Publications
Proposed Funding Pathways for Adaptation to Climate Change in California
This report explores new or expanded funding sources and financial tools that state and local governments in California can use to prepare for and respond to the effects of climate change in a fiscally responsible and equitable manner. The four pathways focus on funding for regional transportation planning, extreme heat policy reform, resilience finance districts, and wildfire risk reduction. This report, released on April 30, 2021, is authored by the OnClimate Team with support from Resources Legacy Fund.
Economic Impact Analysis of California Climate Resilience Bond
A bond measure to protect California communities from wildfires, droughts, floods, and extreme heat events could create between 75,000 and 119,000 jobs statewide, and generate between $9.6 billion and $15 billion in total economic activity according to a new study by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. The study, supported by the Resources Legacy Fund, provides a quantitative, model-based analysis of the economic and job impacts of a potential bond measure between $5 billion and $8 billion that reflects recent proposals from Governor Newsom and the State Senate and Assembly.
Lessons Learned from California’s MPA Network Implementation
As California nears the milestone of its first decade of MPA network implementation, valuable new lessons continue to emerge that can be applied both to improve its own efforts and to inform MPA managers around the world. As the impacts of climate change on ocean ecosystems become more dire, there is also a growing interest in understanding how MPAs may help build resilience. Ensuring California’s MPA network is effectively managed is critical to both meeting the goals of the Marine Life Protection Act itself and to ensuring the state’s MPAs contribute to a healthy and abundant ocean.
CCI Constituency Engagement Strategy Evaluation
RLF commissioned this report to evaluate the constituency engagement strategy of its California Conservation Innovations (CCI) program. A research team conducted 19 interviews, two focus group sessions, and an online survey of 75 grantees to describe CCI’s grantmaking approach and its impact. This report summarizes the findings and makes five recommendations to RLF that can further evolve CCI’s constituency building strategy and outcomes.
Lessons from California’s MPA Monitoring Program
California has committed to partnership-based model of managing its marine protected area (MPA) network, focusing on community stewardship and education, enforcement, policy and permitting, and scientific monitoring. This document summarizes some of the key components and lessons learned from California’s experience designing, launching, and implementing a program to monitor the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of its MPA network.
Reaching across the table for a sustainable energy future
In November 2019, RLF President Michael Mantell and Cathy Reheis-Boyd, Western States Petroleum Association President, co-wrote an op-ed published in the Sacramento Bee that suggested how thoughtful environmentalists and petroleum producers could collaborate in moving realistically toward a sustainable, non-fossil fuel-based energy future.
Lessons from the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative
From 2004 to 2012, RLF guided a public-private partnership including foundations, multiple stakeholder groups, and the State of California in creating a statewide, science-based network of marine protected areas (MPA) that protect nearly 17 percent of California’s nearshore ocean waters, the first such effort successfully completed in the United States. RLF produced an assessment of its experience in leading the eight-year Marine Life Protection Act Initiative that provides useful lessons to help guide MPA network planning efforts in other regions worldwide.
Economic Transitions in Energy-Focused Communities
The economies of the Intermountain West, especially energy-focused economies, have experienced tumultuous change in recent decades as a result of globalization, new technologies, regulatory changes, shifting consumer preferences, and competition from renewable energy. This report, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, defines the primary challenges facing these communities and explores promising ideas on industry diversification and how to drive a healthy economic transition.
Responding to Climate Change in California
Climate change touches the lives of all Californians and virtually every aspect of state government. As California works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it must adapt to the climate impacts that have already begun and build resilience to face the changes to come. To help guide adaptation policies and funding under the Newsom Administration, RLF commissioned a review–including input from an advisory team of California scientists and policy experts–of California’s climate policy and approaches from the last 10 years and developed strategic recommendations for moving forward.
Recommended Coastal and Ocean Actions for California’s Governor
In March 2019, Resources Legacy Fund, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Ocean Conservancy together recommended actions the Newsom administration could take to help ensure the state’s extraordinary coast and ocean are healthy, productive, and accessible for generations to come.
Montana Parks in Focus Recommendations
Montanans cherish their outdoor heritage, including 55 state parks that get two million visits a year. In 2018, RLF worked with Montana Governor Steve Bullock to address the stagnant funding, lack of public awareness, and deferred maintenance plaguing Montana State Parks. The Governor created a Parks in Focus Commission. RLF staffed its year-long effort to solicit public input and craft recommendations to ensure the necessary resources, capacity, and expertise to build and support the parks system Montanans deserve. Read the Commission’s final recommendations, published in December 2018.
In Adapting to Climate Threats, Philanthropy Can Help Reinvent U.S. Politics
In a commentary published by Inside Philanthropy, RLF Vice President Peter Teague makes the case that coping with climate change, community by community, offers an antidote to divisive politics. Philanthropy is uniquely positioned to cut through the ideological noise to help communities prepare for higher sea levels, more intense heat waves, deeper droughts, and other effects of a changing climate. The December 2018 article is here.
Recommended Actions for California’s New Governor
In partnership with the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, in December 2018 RLF offered near-term actions for the Newsom administration to consider in addressing wildfire and forest management; flood, drought, and safe, affordable drinking water supplies; and climate mitigation, transportation, and housing. The recommended actions were distilled from three separate half-day discussions of a dozen or more policy experts, stakeholders, and practitioners.
Finding Ways to Pay for Climate Adaptation
RLF supported and guided AECOM’s creation of Paying for Climate Adaptation in California: A Primer for Practitioners. The October 2018 report describes options for investing in more resilient California communities and infrastructure and recommends ways to overcome the challenges that discourage cities, counties, water districts, utilities, state agencies, private companies, and other entities from making the investments California needs to thrive despite climate change. (Summary can be found here.)
Early, Patient, Nimble Philanthropy Can Make or Break Public-Private Partnerships
In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, RLF leaders look at how private long-term investment can help spur public engagement—and lead to policy change and impact—in environmental conservation and beyond. The April 2018 article is here.
Measures Matter: Ensuring Equitable Implementation of Los Angeles County Measures M & A
RLF commissioned this report, in collaboration with other funders, to define equity in the context of infrastructure funding, explain why equity matters, and identify strategies and recommendations for measuring equitable implementation of infrastructure funding. The report provides a simple framework for funders, advocates, and government agencies to use in advancing inclusive and integrated implementation of Measures A and M in Los Angeles County. These funding measures, passed by voters in 2016, will make available billions of dollars for years to come to support parks, open space, and transportation projects.
Climate Justice Report
In 2018, RLF supported preparation of an inaugural Climate Justice Report to summarize peer-reviewed research and stimulate discussion on how California can ensure that no group of people disproportionately bears the burden of climate impacts or the costs of mitigation and adaptation. The report, available here, was incorporated into the California Natural Resources Agency’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment,which provides actionable science to guide state policy.
Guide to California’s Marine Life Management Act, 2nd edition
In December 2017, RLF released the second edition of Guide to California’s Marine Life Management Act, written by RLF’s Mike Weber with Huff McGonigal and Burr Heneman. RLF has partnered with the state of California to help advance implementation of the landmark 1998 law which calls for managing state fisheries to meet sustainability and ecosystem protection goals. The Guide can be found here.
Parks Forward
After a budget crisis in 2012 nearly forced the closure of many state parks, RLF worked with the State of California to create an independent, collaborative effort to develop an action plan for a financially sustainable State Parks system that meets the needs of California’s increasingly urban, young, and diverse population. Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. established the Parks Forward Commission to make reform recommendations. The Commission’s final report can be found here.
Ecosystem Adaptation Guidelines
In February 2012, RLF convened a panel of leading scientists to answer the question: “How can California secure its most important natural assets—its vibrant ecosystems and the many benefits they provide to society—given the future that climate change presents?” The result, after extensive peer review, was a set of guiding principles for ecosystem adaptation. You can find the guidelines here.
In February 2015, the journal BioScience published an article that grew out of RLF’s 2012 report. “Adapting California’s Ecosystems” explores efforts to translate improved understanding of how climate change is altering ecosystems into practical actions for sustaining ecosystem functions and benefits. The article, included in the March 2015 issue of BioScience, can be viewed here.
Preserving Wild California
Preserving Wild California was a five-year, $150 million program designed to ensure permanent protection of wild lands through systematic acquisition and the fostering of supportive policies, organizations, and constituencies. Efforts significantly supported by the program led to federal wilderness designation of more than one million acres of California wild lands.
Dr. Steven Yaffee of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan conducted a comprehensive assessment of the program, which can be viewed here.
A final report on the program, Preserving Wild California: A Legacy of Enduring Conservation, can be found here.
South Bay Salt Ponds Restoration Photo Archive
In 2003, with funding from the Goldman Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, RLF helped federal and state agencies purchase more than 16,000 acres of commercial salt ponds and property ringing South San Francisco Bay and in Napa County. From 2003-2013, RLF supported the work of Pelican Media to photographically document the restoration of the salt ponds, capturing the original condition of the salt-making operations and ponds, restoration activities, public use, and wildlife.
