To drum up support for protecting open space, several environmental groups submitted a letter and report to the state Department of Environmental Management last week.

In the letter, eight environmental groups said Rhode Island is the second-most-developed state in the country and its public lands could be at a “heightened risk” without rules to protect them.

The environmentalists petitioned W. Michael Sullivan, director of the DEM, to create a way to analyze proposals on the use of open space and offer public comments. They also asked Sullivan to adopt rules that would preserve the amount of the state’s open space and protect natural features such as wildlife and waterways.

This comes while the DEM is creating such guidelines under the Preservation of State Open Space Law, which the General Assembly passed in June. The DEM is required to update the Assembly in January on its progress. The protection guidelines must be finalized by March.

There have been several attempts over the years to build in public lands and management areas. Last year, there were proposals to build a state police headquarters in the Big River Management Area and a water park in Snake Den State Park. Both proposals were rejected.

While some building proposals are for worthy causes, they are not the original purpose for keeping the land undeveloped, said Eugenia Marks, director of policy and publications for the state Audubon Society.

“Open space provides benefits too,” Marks said. “It’s not just unused land. It’s not just wasted space. People don’t understand that trees produce oxygen.”

Other open-space benefits include restoring drinking-water aquifers and recharging rivers, Marks added.

The report, “Rhode Island’s Natural Heritage at Risk: Protecting Open Spaces and Special Places,” offers nine policy suggestions to preserve open space.

Among the suggestions: create financial initiatives for private landowners to conserve land; provide permanent state financing to communities to preserve open space, and offer cities and towns the right to refuse the sale of land that would remove farms, forests and open spaces.

Matt Auten, an advocate for Environment Rhode Island, said he wrote the report to offer a vision of how the state could go forward with creating the new protection laws.

“You can have the best intentions,” Auten said. “But if the rules aren’t written in the right way, then you don’t have a strong policy.”

Michelle J. Lee is a fellow with the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting.