
A Plan for the U.S. Forest Service To Lead on the America the Beautiful Initiative
National forests and grasslands are uniquely positioned to help meet the Biden administration’s goal of conserving 30 percent of U.S. lands by 2030.
Ryan Richards is a senior policy analyst for Public Lands at American Progress, focusing on natural resource economics and markets. His work covers a variety of environmental policy topics, including water policy, ecosystem restoration, and private lands conservation.
Prior to joining American Progress, Richards worked on wildlife conservation projects domestically and internationally. Most recently, he conducted his doctoral research on incentive programs to encourage reforestation on farms in the watershed supplying drinking water for the city of São Paulo. He was a Fulbright visiting researcher at the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture and the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas in Brazil.
He spent six years with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute as a graduate research fellow and a program associate for the Global Tiger Initiative. He has also worked on habitat restoration projects with farmers in Namibia and California’s Central Valley.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Mason University, where he focused on environmental economics and policy. He also received an M.S. in conservation biology and an M.P.P. in environmental policy from the University of Maryland and a B.S. in wildlife biology from the University of California, Davis.
National forests and grasslands are uniquely positioned to help meet the Biden administration’s goal of conserving 30 percent of U.S. lands by 2030.
The America the Beautiful initiative can turn U.S. lands from a ticking climate bomb—instigated by nature loss and increasing wildfires—into a reliable and growing carbon sink.
The Build Back Better Act includes transformational climate investments that will position the United States to achieve an equitable and just 100 percent clean energy economy.
Congress can raise revenues to fund climate action on public lands by fixing the broken federal leasing program.
The American Jobs Plan should increase investments in conservation and agriculture.
As the Leaders’ Climate Summit approaches, the Biden administration should consider every available option to promote effective conservation and sustainable development in the Amazon.
Protecting 30 percent of U.S. lands by 2030 is a necessary step to protect and expand American’s carbon sink.
To save family farms, ranches, and rural communities from economic collapse, the United States should launch a major effort—a “Race for Nature”—that pays private landowners to protect the water, air, and natural places that everyone needs to stay healthy.
Policies to improve soil health and sequester carbon can drive an additional $8 billion annually to rural communities and create close to $22,000 a year in added revenue for the average family farm.
The Trump administration’s attacks on Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Tongass National Forest could release almost 5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent—almost as much pollution as all of the world’s cars emit in a year.