Preserving Wild California:
Protecting Our Heritage and Preparing for the Future
Preserving Wild California (PWC), a program
of Resources Legacy Fund Foundation (RLFF), was a five-year,
$150 million program designed to preserve California’s wild
lands and rivers, and to ensure their permanent protection by
investing in systematic acquisitions of land and fostering
supportive policies, organizations, and constituencies. A
comprehensive external assessment of the PWC program, conducted
by Dr. Steven Yaffee of the School of Natural Resources and
Environment at the University of Michigan, can be viewed
here.
We were entrusted by donors to develop a
long-term comprehensive strategy that would maintain the
character and value of protected wild lands and rivers while
seeking to strengthen and expand protection of additional
priority areas, ensuring that future generations will benefit
from the value of crucial ecosystem services, as well as the
important solace that California’s wild places provide. We
designed PWC to create and catalyze innovative approaches;
invest in organizations and efforts that could become models for
success; address immediate as well as future needs and threats;
support collaborative efforts to advance wild land protection;
and build broad, sustainable constituencies and coalitions that
span partisan, age, ethnic, geographic, and economic boundaries.
Since program inception in 2003, PWC
invested in land acquisition, education, communication,
outreach, advocacy, building the internal capacities of local or
regional nonprofit organizations, restoration and stewardship,
planning, and policy work. Examples of strategies that are
hallmarks of the program include:
Lasting Impact.
The PWC program envisioned success as protection of wild lands
forever. Therefore, we measured success not just in the number
of acres acquired, but also in strengthening public policies and
increasing public funding to protect these lands, in fostering
grass-roots support by investing in the capacity and tools of
nonprofit organizations, and in broadening, educating, and
engaging new constituencies in efforts to protect these wild
lands and rivers well into the future.
Thoughtful Approach.
The program took a system-based approach toward preserving
natural resource values. Through thoughtful initial research
and analysis, the program identified priorities for
potential land acquisition in seven regions of the state and
provided grant and loan funds based on these priorities.
Select, large tracts of untouched wild lands were the
highest priority. However, PWC also recognized value in
other acquisitions which may, for example, provide wildlife
corridors, through which animals could move from one
protected area to the next, often from winter to summer
habitat. This access to diverse habitats, and possible
linkage of high-and-low elevation areas, improves species'
chances for survival over the long term.
Attending to Details.
Nonprofit organizations used PWC funding to purchase lands
surrounded by or adjacent to important park, wilderness, and
roadless areas and wild rivers. These acquisitions were
often small, scattered parcels, and by themselves did not
receive attention or accolades. But these acquisitions are
important to reduce public land management conflicts and
costs, allow permanent protection, and protect the integrity
of key public lands. Inconsistent and incompatible uses can
threaten wild lands and rivers with mining or other
extractive processes, water and land development, road
building, trespass and encroachment, and opposition to
protection of the public land and resources. Investing the
time to identify the highest-priority acquisitions and to
complete the transactions ensured better protection of the
resource and recreational values of some of California’s
treasured parks and landscapes.
Building Bridges.
The PWC program sought to fund activities that contributed to
community understanding and engagement on issues affecting the
local quality of life. Groups used project funds to offer fire
safety training to homeowners and communities; develop
information regarding the economic contribution of natural areas
and resources on both the local and state levels; train
scientists and advocates to better communicate important
information; assemble data regarding the distribution, use
patterns, and density of plants and animals; and provide
information about how to better manage limited resources in the
face of climate change.
The PWC program offered grants and loans
and entered into contracts for land acquisition, planning,
policy and advocacy, constituency building, nonprofit
organizational capacity building, and stewardship and
restoration.
Photograph by Doug Steakley
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