July 2020 marks Disability Awareness Month and celebrates the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. People with disabilities make up 26% of the American population, and approximately half of those with disabilities have mobility impairments. As environmentalists, many of us have first-hand experience with the joy that being in nature can bring to our lives. For people with mobility impairments and other disabilities, navigating outdoor recreation can be challenging. But there are steps that outdoor recreation and environmental organizations can take to have their programs and activities be more accessible for all.

In a big win for conservation and bi-partisanship collaboration, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Great American Outdoors Act (310 to 107) on July 22, 2020. The Great American Outdoors Act will permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million a year and provide $9.5 billion over five years to repair aged infrastructure at national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and recreation areas. These dollars will benefit outdoor areas in the Delaware River Watershed (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) through Land and Water Conservation Fund programs. The Senate passed the Great American Outdoors Act by 73 to 25 on June 17th. It now heads to the President Trump who is expected to sign the bill into law.

Months of uncertainty made securing clean water funding particularly challenging, but Delaware’s water advocates are happy to be celebrating important wins thanks to their persistent and resilient advocacy! 2020 began like no year experienced recently – not only because of a novel disease spreading on the other side of the world, but because for the first time in Delaware’s recent history our Governor and General Assembly leadership united in support of dedicated and sustainable clean water funding, proposing a $50 million investment in clean water in January. For over five years, DelNature, Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed members, and water advocates throughout Delaware have been advocating for legislation to do just that.

It’s no secret that COVID-19 quarantine orders led to a dip in emissions, giving Mother Nature a little break and a sigh of a relief. However, the pandemic also pushed aside single-use plastic phase-out efforts. Several locations, including Philadelphia and New York State, hit the pause button on enforcing plastic bag bans, and some states, including Maine and New Hampshire reversed plastic bag bans. Some cities across the country have also paused or slowed recycling pickup and programs.

Friends of Burlington Island is excited to be part of the Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed because we’ve been advocating for our corner of the watershed, Burlington Island, for over a year now. What does it take to create a successful organization? Well to start with, you need a clearly defined purpose, but you also need passion to make a go of it, so the members of Friends of Burlington Island are dedicated to the purpose in order to achieve it. A group of people had the passion, and shared a common vision to open the Burlington Island to the public for more than a decade. They had a vision for an organization that would make it a reality, so they came together to formally meet as a group in June of 2019 to create the Friends of Burlington Island (FOBI).

June 1, 2020, marked the first day of Pride Month, which celebrates the everyone in the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Plus) community. The month also honors the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which saw members of the LGBTQ community fight back against harassment from the police in Greenwich Village in June 1969. June 2020 is the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March held in the United States, which was held one year after the Stonewall Uprising. This year’s Pride Month will certainly look different than those in years past, but even without the usual festivities the month remains a time to recognize the importance that LGBTQ+ individuals have in history and the ongoing fight for equal rights.

Amidst a pandemic when access to clean drinking water is crucial, the Trump administration finalized the weakened definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) within the Clean Water Act, representing the lowest level of water protections in 50 years. The Navigable Waters Protection Rule, finalized in April, rolls back bipartisan clean water protections for more than half our nation’s wetlands and millions of miles of river and streams. The rollback of clean water protections will give polluters a free pass, jeopardizing public health, the outdoor recreation economy, and the habitat for countless species.

As we’ve seen with the global COVID-19 outbreak, a crisis can come at any time with little to no notice. A public health crisis, a negative news article, or an angered ex-employee are all situations that can result in negative attention for your organization, if not handled delicately and strategically. Luckily, in the field of crisis communications, the wheel need not be reinvented because lessons in public relations are everywhere. There are tried and true ways to prepare for and adapt to crisis and emergencies that can even potentially make your organization stronger than before the situation began.