The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) The biodiversity of California is comprised of the plants, animals, including humans, and fungi that reside within the state, as well as its rivers, lakes, beaches, deserts, forests, mountain ranges, and other natural landscapes.

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(b) The state’s cultural and natural resources are a shared heritage that no single individual or entity is more entitled to access to, or benefit from, than another and must be stewarded for future generations.

(c) Countless Californians still face barriers to visiting and enjoying the state’s natural resources and outdoor spaces, including local, regional, state, and federal parks and beaches, and other public lands and outdoor spaces. These barriers include, but are not limited to, the following:

(1) Lack of safe, reliable, and affordable routes to outdoor spaces, including transportation and pathways accessible for people with disabilities.

(2) Cost of admission, parking, and overnight accommodations at or near these spaces.

(3) Lack of accessible public information and exposure to the outdoors necessary to ensure familiarity and comfort with being in these spaces.

(4) Lack of culturally relevant and multilingual programming.

(5) Lack of local, quality outdoor spaces and amenities, including parks, pedestrian tree canopies, green streets, greenways, trails, community gardens, and other greenspaces.

(6) Lack of outdoor programming opportunities, including, but not limited to, recreational, cultural, and educational activities, in many communities.

(7) Local hostility towards visitors of these spaces and intentional efforts to restrict access.

(d) The state faces a biodiversity and nature crisis that scientists say we must address with urgency.

(e) 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.

(f) Before European contact with the American continents, tribal nations, Native American tribes, and tribal entities managed and stewarded the state’s terrestrial and marine resources using traditional ecological knowledge and a wide array of traditional practices and techniques to maintain an environment capable of supporting large, thriving human, plant, and animal populations. Today, tribes continue to use these practices, which vary from tribe to tribe, but are generally focused on ecosystem interconnectivity, respecting the carrying capacity of the land, and viewing humans as an integral part of the environment. Tribal methods of protecting and managing the land are an essential and fundamental part of a concerted effort to successfully rebalance the climate and restore biodiversity.

(g) Access to, and the benefits of, nature are essential to the health, well-being, identity, culture, and economic prosperity of the state.

(h) Accessing and connecting with the state’s prized cultural and natural resources and experiencing the public and mental health, cultural, economic, and other benefits outdoor recreation can provide is essential to cultivating an appreciation and respect for nature that motivates conservation, biodiversity protection, and other actions to protect our climate and planet.

(i) The loss of nature and lack of access to nature negatively affects people of color disproportionately, especially people of color living in disadvantaged communities. Research shows that communities of color are three times more likely than White communities to live in nature-deprived areas and that 70 percent of low-income communities live in nature-deprived areas.

(j) The loss of habitat for fish and wildlife, inadequate water supplies, pollution in the air and water, the loss of pollinators, uncontrollable wildfires, and climate change are of increasing concern to many communities across California but especially to communities of color and disadvantaged communities.

(k) The state has a responsibility to conserve land, air, water, ocean, and wildlife resources in the state as necessary to prevent the further decline of nature and to address barriers to access, especially for low-income and disadvantaged communities disproportionately affected by them, to ensure that all Californians have access to nature and a healthy environment.

(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 939, Sec. 1. (AB 30) Effective January 1, 2023.)