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Enter resource descrFrom 2024 to 2026, the CLSN will focus its efforts on the three areas. These multi-faceted, interrelated, and emergent topics build upon our strengths while allowing us to continue to be nimble and adaptive to opportunities and needs that arise from our community of practice.

• Connecting collaborative practitioners in ways that inform, equip, and empower; 
• Advancing solutions to systemic barriers that limit collaborative stewardship action; 
• Supporting the landscape stewardship movement that leads with equity, justice, and inclusion

Specific objectives and activities under each focal area are detailed in this report.iption/details here.

A paradigm shift is inherently complex and difficult to achieve. It is particularly challenging within a layered, multiagency regulatory environment that has been built over decades. However, it can be done. This case study examines one promising example—Cutting Green Tape (CGT)—that not only aims to increase regulatory and permitting efficiencies, but also to shift our collective thinking about how multibenefit environmental restoration projects in California can happen.

The CGT case study allows us to explore the evolution and current status of a perceived paradigm shift. This case study’s researchoriented lens and consideration of Kuhn’s seminal work on shifting paradigms (1970) reveals CGT’s progression in a way that can be applied by a wide range of professional audiences. Insights are shared with those seeking to create such a shift within regulatory (or similar) contexts.

Findings indicate that a paradigm shift for environmental restoration work in California is indeed underway. CGT is moving into the final phase of a five-phase process (see Five Phases of a Paradigm Shift). Two of the four signs of a true paradigm shift (see Four Signs of a Paradigm Shift) have been fulfilled, and there are initial indicators of progress towards the third sign of change as well. However, while promising, CGT as a new paradigm (i.e., a profound change in approach or underlying assumptions) has yet to be fully realized.

On August 10, 2023, we were joined by four rising leaders in California to continue highlighting efforts statewide that center equity, justice, Tribal sovereignty, and inclusion in the stewardship of land, water, and communities:

• Barbara Camacho Garcia, Grassroots Ecology
• Benjamin Chang, California Climate Action Corps
• Ivette Torres, The People's Collective for Environmental Justice
• Irene Takako Farr, Better World Group

This series is hosted by the CLSN’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Roundtable for Healing Severed Connections. This lunchtime conversation was moderated by JEDI Roundtable member Laurel Wee.

We are at a pivotal inflection point for addressing landscape scale challenges in the United States and across the globe. From climate change and land-use planning to water management and environmental justice, complex and increasingly urgent issues cross political boundaries, scales, demographics, and sectors. Collaboration is paramount for successfully addressing these issues, and practitioners, funders, and researchers all have a role to play in finding and implementing landscape-scale solutions. However, even when diverse groups work together, success isn’t guaranteed.

Collaborative conservation and stewardship offer effective approaches for addressing complex challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental justice. They also provide innovative ways to fill governance gaps and make inclusive decisions in situations for which we have no sufficient structure, processes, or abilities. However, in order to effectively allocate scarce resources, we need to better understand how to invest in the “collaborative capacity” that sustains collaborative groups, partnerships, and networks.

This study provides an analysis of what collaborative capacity is and how it leads to improved conservation and stewardship outcomes based on expert perspectives gathered from in-depth interviews and focus groups with practitioners, leaders, and funders across the United States.

We present a framework that illustrates the collaborative capacity elements that are necessary and fundable, as well as a list of activities they enable. We share the reasons why consistent, long-term investment in these elements is needed. We emphasize the contextual factors that affect collaboration so that these investments are made in the right places, at the right times, and in the right ways to achieve their potential. We end with a set of recommendations directed toward practitioners, funders, and researchers that will help align their efforts, making them more effective, efficient, and able to achieve durable outcomes.

On March 17, 2022, restoration practitioners from across the state joined the 4th virtual Cutting Green Tape Exchange, hosted by the California Landscape Stewardship Network in partnership with California Natural Resources Agency. With a mix of live and pre-recorded sessions, we heard from a great cast of individuals increasing the pace and scale of beneficial environmental restoration, including:

Reflections and Progress Made on Cutting Green Tape by Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources

Implementing Cutting Green Tape through CA Department of Fish & Wildlife by Jennifer Norris, Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity & Habitat

Highlighting Efficiencies in Permitting from CDFW's Cutting Green Tape Program by Brad Henderson, California Department of Fish & Wildlife 

Updates on Cutting Green Tape in the Coastal Zone by Madeline Cavalieri, California Coastal Commission 

Updates on Cutting Green Tape from SWRCB by Phil Crader, State Water Resources Control Board

Interviews on Interagency Efforts to Cut Green Tape by Amy Hutzel, California Coastal Conservancy Jim Robins, Integrated Watershed Restoration Program Kim Caringer, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency 

Interviews on Indigenous Stewardship & Cutting Green Tape by Victor Bjelacac, California State Parks  Don Hankins, CSU Chico & Indigenous Stewardship Project

The event was facilitated by Shawn Johnson, Managing Director at the University of Montana's Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy.

On June 29, 2022, the CLSN continued its Equity Leaders Speaker Series with a visit from Geneva E.B. Thompson, Assistant Secretary for Tribal Affairs.

The Mycelium Map was first created for the Stewardship.2021 Spring Forum – a convening of the California Landscape Stewardship Network – to bring Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) principles into all scales of participation in the Spring Forum, from the individual, organizational, network, and beyond. Going beyond that point in time, the co-creators intend for the Mycelium Map to drive conversation, lead action, and increase connectivity across our field of practice, from regional, state, national, and international levels.

Most current natural resource plans and policies focus on the need for collaborative management. Indeed, the complexity and intersectionality of today’s biodiversity, environmental justice, and climate change challenges require collaboration with diverse governmental and non-governmental partners at many scales. However, multi-benefit, cross-sector, and cross-boundary collaboration is an emerging field, one in which practices continue to evolve. While California’s leaders have expressed strong support for collaboration, agencies and legislators are seeking to identify specific roles that the state and federal government can play to activate and sustain this work at a regional scale.This paper provides an overall approach as well as specific recommendations for how state and federal agencies can support the building and sustaining of local and regional collaboration necessary to advance landscape-scale stewardship.

On May 19, 2022, Katherine Toy, Deputy Secretary for Access at California Natural Resources Agency, joined the network for the kickoff of a multi-part series sponsored by the CLSN's Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Roundtable for Healing Severed Connections. In a conversation moderated by Kindley Lawlor and hosted by Yakuta Poonawalla, Katherine offers her perspectives on why increasing access to natural and cultural sites in California is so important.