American Conservation Experience applauds the Biden Adminstration’s executive order to establish a Civilian Climate Corps.

Flagstaff, AZ, February 5, 2021

ACE is committed to supporting this order to tackle the climate crisis, public lands restoration and BY creating meaningful service learning opportunities for underrespresented communities in the field of conservation. 

WASHINGTON, DCAmerican Conservation Experience, along with our partners at The Corps Network, the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps, would like to formally acknowledge President Joseph R. Biden’s establishment of a Civilian Climate Corps initiative through an executive order, signed into January 27, 2021. 

Specifically, the executive order directs the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to develop a strategy to mobilize the next generation of conservation workers to restore public lands and waters, increase access to outdoor recreation, improve community resilience, and more broadly address climate change. 

Laura Herrin, President and CEO, American Conservation Experience:

For more than 65 years Conservation and Service Corps have

  • been a partner in land and water conservation efforts,
  • supported understaffed agencies and organizations
  • increased recreation opportunities on public lands, 
  • completed large scale fuels reduction and reforestation projects, and
  • engaged in habitat restoration, have supported communities after natural disasters and promoted resiliency. 

ACE stands ready to support the administration in addressing climate change along with a force of more than 135 national, regional and local organizations. 

In December 2020, The Corps Network released a proposal for how to scale the existing Corps community to engage 500,000 diverse young people and recent veterans over the next five years to complete conservation, clean energy, resilience, and sustainable infrastructure projects. The Corps Network proposes a model in which projects will be completed through public-private partnerships between various agencies and existing and new community-based Corps. The proposal emphasizes that investments in expanding Corps should be equitable, with a focus on intentionally enrolling and supporting women, young people of color, urban and rural youth, and others from historically disenfranchised communities.

Through partnerships with local, state and federal resource managers, Corps complete a range of projects. Among other projects, Corps help restore habitats; build outdoor recreation infrastructure; grow fresh food in under-resourced communities; install energy and water-saving retrofits in low-income homes; preserve historic structures; respond to wildfires and other natural disasters; and mitigate the threat of future disasters. In 2019, Corps restored more than 1.4 million acres of habitat, planted more than 1 million trees, treated nearly 67,000 acres of invasive species, and built or improved more than 13,300 miles of trails.  

Since 2004, American Conservation Experience (ACE) has been dedicated to providing rewarding environmental service opportunities for youth and young adults of all backgrounds in America’s national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and other public lands. Gaining practical, professional experience while conserving and restoring our public lands has been ACE’s mission and continues to be what guides us. 

President Biden’s executive order and the creation of a 21st-century Climate Corps will open up even more opportunities for economic and outdoor equity and is an ideal way to address the multiple crises we currently face as a country. 

For more information on how to join American Conservation Experience visit our website at: www.usaconservation.org  

ACE is grounded in the philosophy that cooperative labor on meaningful conservation projects fosters cross cultural understanding and operates in the belief that challenging volunteer service unites people of all backgrounds in common cause. 

If you would like more information please contact Susie Jardine at (888) 958-6819 or email at susie@usaconservation.org.

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