Land, Water & Forests

. Conserve from development at least 30% of the Earth’s surface by 2030, and 50% by 2050, focusing on area-sensitive species, beta-diversity, megafauna and migration routes, corridors and connectivity, old-growth habitats, freshwater and ocean realms.

. Measure and monitor land use change including land degradation and desertification using new information and communication technologies, climate services, and remotely sensed land and climate information.

. Reinvest in and expand national parks, forests, grasslands, and wildlife preserves to enable natural carbon capture and preserve public lands for future generations.

. Implement climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience programs on federal land.

. Mandate accurate and transparent accounting of emissions in the forestry, land‐use, bioenergy and marine sectors.

. Protect, restore, and connect forests and other habitats, as well as aquatic conduits, to allow corridors for animals and plants to move to more climate suitable habitats.

. Recognize the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, with rights to free, prior, and informed consent before activities that will affect their territory or environment.

. Ensure full adherence to the "United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples."

. Restore Indigenous land to Indigenous people

. Declare, support and finance the management of Indigenous lands that self-identify as "other effective conservation measure areas" (OECM).

. Accept the decisions of Indigenous communities regarding future green infrastructure projects that impact their lands and inhabitants.

. Reestablish traditional fire regimes adapted to the modern climate, enhance ecosystem resilience, and reduce intervening ecological impacts.

. Expand funding for USDA programs that help tribal governments acquire land and preserve it for future generations.

. Require contractors with all state agencies to certify that no products were grown, derived, harvested, reared, or produced on land where tropical deforestation occurred.

. Amend forestry laws to recognize the importance of considering carbon capture, geologic sequestration, and climate change adaptation in management decisions regarding public forests.

. Plant billions of trees on national lands, with a cost-share program to support states, tribes, local governments and nonprofits to plant billions more.

. Develop national land-use plans, restoration strategies, and incentives to enable large-scale national restoration.

. Expand publicly owned forests by acquiring and reforesting private lands, focusing on land rendered unproductive by climate change.

. Increase national monuments and manage federal lands to promote afforestation of permafrost areas.

. Publicly fund nurseries of native tree species.

. Incentivize private investment in reforestation and forest restoration.

. Support community and urban tree planting programs.

. Restore natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions to increase soil carbon storage, such as land preservation and afforestation.

. Establish practices and monitoring to assist with natural regeneration and afforestation, such as keeping land safe from fire, livestock grazing and other disturbances.

. Accelerate innovation and research and development into technological solutions for restoration.

. Establish public procurement policies that favor sustainably-sourced wood from restored areas.

. Stop the expansion of new agricultural land at the expense of natural ecosystems, by protecting intact ecosystems, and suspending concessions for logging in protected areas, particularly peatlands and forests.

. Conserve, restore, and create better mapping of peatlands.

. Develop and implement best practices for control of invasive species that threaten wetlands and peatlands.

. Change commercial forest management programs to integrate deep decarbonization objectives.

. Close "forest frontiers" by strengthening protected areas and ensuring integrated spatial planning, enforcement, and land management.

. Provide financial incentives for states and local governments to maintain standing forests.

. Enable community management of forests and natural systems.

. Require contractors with all state agencies to certify that no products were grown, derived, harvested, reared, or produced on land where tropical deforestation occurred.

. Create a national climate-friendly wood product certification system analogous to its system for certifying organic produce.

. Promote and subsidize sustainable wood products.

. Mandate transparency in forest commodity supply chains and incentivize zero-deforestation supply chains.

. Protect watersheds and biodiversity from natural resource conversion related to residential, industrial, and commercial development.

. Incentivize and track private land easements and voluntary conservation.

. End public collaboration with and investment in deforestation-risk companies.

. Assign an economic value to forests.

. Prohibit conversion of natural forests to plantations for bioenergy.

. Support policies favoring perennial bioenergy crops, such as switchgrass, fountain grasses, and silver grass, poplar, willow, eucalyptus and locust, instead of corn ethanol.

. Require forests cultivated for bioenergy production to meet sustainability criteria related to water pollution, erosion, biodiversity and habitat protection, and reforestation.

. Protect watersheds in agricultural areas by requiring the use of vegetative buffer zones.

. Adopt a low-carbon fuel standard for bioenergy with near-zero lifecycle carbon.

. Condition agricultural subsidies on the implementation of sustainable practices.

. Expand GHG mitigation programs in the forestry and agricultural sectors.

. Increase funding to conservation efforts.

. Incentivize wetland conservation by expanding easements and tax deductions in relation to conservation efforts.

. Develop and implement best practices for reducing stormwater runoff contamination of wetlands.

. Re-plant and re-green our coastlines by fully funding the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program, and creating a Climate Conservation Corps.

. Restore wetlands and create wetland wildlife refuges, using local workers.

. Protect the ocean commons from privatization.

. Protect at least 10% of marine areas from fishing by 2020.

. Ensure local communities have coastal access and infrastructure to fuel the blue economy in fishing, shipping and tourism, and pass the "Keeping America's Working Waterfronts Act."

. Improve the regulation and prevention of pollution and environmental degradation.

. Implement precautionary approaches to overfishing.

. Implement strict regulation on where to locate new fishing operations, antibiotic and chemical use, nutrient runoff, and application of sustainably sourced feed from terrestrial and marine origin.

. Expand emerging initiatives for regional fisheries management.

. Expand regenerative ocean farming by including shellfish and seaweed in the Federal Crop Insurance Act.

. Require transparency in the seafood supply chain.

. Revise national fish management programs that consolidate fishery ownership and produce negative ecological impacts.

. Expand regenerative ocean farming by rewarding ocean farmers for carbon and nitrogen sequestration via a "blue carbon fund" administered by NOAA.

. Remove harmful fishing subsidies.

. Increase marine protected areas, while maintaining traditional uses of these areas by local communities.

. Support the proliferation of phytoplankton, submerged aquatic vegetation and kelp forests, and protect coral reefs, to help protect ocean life from acidification.

. Upgrade water infrastructure and lead pipes nationally

. Reduce flooding in cities hard-hit by climate change by building “green infrastructure” that uses natural spaces to better handle stormwater.

. Focus public finance on resilient water infrastructure for the most vulnerable.

. Incentivize private investment in infrastructure that is resilient to disaster risks driven by climate change.

. Mandate assessment of disaster risks for infrastructure projects.

. Make new roads, walkways, and parking areas permeable to facilitate rainwater reabsorption and reuse.

. Protect two milion new miles of streams and tributaries, and 20 million acres of wetlands under the 2015 Clean Water Rule.

. Establish watershed protection plans, working with businesses, utilities, public agencies, and household involvement.

. Protect low income residents from water price increases by establishing better EPA standards on water affordability.

. Implement water policies that establish the full value of water and protect the poor as well as ecosystems.

. Establish guidelines for use of grey water and rain water in residential uses, fixture efficiency, and irrigation strategies.

. CLEAN Future Act: Protect underground drinking water sources from enhanced oil recovery.