Trump Canceled the National Nature Assessment. Scientists Will Publish It Anyway

Bellamy Pailthorp · April 22, 2026

Multiple members of the Center’s research collaborative are working on the assessment.

On Earth Day in 2022, President Joe Biden spoke in Seattle, announcing an executive order that created the first-ever national assessment of nature. Two and a half years later, President Donald Trump rescinded the effort on his first day in office.

But the team that had started the work — led by a professor at the University of Washington — refused to give it up.

Now, an 868-hundred page draft of the assessment is out for public comment, with plans for publication by the end of this year.

Biden’s remarks in Seattle’s Seward Park highlighted his administration’s climate agenda before he signed the order. He chose the park for its old-growth forests that served as a backdrop for his pledge to map, catalog and conserve old-growth trees in national forests, garnering spontaneous applause and extensive media coverage.

But Biden also spoke more broadly about the benefits of nature.

“Scientists estimate that the protection and restoration of our natural lands and waters can provide more than a third of the solution to climate change,” Biden said, pointing to the simplicity of preservation as a climate solution, even “if we did nothing else.”