2024 Was a Year of Conservation Wins -- Now We Have to Defend Them

One year may be just a moment in the life of an ancient forest or timeless canyon, but those moments can be crucial in protecting those places for years to come. For Sierra Club’s Conservation Campaign, 2024 was a year of hard work, success, and preparation for the challenges ahead of us. Let’s look back on the lands, water, and wildlife victories we achieved over the last year.

• New and expanded national monuments. National monuments tell the story of the people who have called this country home. In 2024, we added two new monuments to that story and expanded two more. The addition of Springfield 1908 Race Riot and Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School memorialize two dark chapters of this country’s history and will ensure that future generations learn about the continued resilience of Black and Indigenous communities. The expansion of San Gabriel Mountains and Berryessa Snow Mountain monuments will protect some of California’s most treasured public lands and expand access to nature for many.
• Preserving our public lands. For years, many of our public lands were managed more for their mineral resources than for public enjoyment and conservation. This year, thanks to the work of this campaign and others, we secured the enactment of the Public Lands Rule, which requires federal land managers to put conservation on a level playing field with mining and drilling. We also secured a mineral withdrawal for Colorado’s Thompson Divide, protecting 200,000 acres of public lands from drilling and mining.
• Protecting the Arctic. The Arctic has long been a priority area for our campaign, which made 2024 such an exciting year. This year, the Biden administration announced new federal rules to protect 13 million acres of the Western Arctic from oil and gas drilling, and it overturned Trump-era decisions to preserve 28 million acres of Alaskan landscapes overseen by the Bureau of Land Management.
• Taking on Big Oil & Gas CEOs. The Arctic wasn’t the only place where we stopped Big Oil’s drilling agenda. In the lower 48 states, the Biden administration enacted new federal rules on bonding and royalties for oil and gas drilling on public lands. That means that taxpayers will finally get a fair return on the resources these companies exploit, while ensuring corporate executives are on the hook to clean up the messes they leave behind.
• Protecting Old Growth forests. In 2024, we got closer to preserving our country’s remaining old growth forests than we ever have. We mobilized a million people across multiple comment periods to push the Biden administration to protect our oldest trees from logging. That’s grassroots energy we’ll build on to get these protections over the finish line and once and for all protect these majestic giants.
• Defending endangered species. We pushed the Biden administration to make commitments to Pacific Northwest Tribes to protect vital salmon populations. We also worked to protect some of our most vulnerable wildlife. Grizzly bears and wolves are among the most iconic species in our country, but threats from development, habitat destruction, and hostile management regimes jeopardize their long-term recovery. Our campaign took to the courts to preserve the legal protections keeping these species from extinction – and won. We’ll keep up this fight in 2025 and beyond. 

None of these victories would have been possible without the staff of this campaign, the amazing volunteers who give hours of their time to defend the public lands and waters we all love, and the activists who added their names to petitions, submitted comments to the administration, and rallied for conservation action across the country. We couldn’t do it without you – and we need you now more than ever.

We’re just a few weeks away from Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump and his cronies are no friends of conservation. Their top priority will be to give away our public lands and waters to the Big Oil CEOs who bought them power. We’ve seen this show before, and the sequel is usually worse. 

That’s the bad news. But the good news is, we’ve fought Donald Trump before – and won. We know how to beat him and protect public lands and waters, preserve clean air and clean water, and safeguard critical habitat and imperiled species. Right now, we’re mobilizing a people-powered defense to preserve the conservation victories we’ve won over the last four years, and we need you on the team.

It takes years to grow a forest, to carve a canyon, or to freeze tundra solid. We’re working every day to protect the public lands and waters we all love, even if our successes won’t be visible for decades.