Words by Smiley Team
In good news for our environment, President Biden has signed an order to protect old-growth forests and push to increase wildfire resistance.
The order was signed in Seattle Washington, following a west coast tour for the President that was primarily focused on lowering costs for families and protecting communities from intensifying climate impacts.
“President Biden knows the cost of inaction is too great, he is taking bold executive action and reaffirming his calls on Congress to address the climate crisis,” the White House said in a statement.
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The order lists four primary goals, including safeguarding old-growth forests on federal land, strengthening reforestation partnerships across the country, combatting global deforestation, and enlisting nature to address the climate crisis.
“There used to be a hell of a lot more forest like this, but we’re doing everything we can, everybody behind me and all of you, to protect what we have and increase what we have,” Biden said at an event in Seattle.
These goals in large part are going to be funded by Biden’s historic infrastructure bill signed in November 2021 and will also hope to deliver on key COP26 commitments. There was over $8 billion allocated for “forest and land management activities.”
The United States Department of Agriculture has already allocated over $131 million dollars this year for wildfire risk reduction initiatives in high-risk landscapes in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Away from the forest, the Biden administration is also working on initiatives to improve the energy of the military, hoping to shift to cleaner sources. As a whole initiatives like this and others are intended to help fight climate change and growing extreme weather events.
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