Mapping Biodiversity Risk

The New York Times recently shared a map touted as the most detailed documentation of biodiversity risk ever created. The map raises questions, addressed in the source article, about how to protect biodiversity on the nation's private and public lands.

The map, based on research published in the journal Ecological Applications, was created by NatureServe and a network of state partners, the geographic mapping platform Esri, and the Nature Conservancy.

Catrin Einhorn and Nadja Popovich wrote the article that accompanied the map for the New York Times. The writers dig into the findings and methodology of this ambitious research, revealing a lot of nuance about the existential risk to biodiversity in the United States because of environmental degradation and climate change and the tools the country has available to effectively protect species without risking unintended consequences.  

The article also puts the details of the map in context of an evolving conversation about the role of public land in preserving biodiversity in the United States. "California is leading the way in tackling some of these challenges," write Einhorn and Popovich. "It has more land under biodiversity protection than any other of the lower 48 states, but it’s also home to high concentrations of imperiled species that live outside of those areas."

As noted in the article, president Joe Biden announced the "American the Beautiful" plan in May 2021 to protect 30 percent of the land in the country by 2030—a tripling of the amount of protected land in the country in less than a decade that follows the "30 by 30" model.