SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Access to public land, nature, and a healthy environment should be a right for all people, as that access is essential to the health, well-being, identity, culture, and economic prosperity of California.

(b) California faces a biodiversity and climate crisis, with nature in a steep decline and greenhouse gas emissions not declining at the rate scientists say is needed in the United States and worldwide.

(c) Scientists are documenting a rapid loss of natural areas and wildlife in California, the United States, and throughout the world, including all of the following:

(1) From 2001 to 2017, a quantity of natural areas equal to the size of a football field disappeared to development every 30 seconds in the United States, constituting more than 1,500,000 acres per year.

(2) The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found that approximately 1,000,000 plant and animal species are threatened with extinction over the coming decades as a result of land conversion, water diversions, development, climate change, invasive species, pollution, other stressors, and direct exploitation, including wildlife trade.

(3) The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found that more than 500,000 terrestrial species have insufficient habitat for long-term survival without habitat restoration.

(4) From 2001 to 2017, California has lost more than 1,000,000 acres of natural area.

(5) At least 686 California species are at risk of future extinction, and native species in California have already declined by 20 percent.

(d) Climate change is accelerating the decline of nature in California and the United States.

(e) The Third National Climate Assessment found that climate change is reducing the ability of ecosystems to provide clean water and regulate water flows, limiting the ability of nature to buffer communities against disasters, such as fires, storms, floods, and marine heatwaves. Many of these changes disproportionately impact the health of communities of color and indigenous populations, and have far-reaching effects on marine and terrestrial wildlife, including by altering habitats, forcing changes to migratory patterns, altering the timing of biological events, causing shifts in species distributions, and warming and acidifying the ocean.

(f) Nature, like the climate, is nearing a tipping point where the continued loss and degradation of the natural environment will push many ecosystems and wildlife species past the point of no return, threaten the health and economic prosperity of California and the United States, and increase the costs of natural disasters.

(g) The existing protections for land, water, the ocean, and wildlife in California and the United States are insufficient to prevent a further decline of nature.

(h) Protected land, water, and ocean areas must support thriving biodiversity, contribute to climate resilience, and provide ecosystem services; be established with enduring measures; and managed so that their natural character, resources, and functions are preserved, maximized, and not impaired for current and future generations.

(i) Conserving and restoring nature is one of the most efficient and cost-effective strategies for fighting climate change.

(j) The implementation of this policy includes promoting voluntary cooperation with private land owners.

(k) To confront the deterioration of natural systems and the loss of biodiversity around the world, and to remain below a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in average global temperature, scientists recommend that roughly one-half of the planet be conserved.

(l) As a step toward achieving that goal, scientists have recommended that all countries commit to conserving and protecting at least 30 percent of land areas and waters and 30 percent of the ocean in each country by 2030, with a long-term goal of conserving one-half of the planet.