A sea of poppies and other wildflowers
Michelle O'Herron

Resources Library

Build back a better: NATIONAL LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION FRAMEWORK

Center for Large Landscape Conservation
2021
Details

Connecting landscape-scale conservation partnerships through a national network will be essential to achieving the Biden Administration’s ambitious goals around biodiversity (“30 x 30” initiative), equity, and climate change. While some attempts have been made to coordinate landscape conservation efforts across the country, a robust, cohesive, nationwide network is not in effect today. We provide recommendations for building back a better national framework that supports landscape conservation efforts across the United States.

 

Resilience Before Disaster: The Need to Build Equitable, Community-Driven Social Infrastructure

Asian Pacific Environmental Network
2021
Details

This report offers recommendations on initial steps to build resilient communities throughout California. If taken, these steps would represent an unprecedented effort to close the climate gap and invest in social infrastructure for climate resilience. The urgent need to bolster community resilience should be viewed as an opportunity to rethink the political, social, and economic structures needed to safeguard all California residents.

 

Check In & Connect: Cutting the Green Tape

Sustainable Conservation
December 2020
Details

Following the release of the California Secretary of Natural Resources' Cutting the Green Tape Initiative's recommendations, we heard from restoration experts about what this initiative is, why it’s needed, and how it will help accelerate restoration and protect our natural resources and ecological systems.

Panelists:

  • Erika Lovejoy, Accelerating Restoration Program Director, Sustainable Conservation
  • Kellyx Nelson, Executive Director, San Mateo Resource Conservation District
  • Jennifer Norris, Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat, California Natural Resources Agency

Moderated by Ashley Boren, Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Conservation

 

Cutting Green Tape Presentation at CA RCD Conference Nov 2020

California Landscape Stewardship Network
November 2020
Details

Cutting Green Tape is an initiative the California Landscape Stewardship Network has facilitated in partnership with the California Natural Resources Agency to help environmentally beneficial work happen more quickly, simply, and cost-effectively. Learn more about the initiative at: https://resources.ca.gov/Initiatives/.

This presentation on Cutting Green Tape was part of the 2020 Virtual California Association of Resource Conservation Districts Conference, held on November 12-20, 2020. Speakers included Kellyx Nelson, Executive Director, San Mateo RCD; Jennifer Norris, Deputy Secretary of Biodiversity and Habitat, California Natural Resources Agency; and Erika Lovejoy, Director – Accelerating Restoration, Sustainable Conservation.

 

Cutting Green Tape: Regulatory Efficiencies for a Resilient Environment

California Landscape Stewardship Network
November 2020
Details

The State of California has identified “Cutting Green Tape” as a signature initiative to increase the pace and scale of environmental restoration. California has a proud tradition of strong laws that protect our environment from the effects of development and resource extraction. Unfortunately, projects that are beneficial to the environment can be slowed by the same processes and procedures that are designed to protect it. Cutting Green Tape seeks to remedy this problem. This report is the product of the insights and experiences of more than150 people who gathered at a series of roundtable workshops and others to whom the authors reached out from fall 2019 to fall 2020 about ways the state can increase regulatory efficiencies to increase the pace and scale of restoration and stewardship work.

 

Stewarding California’s Biodiversity: Early Detection and Rapid Response (EDRR) for Invasive Plants

California Invasive Plant Council and California Landscape Stewardship Network
October 2020
Details

In 2018, then-Governor Jerry Brown established the California Biodiversity Initiative, setting biodiversity protection as a top state priority. The Biodiversity Collaborative is the next phase in the evolution of California’s biodiversity conservation movement, integrating and building on efforts started by the California Biodiversity Initiative launched by Governor Brown. Like California’s State Wildlife Action Plan and Climate Adaptation Strategy, the Biodiversity Collaborative identifies the importance of controlling invasive species as part of attaining a sustainable future.

Indeed, hundreds of entities across California are engaged in strategic efforts to limit the scope and magnitude of the damage that these species do to the state’s biodiversity and natural resources. When possible, land managers use a strategic approach called early detection and rapid response (EDRR) that focuses on stopping new invasive plants before they become widespread. As with a raging wildfire, a surging infectious disease, or a leaking oil pipeline, the longer one waits to act, the more difficult and costly the task and the greater the damage that has already been done.

While the concept is simple, its implementation is complex. Effective EDRR requires timely data, proactive effort, landscape-level coordination among public and private landowners, and a consistent and sustained approach. In California, many pieces of an effective EDRR system are already in place, from an online network for sharing botanical information to a statewide network of land managers. But steady funding to implement EDRR systematically across the state’s 100 million acres is lacking. With the new Biodiversity Collaborative in place, the time has come for an increased commitment to invasive plant EDRR.

While technical challenges remain—such as predicting how each plant’s distribution will shift with land use and climate change—EDRR’s primary challenges are structural: How can agency missions, mandates, programs, and funding be aligned to support landscape-level conservation? This paper identifies the institutional and financial support needed for invasive plant EDRR to succeed in California.

 

Cutting Green Tape Roundtable, October 29, 2020

California Landscape Stewardship Network
October 2020
Details

Recording Timeline:

  • Welcome (0:00)
  • Overview of Roundtable goals and agenda (02:22)
  • Introductory Remarks from Secretary Crowfoot, Secretary Ross & Chair Esquivel (09:10)
  • Overview of Regulatory Efficiencies Recommendations (23:28)
  • Remarks from Deputy Secretary Jennifer Norris (36:55)
  • Participant Q&A with Interagency Panel (45:18)
  • Concluding Remarks (01:17:46)

Cutting Green Tape is an initiative the California Landscape Stewardship Network has facilitated in partnership with the California Natural Resources Agency to help environmentally beneficial work happen more quickly, simply, and cost-effectively. Learn more about the initiative at: https://calandscapestewardshipnetwork.org/cutting-green-tape

This roundtable, held virtually on October 29, 2020, highlights recommendations from the initiative's first phase. It was hosted by Sharon Farrell (Executive Vice President, Projects, Stewardship and Science, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and CLSN Facilitator) and facilitated by Shawn Johnson (Managing Director, Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy, University of Montana).

Speakers included:

  • Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources
  • Kellyx Nelson, Executive Director, San Mateo Resource Conservation District
  • Jennifer Norris, Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat
  • Joaquin Esquivel, Chair, State Water Resources Control Board
  • Karen Ross, California Secretary for Food & Agriculture

 

CLSN Meet & Greet with Armando Quintero, Director of California State Parks 9 28 20

California Landscape Stewardship Network
September 2020
Details

On September 28, 2020, the California Landscape Stewardship Network hosted a virtual meet-and-greet with Armando Quintero, newly-appointed Director of California State Parks. The conversation was moderated by Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy's San Francisco Community Programs Manager Yakuta Poonawalla. 

Timeline of the recording:

Welcome and Introductions

Armando Quintero Interview (2:40)

Questions from the Audience (38:45)

Wrap-up and Conclusion (58:13)

 

Conservationists without Borders: Lessons from (Inter)National Partners, August 10, 2020

California Landscape Stewardship Network
August 2020
Details

On August 10, 2020, the California Landscape Stewardship Network hosted "Conservationists Without Borders: Lessons from (Inter)National Partners", a virtual panel event with partners working regionally, nationally and internationally to connect our work at different scales and share lessons learned from the complex challenges we face in 2020.

As part of the Network’s ongoing Summer Series, the panel was moderated by Sharon Farrell, Network Facilitator and Executive VP of Projects, Stewardship & Science at Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Panelists included key practitioners and thought leaders in landscape conservation and stewardship:

  • Lisa Brush, Founder and CEO of The Stewardship Network
  • Annie Burke, Executive Director of TOGETHER Bay Area
  • Jay Chamberlin, Chief of Natural Resources Division at California State Parks
  • Jim Levitt, Director of the International Land Conservation Network at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
  • Gary Tabor, Founder and President of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation

 

Conservation Leadership Capacity Building: a Landscape Study

Colorado State University
July 2020
Details

Responding to a desire to work together to improve capacity for leadership in the field of conservation, three collaborating organizations, National Geographic Society (NGS), Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC), and the Smithsonian Institution (SI; collectively referred to as the “Collaborators” in this report), commissioned a landscape study of capacity development initiatives focused on conservation leadership and available to early and mid-career professionals. The goals of the study were to understand what is currently available, identify needs and gaps, and inform the development of potential future initiatives.

 

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