Even as President Joe Biden’s approval ratings hovered below 40 percent this past year, support for his conservation agenda—protections of public lands and waters, including Biden’s America the Beautiful initiative—has consistently had an approval rating above 75 percent. National monuments and wildlife refuges (85 percent); ramped-up public lands protections (74 percent); and recovery of endangered wildlife (86 percent) saw remarkably high support. Despite the administration’s low approval ratings, it’s clear that the president has created an important and popular legacy in the protection of nature. President Biden took bold action on something important to the American people.
In fact, in just one term, President Biden broke conservation records. Over four years, the Biden administration protected more lands and waters—674 million acres—than any other president in history. A new Center for American Progress analysis finds that during his presidency, Biden’s Department of the Interior channeled more than $35 billion toward conservation action across the country. As the U.S. sees a major transition in presidential and Congressional power, any effort to reverse these actions would be straying far from the will of the electorate.
New and restored protections for public lands and waters
Over the last four years, the Biden administration has taken historic and record-breaking action toward conserving America’s beloved public lands and waters. Upon taking office, the administration committed to meaningful conservation right off the bat with their “America the Beautiful” initiative, which aims to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030.
Overall, the Biden administration has conserved 674 million acres of U.S. lands and waters. These protections include 15 new, expanded, and restored national monuments, adding up to nearly 9 million acres. Most recently, the president protected 848,000 acres of sacred Tribal lands in the California desert as Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments. These designations connect the largest corridor of protected lands in the lower 48. The Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor spans 18 million acres significant to a variety of ecosystems and species migrations, clean water along the Colorado River watershed, archaeological and cultural protections of sacred Tribal landscapes, and the protections of lands for climate resilience in a dangerously warming region of the country.
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The administration also protected important ecological and subsistence lands across 28 million acres in Alaska from the reach of oil, gas, and other extractive industries. They withdrew 625 million acres of U.S. coastlines from future oil and gas leasing and created three new national marine sanctuaries; added six new wildlife refuges; and four mineral withdrawals, among countless other actions. These new protections, which span across the entire nation, have furthered national conservation efforts and made protected nature more accessible to thousands of communities.
Record funding has fueled community-led conservation projects
In addition to new and strengthened protections, the Biden administration has also demonstrated their fierce commitment to conservation through record funding for Tribal, state, and local conservation projects. A new Center for American Progress analysis finds that Biden’s Department of the Interior has channeled more than $35 billion toward conservation over the course of their term.* This is more than five times the amount that any previous president’s DOI has funded conservation projects in one term. This funding has supported projects in every U.S. state and territory and has significantly furthered the nation’s conservation progress.
Conservation funding during President Biden’s term has fueled many successful programs, including the America the Beautiful Challenge grant program, which funded community conservation and restoration projects across the country. In 2024, 42 percent—$51 million—of the challenge grant funding went toward conservation projects led and implemented by Indigenous communities. President Biden also secured $157 million for the National Fish Passage Program and more funds through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and other sources to reconnect more than 4,500 miles of rivers and streams.* Additionally, CAP’s analysis finds that in 2024 alone, Biden’s DOI funded more than $3 billion in projects to reclaim abandoned mine lands, remediate orphaned oil and gas wells, and address legacy pollution from extractive projects on federal lands. Through these programs and others, the administration demonstrated a commitment to funding projects which benefit the health, subsistence, economy, access, and restoration for communities across the nation.
The administration’s commitment to Tribal-led conservation
Secretary Deb Haaland made history when she became the first Indigenous woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. Since then, she has led the Department of the Interior in groundbreaking actions to center Indigenous communities in federal land management. As of December 2024, the Biden administration celebrated 400 co-stewardship agreements between the administration and Tribes. These agreements serve to honor and uplift Indigenous communities and their relationship to the land as well as provide the avenue for collaborative management of natural resources.
Who will the Trump administration stand with?
Conservation actions have long been overwhelmingly popular and bipartisan. Previous administrations of either party have successfully protected new areas and channeled new and existing funds toward conservation. However, the incoming Trump administration has a record of taking actions that threaten the conservation of public lands and waters. Trump is the only president in history to remove more acres of lands from protection than what he protected. While it is not yet clear how the incoming administration will treat the nation’s parks, national monuments, and protected areas, their past actions are signs that they may be under threat.
The first Trump administration conducted a “review” of national monuments that sought to reduce protections for 27 sites across 12 states and led to the downsizing of the Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts national monuments. The Trump administration may choose to follow the Heritage Foundation’s far-right Project 2025, which sets a playbook that doubles down on these anti-conservation actions. It claims that the initial monuments review was “insufficient” and recommends revisiting national monuments designated by President Biden, suggesting that parks and monuments are vulnerable to being sold out to the highest bidder.
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Conclusion
The Biden administration’s term has been marked by remarkable protections for lands and waters and funding for federal, state, and local programs that have actualized long-sought-after conservation proposals. Working in collaboration with and seeking guidance from communities, Tribes, and local officials have been a defining facet of this administration. This community-led conservation action has been exceedingly popular among voters and is indeed one of the most notable pieces of President Biden’s legacy. It deserves to stay that way.
*Authors’ note: Data on file with authors and adjusted annually for inflation going back to 1965.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Cody Hankerson, Will Beaudouin, Drew McConville, Nicole Gentile, Mona Alsaidi, and the local and national conservation leaders who are building impactful and equitable conservation solutions every day.