RELEASE: Groundbreaking Analysis Maps Rapid Loss of Natural Area in the American West
Washington, D.C. — In a first-of-its-kind analysis of human impacts on lands in the American West, the Center for American Progress and the nonprofit scientific collective Conservation Science Partners, or CSP, have found that the region lost an average of one football field worth of natural area to development every 2.5 minutes between 2001 and 2011.
Released today, the Disappearing West project—a partnership between the CAP and CSP—found that roads, energy infrastructure, agricultural and timber operations, urban sprawl, and other development in the West covered nearly 165,000 square miles of land in 2011; that is an area roughly the size of 6 million superstore parking lots.
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