Nature has what we need – solutions that address our biggest challenges

Our 5-year plan prioritizes solutions that address the urgent challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. If we accomplish what we have set out to do, we will make real and meaningful progress on addressing these challenges. We will also lead the way for others to follow towards a climate resilient environment.

Spread across six focal strategies, our strategic plan gives life to our mission on the land, in the water, and in collaboration with the community. We hope that by sharing this plan broadly, our community will take notice of this important work and engage with our programs that connects all of us – nature.

Tenemos lo que la naturaleza necesita: soluciones a nuestros mayores retos

Nuestro plan quinquenal da prioridad a soluciones que abordan los urgentes retos del cambio climático y la pérdida de biodiversidad. Si logramos lo que nos hemos propuesto, avanzaremos de forma real y significativa en la resolución de estos retos. También enseñaremos el camino a seguir para que otros puedan conseguir un medio ambiente resistente al cambio climático. Restaurando los sistemas ecológicos degradados que producen agua dulce y aire limpio, reconectando los espacios abiertos para la vida salvaje y apoyando las infraestructuras naturales que protegen a todos los miembros de nuestra comunidad, mejoramos la calidad de vida de todos los habitantes del condado de Sonoma.

Distribuido en seis estrategias, nuestro plan estratégico da vida a nuestra misión en la tierra, en el agua y en colaboración con la comunidad. Esperamos que al compartir ampliamente este plan, nuestra comunidad tome nota de esta importante labor y se comprometa con nuestros programas que nos conectan a todos: la naturaleza.

Our top priority - Protect more land!

Applying current practices and traditional methods that rejuvenate and restore natural processes, our plan focuses on the land in two main areas: Protecting Biodiversity and our Living with Fire strategies.

Protecting Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the extraordinary variety of life on Earth. It encompasses every living thing, from plants and animals to microorganisms and fungi. Each species plays a critical role in maintaining thriving ecosystems that provide the foundation for all life on earth, including our own. Now more than at any time the past 65 million years, nature’s robust interconnected systems of species as we know them are under tremendous threat of being destroyed. The climate is changing at an ever-accelerating pace, and its effects are impacting the health and habitat critical for life to survive.  However, many species have shown that they are capable of adapting to change, but they need the space and time to do so.

Click here for more about the Protecting Biodiversity strategy

Living with Wildfire

Sonoma County ecosystems evolved with naturally occurring fire, shaping the ways in which plants grow and disperse their seeds, soils rejuvenate, and supply conditions that host diverse native species critical for the food chain. This area was further shaped and maintained by Indigenous peoples’ land management practices, including the use of localized fire to augment the productivity of forests, grasslands, shrublands, and marsh. Working in harmony with the landscape, they used low-intensity fire to sustain healthy, resilient ecosystems and to produce food, fiber, and medicine. However, European colonization decimated local Indigenous populations, divided, and privatized the landscape, and suppressed indigenous land management practices. We recognize that returning good fire to the land is an essential tool to restoring balance and resilience into our forests.

Click here for more about the Living with Wildfire strategy

Nuestra máxima prioridad: ¡Proteger más tierras!

Todo empieza con la tierra. No hay que ser un científico del clima para saber que un ecosistema floreciente produce y sostiene la vida. Desde los bosques de secuoyas que capturan carbono hasta la abundante cosecha de agricultores, la calidad y la cantidad de nuestros espacios abiertos repercuten en todo y en todos. Por eso empezamos con la tierra.

What has the drought taught us?

Adapting to Rising Waters

Tidal wetlands are located in between dry land and tidal waters such as bays and oceans. The vital benefits they provide include flood protection, water filtration, carbon capture, and habitat for a diverse set of species, making them a valuable natural resource. By the 1960s, more than 90 percent of tidal wetlands in the San Francisco Bay Estuary had been lost to development and reclamation of land. With sea level rise accelerating, we must protect what remains, restore what has been lost, and create room for them to migrate while we still can.

Click here for more on the Adapting to Rising Waters strategy

Securing Freshwater Flows

A watershed is an area of land that collects water from rain, fog, and snowmelt and transfers it into a common body of water, such as streams and rivers. Nearly 500,000 Sonoma County residents depend on the county’s major watersheds for their drinking water. When healthy and unobstructed, a watershed moves clean, cool water through miles of habitat to hydrate ecosystems and provides the critical role of recharging groundwater aquifers (naturally occurring underground water sources). Clean, flowing waterways also provide local Coho and Chinook salmon and steelhead trout populations with the adequate water levels necessary to develop, make the journey to the ocean, and return upstream and spawn. Increased salmon and steelhead populations in specific areas indicate that the watershed is healthy and functioning.

Click here for more on Securing Freshwater Flows strategy

El agua es esencial, ¡y punto!

El cambio climático está intensificando las oscilaciones históricas de California entre sequías e inundaciones, al tiempo que las hace más extremas. Las infraestructuras de ingeniería humana que captan y almacenan agua han demostrado ser una solución insuficiente a estos retos. Si nos fijamos en la infraestructura natural de las cuencas hidrográficas, que tienen el poder de recoger, mover y almacenar agua, vemos las soluciones que pueden suministrar el agua que necesitamos y gestionar las oscilaciones de nuestros patrones climáticos.

Thinking six generations into the future – what will we do differently?

Our environmental-based solutions have the power to protect more than the land, by also addressing the inequity in our communities.

Preserving Nature Nearby

There is a growing recognition that access to parks and open space is critical to the physical and mental health and well-being of a community. Nature also provides cities with a necessary and tangible buffer against the worst effects of climate change – especially heat waves, floods, and droughts. Yet, many of our community members do not have equitable access to nature and live more than a 10-minute walk from a readily accessible park or open space area. With the push to build much-needed housing in Sonoma County, it is imperative that access to nature is included in new community design, and that past oversights are corrected.

Click here for more on the Preserving Nature Nearby strategy

Empowering Communities

A well-informed community is better prepared to identify and support the solutions that can address the challenges from a changing climate. Education about natural systems and conservation is beneficial to all members of our community and vital to how we make decisions that shape our future together. Empowering and educating people across all ages and demographics will help to bring an array of voices that reflect the diverse needs, talents, backgrounds, and beliefs of all residents.

Click here for more on the Empowering Communities strategy

A pensar… ¿seis generaciones en el futuro, qué haremos diferente?

Es fundamental para este trabajo que reconozcamos que las personas no están separadas ni desconectadas del mundo natural que las rodea. Puede que nos encontremos en lo alto de la cadena alimentaria, pero necesitamos los mismos elementos básicos de aire fresco y agua limpia para sobrevivir. Creemos que si unimos nuestras mentes y nuestros recursos, podemos mejorar los elementos fundamentales que afectan a nuestra calidad de vida, nuestra economía y nuestra prosperidad. Y podemos hacerlo con beneficios duraderos que garanticen la salud de los que vivirán después de nosotros.

Highlighting the great news of our partner and their new leader

Sonoma Land Trust is excited to share some news from our long-standing friends and partners at Community Foundation Sonoma County (CFSC), and join them in welcoming Óscar Chávez as their new President and CEO. Óscar has served with a positive and inclusive voice as a community leader in the County for more than 25 years, having held the titles of Assistant Director of Sonoma County Department of Human Services, as well as Executive Director for Community Action Partnership Sonoma County.

We spoke with Óscar about the future of the Community Foundation under his leadership. Óscar responded by saying “We have the responsibility to ensure the long-term wellbeing of our community. We can’t do that without articulating a point of view about how we move forward as a community, and we have to recognize that part of our work is to inspire others to think big. This is the time to reimagine what a healthy, vibrant community could be like, and to bring the best of ourselves, the best of our thinking, and the best of our aspirations, to this work.”  

Like the CFSC, Sonoma Land Trust is mission-driven, with programs that work alongside local communities to secure healthy and thriving futures for everyone. Our strategic plan outlines our goals and strategies that address impacts caused by Climate Change in ways that are inclusive and equitable and have lasting results that are felt throughout the community. We see these same values reflected in Óscar’s extensive track record and look forward to strengthening each other’s work through his new role.

We are deeply grateful for the numerous grants CFSC has awarded us that have funded land protection, our youth environmental education programs, including our Conservation Council, as well as general operating support which allows us to put resources where they’re needed most. The Land Trust is thankful to have a like-minded partner in this work and we are looking forward to building a more resilient and equitable Sonoma County together!

Events

A Plan for Conservation

Stream last month’s LOL where Eamon O’Byrne, John McCaull, and Neal Ramus unveiled Sonoma Land Trust’s strategic plan outlining our goals for the next five years. Highlighting three of our current conservation projects – Sonoma Mountain Vernal Pools, McCormick Ranch, and the Santa Rosa Southeast Greenway – they demonstrate how our plans and goals are realized. Learn how these projects address our mission to protect biodiversity, fresh water, climate resilience, and provide access to nature, plus an understanding of how our plan contributes to the bigger picture of land conservation in Sonoma County.

Free Public Hikes in Partnership with Sonoma County Ag + Open Space

There is no charge for these events, which are made possible by the voters of Sonoma County who fund the work of Ag + Open Space with a quarter-cent sales tax.

Estos eventos son gratuitos y son posibles gracias a los votantes del condado de Sonoma, que financian la labor de Ag + Open Space con un impuesto sobre las ventas de un cuarto de céntimo.

Recommendations

• Book: The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California – https://mark-arax.com/the-dreamt-land
• Podcast: Outrage + Optimism – https://www.outrageandoptimism.org/
• Webinar: Language of the Land – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4XXn0m7qIs
  • En Español – Lenguaje de la Tierra – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY3S_yTqp6M
• TED Talk: Nature-based solutions in the fight against climate change | Thomas Crowther   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSH63qgpGoY
• App: Ecosia – https://www.ecosia.org/