 Spotlighting the Work to Restore, Connect and Conserve 30 Percent of Lands and Waters by 2030
News and Updates
Leaders from the Department of the Interior traveled across America in August to celebrate the historic investments from the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), a bipartisan investment that improves visitor experiences, bolsters climate resilience and invests in the economy by creating good-paying jobs in our national parks, wildlife refuges, recreation areas and Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools. Secretary Haaland kicked the tour off by traveling to Yosemite National Park to see first-hand how GAOA funding has helped bolster critical water, electrical, camping and housing infrastructure across the park. Investments like these enhance recreational opportunities and improve access to nature nationwide in line with the America the Beautiful initiative. GAOA’s Public Land Legacy Restoration funding sunsets after fiscal year 2025 and would need to be reauthorized by Congress to continue the efforts underway to address significant infrastructure needs across public lands.
The Department of the Interior announced $5 million from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to support the restoration of bison populations and grassland ecosystems in Tribal communities. The funding will support Tribally led initiatives to strengthen bison conservation and expansion, improved management of existing herds, and ecosystem restoration efforts in native grassland habitats. In addition to advancing the America the Beautiful initiative these investments support Secretary Haaland’s Secretary's Order on enhancing the restoration of American bison and the Department’s new
The Interior Department announced that visitor spending in communities near national parks in 2022 resulted in a record high $50.3 billion benefit to the nation’s economy and supported 378,400 jobs. The National Park Service report, 2022 National Park Visitor Spending Effects, finds that nearly 312 million visitors spent $23.9 billion in communities within 60 miles of a national park and that, of the 378,400 jobs supported by visitor spending, 314,600 jobs were in park gateway communities. Strengthening local economies through locally led, partnership-driven conservation and outdoor recreation reflects a central focus of the America the Beautiful initiative.
The Alabama Wildlife Federation (AWF) announced that limestone is on the way to Alabama’s Mobile Bay to be utilized as oyster cultch – a material laid down to help establish new oysters – for an important environmental restoration project on the Gulf Coast. The project, known as the Cedar Point Beach Oyster Restoration Project, focuses on a historic oyster reef area next to some of the most productive oyster reefs in Alabama waters. This project will help reinvigorate the reefs that have suffered from recent hurricanes and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
President Biden established the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Illinois and Mississippi. The new national monument will be anchored at three historic sites in Chicago, Illinois; Sumner, Mississippi; and just outside of Glendora, Mississippi. The monument tells the story of the events surrounding Emmett Till’s murder, their significance in the civil rights movement and American history, and the broader story of Black oppression, survival and bravery in America. The creation of this new monument reflects the America the Beautiful initiative’s efforts to tell a more complete story of America.
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