Permitting & Compliance Resources

Permitting and environmental compliance is acknowledged as an onerous, time consuming and costly component of meadow restoration projects and is recognized as a bottleneck for implementation on the ground. There is a need to improve the permitting processes for meadow restoration in order to increase the pace and scale of restoration to meet the targets of the Sierra Meadows Partnership and state and federal agencies, and to achieve benefits at the regional scale.

This white paper is the result of three years of knowledge gathering by the Sierra Meadows Partnership (SMP) Regulatory Workgroup and draws on the collective experience of Sierra Meadows Partnership practitioners implementing projects for more than 10 years. The SMP Regulatory Workgroup convened meetings between meadow restoration practitioners and regulatory agency staff, reviewed literature, participated in high-level initiatives including the CDFW-led Restoration Leaders Committee (RLC), and coordinated with other groups including Sustainable Conservation who are working to streamline permitting in California.

In an effort to create a shared language and understanding for landscape stewardship practitioners, terms related to systems, such as systems thinking and systems change, are defined in this guide. Systems in three classifications—biosphere, social, and technosphere—are highlighted. These three systems all share the characteristics of interconnectedness, interdependency, and dynamism

Systems thinking is a lens through which we can understand, diagnose, and solve complex issues, in addition to a lens for decision-making and future planning. Both a process and an outcome, systems change is the action-oriented side of systems thinking, intended to produce long-lasting change.

This guide concludes with a checklist that can be used when approaching problems through a systems-thinking and systems-change perspective. When applying this perspective, the practice of collaborative leadership is highlighted as the most effective approach to tackling today’s complex problems.

Wildfire. Drought. Flooding. Species extinction. Climate change. California faces grave threats that require bold, immediate action. An essential part of any solution is to restore and proactively manage California’s lands and natural resources at a scale and pace sufficient to result in meaningful benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to help catalyze new conversations and strategies to reduce persistent barriers to environmental stewardship, conservation and restoration of California’s lands that are unintended consequences of essential environmental regulations. It summarizes and assesses key advances in addressing these barriers—including legislative and policy approaches as well as approaches based on coordination, collaboration, and trust building—and includes recommended next steps.

This white paper includes a problem statement, key findings (p. 3), assessment of recent efforts (p.3), models outside the field of conservation (p.17), and conclusions and recommended next steps (p.19).