They also issue permits for things like restoration. So they are one of the examples of a regulatory role. And they integrate with things like the Fish and Game Commission that has the public process for how some of those regulations are set.
And then, of course, you've got groups like Cal Fire. So Cal Fire is actually our Department of Forestry. So they have foresters on staff that are looking at how healthy are our forests in California, what do we need to do to better manage them. And of course, we have a large firefighting forest that is also part of our Cal Fire. So those are just a few examples of the broad range of things that the different departments and entities under CNRA do.
And I think I'd also love to just mention that there are conservancies that are part of cnra. So things like the Wildlife Consequences Conservation Board, the Delta Conservancy, these are entities that were created by the legislature that take public state funds and grant them out to people on the ground or organizations on the ground that are doing work to restore habitat or protect habitat or increase access or do education programs.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: So maybe it's worth talking a little bit about the extent of public lands and waters in California. I mean, there are different categories of public lands in terms of who owns and control. So what sort of lands are under the jurisdiction of the agency?
[00:06:29] Speaker C: So I'll give kind of the overview broadly of California's landscape just because I think it's helpful for people to know that almost 50% of California's land is owned and operated by the federal government.
Now, a lot of that occurs in the forested areas, but not all of it.
Things that would fall under that are like your US Forest Service land, your national park system, your Bureau of Land Management, a lot of the federal military institutions, institutions that have large swaths of land in the desert. So that's about half of California's 100 million acres. The rest of it is divided up with state ownership. A large amount of it is in private ownership. And then also you've got local entities that own lands like your counties, your cities, special districts, things like that. So within CNRA, you've got state parks that has 280 different state parks across California.
Now, those parks are both ones that you think of as having the big open natural spaces, but there's also some really incredible historical state parks that are out there that you can go and visit and see parts of California's history that are being protected and managed by state parks. You've got ecological areas that are managed by a California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as other places that are open for public access. And then we also have the State Lands Commission, which sits under California Natural Resources Agency and that manages a special sets of land behalf of the state of California and the people of California.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Well, here's one question. So. So the. The private land in the state is not under the agency's jurisdiction, presumably, right?
[00:08:04] Speaker C: That is correct.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: When there is a fire and Cal Fire goes out, it's fighting fires on both public and private land, correct?
[00:08:12] Speaker C: It really depends on the situation. But yes, in a fire response system, California Cal Fire will be out there fighting fires, often in close coordination with local firefighting sources. Or depending on the size of the fire, we'll even see other states send in resources to help us all work together to try to get that fire under control.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Okay, one other question. You mentioned the Delta Conservancy as an example. Does the Delta Delta Conservancy function in any way to protect lands or conserve lands, or is it some. Some other kind of entity?
[00:08:48] Speaker C: Delta Conservancy does function to help protect and conserve land. So similar to the state Coastal Conservancy or the Wildlife Conservation Board, it's an entity that brings in public funds that are designated by the legislature and the governor and then grants them out to either nonprofit groups or other entities that are working to acquire land voluntarily to restore land or conserve it.
They'll also fund things like trail projects. They recently funded a historic building renovation to help protect it.
The. The difference between, say, a Delta Conservancy and like a Wildlife Conservation Board is the region they cover. So a Delta Conservancy has a set region it can fund in. Coastal Conservancy. Same thing it can fund along the coast and some inland, whereas the Wildlife Conservation Board can fund across the whole state. It is our only conservancy under the California Natural Resources Agency that covers the whole state.
The rest of the conservancies are very regionally based and do tremendous work within the communities that they're focused on.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: So you're Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat under Wade Crowfoot in the agency. What does that entail?
And, you know, what sort of. What are your responsibilities and what sort of activities do you engage in in that position?
[00:10:07] Speaker C: Well, Secretary Crowfoot often says that if he could have any other job than his, he would have mine because it is one of the coolest jobs within Californ Natural Resources Agency. Granted, I'm a little bit biased on it, but my portfolio at CNRA includes leading the state's 30 by 30 effort, which is an initiative to conserve 30% of our lands and coastal waters by 2030.
And then I also work on a thing called cutting the green tape. So this is the state's effort, working with a large number of external stakeholders to make environmental permitting and environmental funding faster and easier. The basic concept behind this is it shouldn't take the same amount of time or energy to permit a wetland restoration as it does to build a Walmart. Right. We should figure out how to restore nature faster and better. And cutting the green tape is an effort to do just that. That's been going on for many years.
And then the third kind of leg of the stool of portfolio I work on is all things biodiversity. And so that can range from human wildlife coexistence to invasive species to working on endangered species. And more so it's a really interesting and rewarding portfolio to get to work on.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Well, we're going to talk about 30 by 30, but I think a couple of definitions before we go on. When you use the term conservation, what does that actually mean in practice? You know, and as applied to land and water?
[00:11:36] Speaker C: Great question. So we'll go in, I think, to the definition of what counts for 30 by 30 conserved area. But when we talk about conservation generally, it's a bit of an umbrella term. So it can mean everything from protecting land, so putting some sort of easement on the deed so that it can't be developed into the future and will stay in natural habitat in perpetuity or for a long time. It can mean restoring land that's been degraded or lost its ecosystem function, lost its ability to have a healthy environment in some way.
It can mean, you know, bringing people together to do education outside and teach them how to take care of these lands and why it's so conservation often is this big umbrella term, so I'll try to be more specific when I use it going forward, but I think it's helpful for people to know what we mean when we talk about conservation.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Well, and then one other question about this is that how do you view the difference between biodiversity and habitat? I mean, we have endangered species acts, right, and they're focused on individual species. But there certainly is a common understanding that without habitat, endangered species are doomed, pretty much doomed. So I think it's worth talking about, you know, what you're. Whether you're con. You're protecting both species and habitat, or is your focus because you're conserving lands more on habitat?
[00:13:03] Speaker C: It is such a great question.
And so when we think about biodiversity, the way we define that is the broader suite of different plants and animals and fungi and insects and all the things that make up life, all the different types of species. And when we talk about habitat, that is the collection of species that animals often rely on. So habitat generally refers to what's on the ground, the plants, things that make up the spaces that many of the animals rely on. It is really difficult to go out and manage biodiversity at any given one spot at any time. And so we in the conservation community will often use habitat as a surrogate, because you can look at a landscape and say, we have conserved grasslands habitat and it's in good shape or not good shape, but if it's in good shape, then you can assume what species would be relying on that. What types of biodiversity would rely on a grassland habitat so it's a bit of a surrogate measure. So in 30 by 30, we're often talking about lands conserved and the type of habitats conserved. And by doing so, we're working to actually create the places that biodiversity needs, needs to live and to thrive.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: You're listening to Sustainability Now. I'm Ronnie Lipschutz, your host. And my guest today is Megan Hurtle, who is Deputy Secretary of Biodiversity and Habitat in the California Natural Resources Agency, which sounds like an enormous entity with all of the things included in it. And we've just been talking about the distinction between what? The distinction between habitat and biodiversity and how conservation activities basically deal with both.
Why don't we turn to 30 by 30? I did a little bit of research on it and discovered that it's actually a global initiative.
And I don't know how much, you know how familiar you are with that, but where does it come from? What does it entail? And who was involved in that particular global initiative?
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. We often in California Talk about 30 by 30 and the work that we're doing here. But it's important, like you said, to remember that this is actually being done globally. And so about a decade ago, scientists across the world started to document and call attention to a really steep decline and loss of the different plants and animals that make up the world.
Catastrophic loss, really. And this matters because those plants, those animals, the habitat that they rely on and they create is really the underpinning of our clean air, our clean water, our farming, our economy, really the systems that support life. And so the scientists were like, we have got to do something. And people are not paying attention to the fact that we are losing so many plants and animals all around us. Well, in 2019, an article came out in Science Advances. It was called A Global Deal for Nature. And this is where scientists came together and they actually proposed a solution. They were like. Like, could we as a world come together and work to protect at least 30% of the planet's lands and waters by 2030 to slow climate change and to reverse and slow this loss of biodiversity? And what's amazing about that is it's scientists sort of setting a numeric goal that people in government like myself can move toward. It gives us a target, a commonly agreed upon metric.
It's something you can measure and report on and be transparent about. And it provided a rallying cry for many governments and people around the world to come together to push on this 30 by 30 effort. It's important to note that we all know that 30% is not enough. Right. We know that if we were to just take 30% of our lands and waters and protect them and set aside, everything's going to be fine. From a climate and biodiversity perspective, not nearly. But we all see it as a foundation and as something we can target, knowing that we will need to go above and beyond that in different ways to address climate and to address the loss of species that we're seeing everywhere.
So you've got. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: No, you go ahead.
[00:17:10] Speaker C: I was gonna say. So you've got this big scientific calling right for it, but that doesn't always lead to action. And so in 2020, a group of governments came together called the High Ambition Coalition. And this is a set of international governments who really recognize the need to start doing work on this. And they began to champion that 30 by 30 target. Costa Rica was one of the leaders in this. Around that same time as when California actually issued our own commitment to 30 by 30. And then a couple years later, many more global countries signed on in 2022 at what was called COP15, which is really the United Nations Biodiversity Conference that met and established the Global Biodiversity Framework. So now There are over 1, 190 countries around the world that have 30 by 30 commitments and many more sub nationals or things like US states that have our own commitments to reaching this target.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: I don't imagine there is a federal commitment to this.
[00:18:09] Speaker C: There was, there was the America the Beautiful commitment, which was the federal 30 by 30 commitment issued during the Biden administration.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration has revoked.
But there are quite a few states within the United States that maintain their 30 by 30 commitment. And one of the things California is very proud of is we work both within the US with other US states like Massachusetts and Vermont who have commitments to try to share lessons learned and push each other to get this done. And with Quebec, we co lead a working group as part of the High Ambition Coalition to really think about how do sub nationals like California or the Province of Quebec really get 30 by 30 done at a more local level than a national government?
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Well, I mentioned in the introduction to the program that Governor Newsom issued an executive order establishing the program in 2020. I think you, you also mentioned that what was the, the content of the executive order, what and what motivated the governor to establish the program?
[00:19:15] Speaker C: We're really proud that we were the first US state to issue the 30 by 30 commitment. We beat the federal government so that California always loves to be out front on things.
Really what drove the governor to commit to this is the science that he was seeing around it, and really the call from stakeholders throughout California that we needed to do something about the loss of biodiversity.
So we're proud we beat many other nations to doing it. And the eo, the executive order that Newsom issued, it really highlights a few things. The first, it says we need to achieve 30 by 30. We need to create a plan to get there. How are we going to actually reach this 30%? And he wanted us to do 30 by 30 in a way that makes sure that California has economic sustainability, that we maintain food security. Right. So we have an agricultural system here that it's done in a way that not only restores the biodiversity that it's aiming to protect, but also addresses climate resilience and mitigation and thinks about how to improve equitable access and being able to get all Californians outside.
So that executive order set up 30 by 30 in California to work at the intersection of climate, biodiversity and access.
And the access one is an important one to think about because there are areas that you want to conserve for species recovery, or maybe you need to do a restoration project that you're not going to want to have a lot of people on, but there's also ways that you can have people out on the land that interacts with nature, that helps create the stewards who are going to take care of this land in the future. Right. And also we know that getting people out in nature is so important for our own health, for our community health. So that's a piece of 30 by 30 that California has that not everywhere else has that. That is really important.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's an ongoing tension, Right. That if you wall lands off to the people who have lived there and have relied on it, you're likely to get all kinds of intrusions.
So it's better to put the responsibility for conservation in the hands of the people who lived there or who did live there.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: Yeah. And one thing we've learned just to add on to that, you know, when California was developed, we did incredibly horrible things to the indigenous people that lived here first.
And one of those was to remove them from their land and to stop things like cultural burning and the management that they were doing of California. We created this myth that natural lands in California didn't have a human footprint on them, didn't have any sort of human management. But we've learned that that's actually not true and that the tribes throughout California had been managing the lands of California since time and immemorial. And so reintroducing some of that management is an important piece to establishing and conserving the biodiversity.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: One quick question. How much of land in California is in private hands?
[00:22:11] Speaker C: Oh, gosh, I don't know that one off the top of my head, Ronnie, and I should know it because I have known in the past.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: 50% is federal, right?
[00:22:18] Speaker C: 50% is federal, yeah.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Another significant fraction is state and local.
[00:22:24] Speaker C: Google away. It's a Google way.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
So you drafted and organized this progress report, this 2025 progress report on the program since 2020, right? What, can you, can you summarize the contents and the program's accomplishments and the high points?
[00:22:49] Speaker C: Absolutely. So every year we issue an annual report for 30 by 30. And so this is something that the public can go and see each year to understand how we're doing on progress. We update our numbers on 30 by 30 once a year. So this is kind of the chance to see, like, what's been gained in the last year.
We do also, in addition to that annual report, we often hold webinars. We have a monthly newsletter that highlights success stories, funding opportunities, and ways people can get engaged. And people can sign up for that on our website, which is californianature.ca.gov and then once a year, we do an annual summit where we bring people together so they can learn from peers and hear about efforts on 30 by 30. So we, with, with those plugs aside, I will come back to the annual report that we publish each year.
So we're really, really proud of this last year because we've seen some pretty incredible increases. So when we released the first strategy for 30 by 30, we were at 24% of lands and 16% of coastal waters, which is a good amount of our land. If you think about the fact that we've got 100 million acres in California, that's a massive amount of land that we've got to conserve to get to 30%. Right. That's 30 million acres that we have to put in place.
So in this last year, we were really excited because we were actually able to report 26.1% of lands protected. And we, for the first time ever, we saw an increase in our coastal water protections, which we moved up to 21.9% protected. And now coastal waters are different than the land side. Coastal waters are all public trust lands. And so it's very different from the land where you've got federal land, state land, private land, all the pieces there.
So we report against a set of different strategies which we call pathways. And so we'll report on Acquisitions that were done, those are all voluntary acquisitions, often of private land that are moving into some conservatives status easements. And those are places that remain in private ownership. But there's a deed restriction, put it on so it won't be developed into the future. And then some of our other strategies are things like restoration improvements, improvements in the level of protection that you see on federal lands. And one important one I wanted to point out is we have a whole strategy called complementary conservation. And this is lands that maybe doesn't meet the high bar of the definition of 30 by 30, but really is important in providing additional biodiversity benefits for the state of California. California. So examples would be private lands that aren't protected by deed restriction but are still providing biodiversity benefit.
So big wins from the last year that we like to report there were two new national monuments designated in California. You have the Chuckwalla National Monument, the Satitla National Monument. Chuckwalla is down by Joshua Tree national park in the desert and was led by a large coalition of tribes was a multi year effort to get this area designated as a national monument.
Beautiful, incredible landscape that has provided connectivity both for animals but also for people for a very long time. And then Satitla National Monument is up near the Klamath Forest in that area. And it is just this amazing aquifer and ecosystem where much of the water that filters into the Sacramento river goes through this volcanic rock and gets this incredible filtration. And it's also a place that has long been important to the Pitt River Nation up there. And they led that effort to get there, that national monument designation. So our big wins on the land side were those two federal increases in protection. And then there were many, many efforts by land trusts and NGOs to protect parcels throughout the state of California.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: President Trump has been going after these new national monuments.
Are these two new ones in California under threat?
[00:26:46] Speaker C: Absolutely.
I am guessing that many of the people that are listening to this show have seen the attacks on public lands that we've seen from the federal administration.
And the monuments are something that the Trump administration has called out wanting to rescind.
What is really important is that these national monuments were tribally led.
These are places that the tribes themselves have asked for additional protections on. These were supported by local communities, by veterans group, by recreation groups, by obviously a lot of the conservation groups. So there's been a big effort to push back against those monument recensions. And so far that effort seems to have been heard by the elected officials.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: In D.C. were the monuments established out of Already owned federal land, federally owned land, or was it conversion of private land?
[00:27:36] Speaker C: What it is already federally owned land. So Chuckwalla National Monument is primarily Bureau of Land Management land. And then Satitla national monument is U.S. forest Service land. Now they're all small parcels of private in holdings in both of those areas. But the national monument designation doesn't apply to any private lands that exist in those spaces.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: You're listening to Sustainability Now. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschitz. My guest today is Megan Hurdle, who is Deputy Secretary of Habitat and Biodiversity. I got that back. Longest title, longest title, California Natural Resources Agency.
And is has been responsible recently for the drafting and publication of a progress report on the state's 30 by 30 program, which aims to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030.
Megan, two questions. First of all, you must have some kind of inventory of all of these lands, right? How did you go about sort of creating the inventory?
And the second one is what are the logistics of bringing land into this conservation status? I mean, the federal lands, do you consider all the federal lands already within the program or are some of them, like some BLM lands, not included?
[00:29:10] Speaker C: Great questions.
So I'll back up and tell you a little bit about how we got to what counts and doesn't count. And in the process, I'll answer your question.
So when Governor Newsom issued the executive order to start this, we at California Natural Resources Agency embarked on an 18 month public process to really come up with the strategy and the definition of what counts for 30 by 30. So in that 18 month process, we did regional working groups, we got over 1000 public comments, 70 tribal consultations, expert panels, and resulted in what's called the pathways to 30 by 30 strategy.
And that laid out, like I said earlier, a set of strategies for how do we get to that 30%.
And importantly, it created a really strong definition. So to count as part of 30 by 30 conserved areas, it needs to be durably protected. So that's the first one. You need to know that it's not going to be turned into development.
And the second piece is it needs to be managed for biodiversity. Now that doesn't mean it can't have other uses. Like there could be a trail on it. Or you could have a cattle rancher that's managing cows for biodiversity as a top priority, but also has has a cattle ranch. Or you could have a forest where they're doing forest health projects and wildfire resilience projects with biodiversity as a guiding star.
So definition durably Conserved, managed for biodiversity. Those are the two pieces of what would make something count. Now, given that California has so many different types of land ownership, there's a lot of detail that could go under that, like how do you decide what types of federal lands count? So to answer your question, on the federal lands, no, not all federal lands count. If they did, we'd be at a roughly 48.
So also that, you know, there are federal lands that have a variety of uses, U.S. forest Service land. There are areas where you could still go do some pretty significant commercial timber harvest, where biodiversity is not something you're managing for.
But there are designations on federal lands that do have that higher level of protection and a higher level of management for biodiversity. Examples would be wilderness areas within the Bureau of Land Management, monument designations where they've restricted mining or development of other resources on there.
So those are just two examples of ways that could count things that wouldn't count, right? Like Bureau of Land Management has land that doesn't have restrictions on mining, doesn't have restrictions on off road vehicle uses. So those would be lands that while under public ownership, are not counting. So to your question on the inventory, we see data transparency as being really important, part of 30 by 30. And it is a continuing effort and will be a continuing effort both to capture lands as they improve in management or improve in protection and move into 30 by 30, but also to make sure that our historical data is correct, that we are accounting for lands that are already protected or already managed for biodiversity. And that's important not because we think we can count our way to 30%. Right. It's because we want to make sure we know where there are gaps in California, where are the types of habitat or the species that we haven't done a good job conserving. Where do we need to invest more as a state? And we also want to make sure that when we get to 2030, we don't have a bunch of postage stamps of habitat across California, that those habitats are connected and that we're creating corridors for species movement. So with data accuracy, effort that we've embarked upon is really to try to identify where do we go next next to understand what we already have, to make sure that we're protecting it really well. So if you go to our website, californianature.ca.gov There's a section called CA Nature and you can actually go on and see a map of California and zoom in and out of what is currently counting for 30 by 30 and what is not counting for 30 by 30.
There's also information in there for you if you want to go look at your local region. If you have things that you think should be counting that are not showing up, we want to know so that we can verify and add that to the data set and make sure that it's correct so that next annual report that we issue, folks can see the lands within their neighborhoods or their regions that should count, that do meet that definition showing up. It also helps identify areas that maybe with additional protections or additional better management for biodiversity could move into 30 by 30, which is ultimately the goal is to improve areas for biodiversity.
A lot of people ask really quickly, where are we at? What are the numbers? And I always like to point out that 30 by 30, while at its heart, has a number associated with it. It's so much more than a counting exercise. It's about what happens on the ground in the communities and in the places for the plants and animals. So we use this accounting and the data transparency to really show that we're making progress and to think about where we need to drive more investment.
But I never want people to lose sight about the ultimate importance is what's happening on that ground.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Are is BLM rangeland included in the count? You know, where cattle are grazing. But there isn't management necessarily for biodiversity.
[00:34:18] Speaker C: It would depend on the underlying protection for it. So cattle can be used on some land to actually do fire protection work. And it may have biodiversity management on it, but cattle on BLM land runs on different types of protection. So it would really depend on that under underlying protection piece.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: When a piece of private land is purchased for public use, does that get added to your database or does it again depend on the protections that have been negotiated?
[00:34:55] Speaker C: Exactly, it depends on the protections that have been negotiated. And so a good way to think about it is sometimes a piece of private land is bought and it is turned into a park park with a soccer field and a golf course.
Really great for recreation. That land might have something on it. That deed restricts it from ever being turned out of a park with a soccer field and a golf course on it. That's not really providing the biodiversity benefits we're looking for. And it's not being managed for biodiversity. Right. It's being managed for recreation, which is really important and has a role and we have state priorities and objectives around getting people outside and recreation.
Sometimes, though, when private land is purchased, maybe a single trail is put in or maybe no trail is put in. And it does have that permanent protection from development and it's being managed to try to improve and protect that biodiversity. That would count.
Now, for your super data nerds that are out there, we use two data sources. California Protected Area Database and California Conservation Easement Database. Those are two databases that are publicly available.
It's primarily where we pull our data from to determine what counts for 30 by 30 and what doesn't.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Do you have an online inventory somewhere? I mean, a spreadsheet we do. Look at.
[00:36:07] Speaker C: Okay, well, we've got a map, I should say.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Well, I know. I know there's a map, and I. I've looked at the map, but. But that only goes so far, right?
[00:36:15] Speaker C: Yeah. And you can download all the data, the data sources that feed into that map. Absolutely.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Okay. You know, there's a lot of concern about loss of agricultural lands.
And some agricultural lands are being put into things like public trusts, or at least there's. I think. I think there are attempts to try and do that. Would that kind of.
If it's not going to be managed, I mean, the argument is that it serves certain biodiversity functions. But if it's not being explicitly managed for biodiversity, is it excluded from potential inclusion in the project?
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a really good question, clarification. And I want to give some incredible kudos to the farmers of California. One, because it is a hard job to farm, and they are creating food that we're eating here and also across all of the world. And many of them are doing incredible things for the natural resources on their farms. Like they have long realized and been stewards of natural resources because they rely on it to be able to grow the food.
We also have state strategies that are solely focused on protecting agricultural land. So things like our natural and working land strategy, we have our California Department of Food and Agriculture that has priorities and goals for protecting agricultural lands. So one of the core tenets of 30 by 30 is we still want to have a productive agricultural system in California, even while we work to achieve conservation and biodiversity benefits.
There are different types of agriculture. So you've got things like ricelands, rangelands, where the ecosystem and the farming are a little more closely aligned, and you can use farming practices to mimic habitat or functions that were there previously. So in farmland like that, that has an easement that. Where they have a specific plan where they're trying to benefit biodiversity. So, for example, ricelands that flood up to benefit shorebirds and the millions of migratory waterfowl that come here every year, if they also have an easement on them, they would count for 30 by 30. But you also have Farms that are really much more focused on production, things like row crops or orchards, they can still do things that benefit biodiversity, but really their top goal is producing what the orchard is producing or producing the like, say, tomatoes.
Those would not count under 30 by 30, but we would talk about their importance under that last pathway, the complementary conservation. Because we know that we need land where even we're prioritizing, creating food or perhaps is not durably protected. We need landowners to also be thinking about, how can I add some of those biodiversity benefits on the sides, whether that's hedgerows or pollinator plantings, ways that really increase all of our lands in California to benefit the species that rely on them.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: The reason I ask is because, you know, regenerative agriculture, which is a certainly a big word and if not well defined, I, I does emphasize biodiversity as one of the, you know, critical elements in regenerative farming, but again, it's not usually connected to anything much broader. Right. It's that you can do your own own thing, but how it connects to the rest of the world or the rest of the, you know, the ecosystems and habitats is not really addressed.
[00:39:43] Speaker C: Ah, interesting. It's like the word conservation, right? This big umbrella term that a lot of things can fit under.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: You know, of course, there's always this question of, you know, what's in it for me.
Right. Because again, you know, if you do work to, to protect soil and improve its quality and put in hedgerows and various kinds of things that are supposed to attract pollinators and other, you know, and avoid the use of pesticides, all of that is contributing to habitat protection and biodiversity. But as you say, the primary goal is to grow food, and the incentives to do this, since it costs money, are weak unless there is some other, you know, compensation for it.
And I'm just putting a bug in your ear about, about that. I mean, I know there's no money to do that kind of thing, but.
[00:40:37] Speaker C: There is, there is some money. Absolutely. It, I completely agree with you. I mean, two things on that. One, the goal with some of those is that there be agronomic benefits. Right? So the hope is if you're putting native pollinator habitat in and working, working on healthy soils, that you are also in turn benefiting your agricultural operation by bringing in more pollinators, holding more water in your soil and more carbon in your soil that benefits the growing of the crops. Lots of studies that can measure and quantify the benefit of that, but we do have state programs that offer some incentives for it. And there Are federal programs like through the Natural Resource Conservation Service, does it cover the full cost of them? Rarely. Right. You're going to have to have landowners who are willing to put the time and effort and some of their own funding into it. But there are programs out there that do provide some support. And I completely agree with you. Like it is so important to be able to provide people with assistance if they're going above and beyond to try to provide some of these benefits.
[00:41:35] Speaker B: You're listening to Sustainability now. I'm your host Ronnie Lipschitz. My guest today is Megan Hurdle who is Deputy Secretary of Habitat. That and biodiversity. I think I got that backwards again.
[00:41:49] Speaker C: Doesn't matter.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: Same, same resources agency and, and we've just been talking briefly about farmland and habitat protection and conservation.
But let's go on to a different topic now. The 30 by 30 program is advertised as a public private initiative with number of private partners who, who was involved, who's included in that.
[00:42:12] Speaker C: We like to think about 30 by 30 as a big tent movement. It's something we talk about a lot. It was one of the key findings of our 18 month public process to create the strategy for 30 by 30 is what we heard from everybody who participated is they very much did not want a top down state. Draw some circles on a map. State goes out and buys that land. We're done with 30 by 30.
Everyone wanted it very much to be a grassroots up. So local communities, local organizations identifying what lands in their regions, in their communities, communities they felt were most important to conserve and to work on conservation from that side forward. So the groups that are playing a role in 30 by 30 include local governments, tribes, special districts, water districts and of course land trusts. The environmental organizations like Trust for Public Land, the Nature Conservancy, all from big ones to small ones, all coming together to do their piece of it. And then of course you've got got state and federal lands where we're working on lands that we own and operate to see if we can try to improve protection level or management for biodiversity. So it's a quite a large group of folks that are contributing to this.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: Do you have any public cor, any private corporations involved at all?
[00:43:27] Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah. So one big sector that works quite a bit on the private side is the mitigation banking or conservation banking section.
And so these are folks that are setting aside critical habitat, restoring it and then managing it in perpetuity for specific species. So that's an example of private funding being driven into preserving and protecting some places. You also have some entities that own and operate lands like ladwp, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power or other water districts often own lands around some of their water infrastructure that they're protecting and managing for the health of the water, water system. So often for the health of the ecosystem. We're looking at whether or not some of those lands would be counting, but that would be another example of more kind of private sector funds coming into it.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: Which leads us to the question of funding. So I mean, financial resources are, are scarce. The state is facing a budget deficit and of course the federal government is pulling back on all kinds of funding and, and grants.
So how is this going to be funded in the future? Is the, is the, you know, are, are, is there any sort of notion of, of floating bonds or something like that in order to, you know, increase the opportunities to purchase land?
[00:44:49] Speaker C: You're absolutely right. I mean, we are seeing a rollback on the federal side of funding that is available and it's really concerning to us. So a few things on the funding.
Over the last three years, the legislature and governor have allocated over 1.3 billion into what we call nature based solutions, of which 30 by 30 is one of them. And so a lot of money had been coming when we had the general fund surplus into this effort and a lot of those transactions and dollars are now just getting out on the ground because it takes time for people to apply for the funding to be awarded and then to complete the transaction.
But as you know, the state of California is in leaner budget times right now for sure. But we're really grateful because the voters in November passed a $10 billion climate bond, Proposition 4, and the funding from that will roll out over the next five years or so. And a big portion of that will go to achieve 30 by 30 objectives.
So funding things like voluntary acquisitions, conservation easements, restoration, all of those. So really excited for that money to roll out on the ground and help people see conservation in their communities.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I've heard a lot of people talking about the Prop 4 funds. You know, I think the, there's going to be a real scramble for that once, once things become available.
But anyway, so what are your goals and the program's goals during the remainder of your tenure year at the resources agency? We'll have a new governor next year.
Do you expect to stay where you are?
[00:46:24] Speaker C: Oh, gosh, that's a direct question, Ronnie.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: You know, of course it depends on the next governor, right?
[00:46:32] Speaker C: It absolutely depends on the next governor.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: Governor's pleasure.
[00:46:36] Speaker C: That is correct.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: Who's going to head the Agency and things like that.
[00:46:39] Speaker C: That is correct, I will say so we have 17 months left in Governor Newsom's term, and we are very much focused on what can we get achieved during months and how do we make that durable. There is something that's really refreshing and crystallizing about having a time limit on your job and your role. It really helps you hone down on, like, what are the priorities that you need to get done. And all of us here at California Natural Resources Agency are very much focused on working up until we have to turn the lights out if and when our term and our tenure here is done. So priorities that we've got from a 30 by 30 perspective in the last 17 months is really doing as much as we can on that data accuracy. So making sure that we're working with local entities and tribes and partners to better capture the data of what should be counting for 30 by 30 and to identify where those are, the gaps and where are the places we need to do connectivity. Because we want to make sure as this climate bond rolls out, that we're investing it in the areas that we need to, to make sure we're protecting the broad diversity of plants and animals that make California so unique and so specific, so special.
Obviously, we'll be working quite a bit on the bond rollout. We're very much committed to ensuring that this bond is done and rolled out to the public as well as possible. Of course, we've all worked on bonds in government before, but this is really an opportunity to think about it a little bit differently and to think about how can we fund as many multiple benefit projects as possible, how can we drive as much on the priorities that the voters identified for the that bond, and how can we transparently communicate the outcome so people understand where their tax dollars are going and how they're invested?
And then, of course, the elephant in the room, right, is responding to federal threats to things in California. So protecting the advances that we've made on federal public lands designation and making sure we still have public lands that are federally owned and operated that people can go out and enjoy.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Well, we're almost at the end of our time together. Is there anything that we haven't addressed that you might like to mention in our last couple of minutes?
[00:48:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that. You know, I would just like to say that 30 by 30 is a framework. So it's a global framework. Many people are signed on and driving against it, but we think about 30 by 30 as a way to move money, to get good work done on the ground, to highlight the projects that matter for communities and people across California and help educate people and tell the story about why having places for plants and animals and for recreation and for climate is so important and to really be able to hold ourselves accountable for how we're doing this work to the public and to each other. And so when people think about 30 by 30, I think it's useful to keep that in mind that this is, yes, about an ultimate number, but so much more about getting the work done on the ground. And we hope that people can identify ways to engage with it and to help support this happen throughout California.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: Where can our listeners go to learn more about 30 by 30 and similar initiatives and what can they do to support and help it?
[00:49:47] Speaker C: So go to californianature.ca.gov is our website and on there you'll be able to find a section to sign up for our newsletter as well as we post recent webinars or reports that we have issued. So it's a great resource for folks. For people that are on social media, we have Instagram account, a LinkedIn account, and also an X account, which still seems strange to say X, not Twitter, but we're on all of those. If you want to check out those spaces and then ways to engage. So one, please go to CA Nature and take a look at the map and zoom into your region and let us know if there are places in your region that you think should be counting for 30 by 30 but are not.
Also, there's a great opportunities to engage with many of the organizations that are part of achieving 30 by 30. There's groups called Power and Nature, which is a coalition of over 100 environmental groups that are working on advancing 30 by 30 in California. For those that are a little bit more on the science side, there's a group called California Biodiversity Network that engages scientists and academics across the state to help inform the science of 30 by 30. Lots of different ways to plug in, but most important is that people recognize and love the biodiversity in their backyard, even if it doesn't count toward this 30% and ultimately show in the map every single native plant planting, every effort that people do in their backyards and in their neighborhoods matter.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: Well, Megan Hurdle, thank you so much for being my guest on Sustainability Now.
[00:51:16] Speaker C: It was such a pleasure. Ronnie, thank you so much for the time.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: You've been listening to a Sustainability now interview with Megan Hertel, Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat at the California Natural Resources Agency.
She drafted and recently published Pathways to 30x30, the annual progress report of the state's 30x30 program to conserve 30% of California's land and coastal waters by 2030.
If you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at ksquid.org sustainabilitynow and Spotify, YouTube and Pocketcasts, among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening, and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make K SQUID your community radio station and keep it going.
And so, until next every other Sunday, sustainability now.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Good planets are hard to find out Temperate zones and tropic climbs and run through currents and throbbings seas winds blowing through breathing trees Strongholds on safe sunshine.
Good planets are hard to find.
Yeah.
[00:52:39] Speaker C: Good plan.
