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On Thursday, the Biden administration released a $2.8 billion plan to tackle deferred maintenance in our parks and public lands, while also increasing access for recreation. The plan seeks to implement the recently-passed Great American Outdoors Act, which provides full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and established a new program to update public lands infrastructure.
The list of more than 500 projects stretches from coast to coast, from rehabilitating campgrounds in Zion National Park to repairing facilities in Boston's Minute Man National Historical Park, and will begin to address the roughly $20 billion in deferred maintenance facing public land managers. Combined, the projects are expected to address more than $1.2 billion of the maintenance backlog within the Interior Department alone.
"One of the best investments we can make is in stewarding the lands and waters that sustain us and the generations to come," said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. "Today we are making critical investments that will create tens of thousands of jobs, safeguard the environment, and help ensure that national parks and public lands are ready to meet the challenges of climate change and increased visitation." Combined, the deferred maintenance projects identified for FY2022 are expected to support more than 20,000 jobs and generate more than $2.2 billion in local communities.
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If you look at it from a land justice perspective, we need to support a strengthening and healing of that relationship. If you look at it practically, Indigenous people are the original stewards of all the lands and waters in North America, and there’s an extensive knowledge and management practices that date back millennia.”
