The San Joaquin Valley Water Collaborative Action Program (CAP) is a coalition developing recommendations for more resilient water and land management in the San Joaquin Valley. Started in 2021, CAP brings together over eighty leaders from the agriculture industry, water agencies, environmental justice organizations, environmental organizations, academia, and state and federal agencies. Collaboration members work to address the Valley’s water challenges through on-the-ground actions and collective efforts to implement laws like the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which mandates groundwater sustainability by 2040, and the Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP), which provides resources to manage the associated land use changes as SGMA is implemented. CAP aims to support multiple efforts across the Valley by identifying ways to overcome barriers and accelerate action that benefits all interests.
Healthy & Resilient Communities
San Joaquin Valley Water Collaborative Action Program
Climate Mayors
Climate Mayors is a bipartisan network of more than 470 U.S. mayors demonstrating climate leadership through meaningful actions in their communities. Representing 48 states and 74 million Americans, the Climate Mayors coalition reflects U.S. cities’ commitment to climate progress. In addition to local climate leadership, Climate Mayors build political will for federal and global climate action. Hundreds of members have signed the Climate Mayors letters committing to the Paris Agreement and calling on Congress to invest in a green and equitable economic recovery.
Website: https://climatemayors.org/
Wildfire Strategies Program
Our Wildfire Strategies program aims to achieve a more wildfire-resilient California and Western United States by 2030 through better policy and significantly increased funding for forest management, community resilience and home hardening, Tribal leadership on forest stewardship and fire management, and public health measures that protect people from the impacts of smoke. The program supports research, coalition-building, budget advocacy, and tests innovative proofs of concept for broader adoption.
Western Communications Hub
RLF established the Western Communications Hub in 2018, in partnership with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, to strategically support conservation organizations across the West to develop communications capacities, messages, and tools that enhance the effectiveness of their programs and outcomes. Grantees help protect priority fish and wildlife corridors, advance conservation policy and funding, and build diverse coalitions protecting natural resources. The Western Communications Hub awards targeted grants that support community-driven organizations in honing their storytelling skills and raising their voices to reach historically marginalized groups, motivate people to act, and move levers of power.
Parks Forward Implementation Initiative
In 2015, California’s Parks Forward Commission, with support from leading California philanthropies, set forth an ambitious ten-year vision for California parks. The Commission’s recommendations call for modernizing the California Department of Parks and Recreation to improve and diversify partnerships, provide access to all Californians, and ensure stable, diverse funding for parks. RLF collaborates with the Department, California Natural Resources Agency, and park partners to implement high priority Commission recommendations that deliver tangible outcomes in parks for all Californians.
Montana Parks Program
RLF launched the Montana Parks Program (MPP) in 2018 to support Montana’s Parks in Focus Initiative, an effort modeled after California’s Parks Forward Initiative, aimed at addressing the ailing Montana state parks system. Through MPP, RLF has conducted extensive public outreach and education, and is helping to shape and advance a set of recommendations that create more diverse and stable funding sources for state parks; broaden and strengthen the constituency for parks; and connect state parks to larger recreation and economic initiatives and community needs.
Equitable Infrastructure for Los Angeles
With the passing of Measures A, M, and W in Los Angeles and California Proposition 68—all developed and passed with the help of our partners—Los Angeles is poised to transform communities with billions of dollars of public funding for parks, transportation, drinking water, and coastal protection. Working with local groups, RLF is advancing a vision that will drive these new public funds toward priority parks and multiple-benefit infrastructure projects in disadvantaged communities. This Los Angeles-focused program, launched in 2019, builds on RLF’s successful track record of policy and funding work and community engagement to leverage and mobilize recently created public funding sources to ensure the funds deliver on their promise to reach the county’s neediest communities.
Related Publications and Blogs:
California Environmental Equity Initiative
California Environmental Equity Initiative (CEEI) seeks to strengthen California climate and environmental policies and increase public funding to address intersecting environmental, climate, social, and health issues that disproportionately impact low-income communities and communities of color. CEEI focuses on building capacity, power, and leadership among younger, more ethnically diverse leaders, organizations, and coalitions advocating for environmental outcomes that benefit their communities and better meet the needs of California’s most marginalized residents. The program supports community-driven efforts that increase access to parks, public lands, and safe drinking water and build resilience to climate change in ways that enhance justice, health, and well-being.
San Francisco Bay Area Conservation
RLF has been working in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2001, when it commenced efforts to secure the acquisition of commercial salt ponds surrounding the San Francisco Bay. Current efforts support wetlands restoration around the Bay, with a focus on building a diverse constituency to support equitable, long-term funding and government policies for Bay restoration and flood improvements, including the effective implementation of Measure AA.
RLF also supports a regional land conservation approach in the Bay Area that boosts ecosystem resilience for conservation and communities. RLF focuses on multi-benefit conservation efforts that protect and restore high-value habitat and wildlife linkages, provide recreation opportunities, and address natural threats such as climate change, flood, drought, and fire.
Open Rivers Fund
The Open Rivers Fund supports local community efforts to remove obsolete dams, modernize water infrastructure, and restore rivers across the American West. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation supported the Fund’s launch in 2016 with a 10-year, $50 million grant aimed at removing barriers that impair river function and pose challenges, costs, or risks to communities. In addition to creating significant environmental and economic benefits, the Fund also seeks to build technical knowledge, organizational wherewithal, and public awareness in order to enable future projects.
More information at openriversfund.org
Land-Sea Connection
The Land-Sea Connection (LSC) program, launched in 2017, works to advance the long-term health and resilience of California watersheds by promoting more effective local and state policies and conservation programs; supporting high-value, on-the-ground conservation efforts; and helping secure equitable and sustained public funding to support community needs. The LSC program, funded by the Campbell Foundation, seeks to improve stewardship and reduce impacts to watershed health across a range of issues, with focused investments related to cannabis cultivation, agricultural practices, and urban runoff/stormwater.
