National Wildlife Federation Urges Stronger Data-Center Safeguards, Protections for Wildlife, Communities

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Wildlife Federation and its state and territorial affiliates urged local, state, and federal leaders to strengthen wildlife, climate, and environmental justice safeguards for the planning, siting, development, and operation of data centers. These steps, endorsed through a resolution at NWF's 90th Annual Meeting, are needed following the rapid growth of large and "hyper-scale" data centers. The resolution further highlights how data-center growth could jeopardize progress on conservation, threaten wildlife, exacerbate environmental injustices, and threaten public health.

"The National Wildlife Federation … calls upon policymakers at all levels of government to create the necessary regulatory and legislative safeguards, and for the data center industry to develop best practices, to align data center development with biodiversity conservation, human well-being, and climate change mitigation and adaptation goals," the resolution reads.

NWF's state and territorial affiliates also approved resolutions concerning:

• Preservation of Scientific and Historical Integrity in Public Lands: Acknowledges the importance of historical and scientific understanding to sound conservation and addresses the threat to conservation caused by the alteration or removal of historic and scientific materials on public lands, including Indigenous knowledge and histories.
• Protecting Democracy, Civic Participation, and Public Process Essential to Conservation: Supports upholding democratic governance, a transparent public process, and meaningful civic participation as critical to effective conservation.
• Pesticide Preemption: To address the harms caused by pesticide drift, this resolution opposes any preemption of state, local, and Tribal regulations on pesticides and any superseding of safeguards on pesticide discharge in bedrock environmental laws.
• Prohibit Second Generation Anticoagulating Rodenticides to Protect Ecosystem Health: Calls for the prohibition of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) because of their impacts to the environment and wildlife.

NWF's affiliates lead critical wildlife conservation efforts in their states and territories. Every year they pass conservation policy resolutions that guide NWF's work.