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“What does nature mean to you?”
Major report was designed to answer the public’s biggest questions on nature.
The first-ever National Nature Assessment—which was based on significant public feedback and strove to reveal how nature loss influences climate change and impacts humanity—may still see the light of day after the Trump administration abruptly ended the ambitious project.
Researchers involved told The New York Times that the nature report was “too important to die” and that an “amazingly broad consensus” remains among its mostly volunteer authors, so the expansive report must be completed and released to the public.
The first draft of the report was due on Tuesday, so the bulk of the initial work appears mostly done. Although the webpage for the project has been deleted, an archived version shows that researchers had expected to spend the rest of 2025 seeking external review and edits before releasing the final report in late 2026.
Former President Joe Biden called for the nature report in 2022, posting in the federal register that “existing reports and assessments provide partial views of changes in nature and how they affect the nation, but the United States lacks comprehensive knowledge on these major aspects of global change.”
The report was supposed to fill in meaningful gaps to achieve the Biden administration’s goal of helping the US develop “nature-based solutions” that “can advance multiple benefits” beyond the obvious hope of achieving US climate goals. For example, one chapter lead, Rajat Panwar, told The Times that his team’s chapter includes “understated and understudied and underappreciated” information explaining how loss of nature impacts the economy.
It’s unclear exactly why the nature report was axed. A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, deflected questions on the report, The Times reported, only saying that Trump planned to “unleash America’s energy potential” and “simultaneously ensure that our nation’s land and water can be enjoyed for generations to come.”
But one word in the federal register notice describing key principles of the nature report—”inclusive”—may have triggered Trump’s decision to end it. Christopher Schell, a lead author of a chapter called “Nature and Equity in the US,” told The Times that his chapter’s focus on environmental justice may have made the project an easy target for Trump.
On day one of his administration, Trump issued executive orders rescinding Biden-era priorities and ending several environmental justice and equity initiatives in government. According to an analysis from two experts at Harvard’s energy and environmental law program, Carrie Jenks and Sara Dewey, Trump claimed, “without explanation,” that the Biden initiatives violate “longstanding Federal civil-rights laws” and “threaten the safety of American men, women, and children.”
Now “federal agencies no longer have a mandate, unless required under separate rules, to consider how their actions will disproportionately harm low-income communities, communities of color, and other vulnerable populations,” the Harvard researchers warned.
Trump contradictions in environmental orders
Grist reported on the scramble to salvage a wide range of Trump-purged climate data like the National Nature Assessment that could help protect vulnerable communities by remaining in the public sphere. That report noted that climate data access was similarly lost during Trump’s prior administration, when “as much as 20 percent of the EPA’s website became inaccessible to the public” and the government’s “use of the term ‘climate change’ decreased by more than a third.”
But even if some members of the public remain jaded from Trump’s prior administration, researchers working on the nature report told The Times that their biggest concern in moving forward with the report is that the general public views government studies as more authoritative than independent studies. The fear is that even if the report is eventually published, its impact could be watered down without the government’s involvement or endorsement.
However, it could bode well that all the authors involved in the nature report were publicly nominated and that the questions their report answers were chosen following several rounds of public comment periods. If an already engaged portion of the public is genuinely concerned about how the loss of nature impacts their lives, the findings could perhaps be eagerly met, with or without the US government’s stamp of approval.
The public may even be seeking more clarity outside of government by the time the report is released, as Jenks’ and Dewey’s analysis suggested that Trump’s executive orders seem to contradict each other at times.
For example, his order on wind energy expresses a concern about risks to species that seems to “directly” conflict with the objectives of other orders “to potentially accelerate or avoid both [the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act] reviews to spur fossil energy production.” Through an Environmental Justice Tracker and a Regulatory Tracker, the Harvard researchers plan to monitor these seemingly contradictory policies to trace potential harms and impacts as Trump’s term goes on.
Researchers involved with the nature report confirmed to The Times that they intend to ensure that all the back and forth with the public during listening sessions—where officials asked broad questions like “what does nature mean to you?” and “how do we make this assessment useful for you?”—was not for nothing.
The former director of the report, Phil Levin, told The Times that “nature supports our economy, our health and well-being, national security and safety from fire and floods.” In defending researchers’ efforts to move forward with releasing the report, he echoed the deleted government webpage’s “About” section, warning that “the loss of the National Nature Assessment means that we’re losing important information that we need to ensure that nature and people thrive.”
“Nature is important in its own right, and provides value to the lives of all Americans,” the now-deleted nature report webpage said.
Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.
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