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Comment: First U.S. National Nature Assessment

The White House seeks comments on the first U.S. National Nature Assessment (NNA); comments are due March 31.

According to the notice in the Federal Register,

Nature is important in its own right and provides value to the lives of all Americans. The Office of Science and Technology Policy, on behalf of the United States Global Change Research Program, requests input from the public to help shape the first U.S. National Nature Assessment. The goal of the assessment is to assess and track the state of the nation’s natural resources, services, and uses in a changing climate. What should it include? What questions should it help answer? Submit comments by March 31.

The NNA will adhere to seven principles so that the assessment is “authoritative, credible, timely, and concise; fully compliant with relevant laws and policies; policy relevant but not policy prescriptive; transparent, accurate and reproducible with well-documented methods; inclusive; use-inspired ; and accessible to the widest possible audience.”


Submitting comments

To comment, go to the U.S. Global Change Research Program Public Contribution System and create an account. The process is easy and quick.

The online comment form has 11 questions and the only required information is your name, email, and affiliation (self, for individuals). The government will accept a range of upload types and links: pdf, doc, docx, ppt, pptx, xls, xlsx. Files must be less than 10 MB.

To prepare your responses, use the PDF version of the online form (for reference only; you’ll have to submit your responses online).


Things to think about related to the NNK

If you will be commenting on the National Nature Assessment from the perspective of the Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, or Virginia more broadly, these ideas might get you started:

  • Make suggestions for approaching competing interests. Fishing menhaden is one example. Another might be ecoturism.
  • Provide recommendations for highlighting and spreading the word about potential threats. For example, the blue catfish is a significant threat in the Chesapeake Bay region to blue crabs in particular. Yet many are unaware of the threat. And even if they are aware, they don’t know what their role in the challenge is, what actions they can take.
  • Discuss forms or formats of information sharing. What may be a useful tool or approach today may not be tomorrow. Should flexibility be a suggested tenet?

Background on the NNA

According to the Department of the Interior’s Office of Policy Analysis’ National Nature Assessment page,

The NNA is just one part of a broader agenda to conserve and restore nature for the U.S., essential to measuring and monitoring our progress. It complements the America The Beautiful initiative, the National Strategy for Natural Capital Accounting [PDF], the roadmap for using nature-based solutions [PDF], the Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plans, and others.


Questions

Questions should be directed to Chris Avery at the U.S. Global Change Research Program, (202) 419-3474, email.




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