Current Grants (2022)
Friends of the Eel River
For No Coal In Humboldt
$15,000
To coordinate with agencies including the North Coast Railroad Authority, regional city and county municipalities, and the Coastal Commission, and gather evidence to oppose the approval of a coal train right-of-way along the Eel River and the potential development of a coal terminal port in Humboldt Bay. The grand vision of the Great Redwood Trail, the longest rail-trail in the nation, through the rugged Eel River Canyon, is under threat. Last summer, owners of the defunct rail line applied for railbanking, a process to preserve the right of way for alternative uses like trails. Unfortunately, this process opens the line to potential offers for purchase and privatization. No one expected any such offers, however, coal interests in the Powder River Basin and the Mendocino Railroad have indicated their interest in purchasing the line to transport bulk coal to the coast. A coal train through the Eel River canyon poses a direct threat to water and air quality along the Wild and Scenic river, and a coal export facility at Humboldt Bay would poison Marine Protected Areas like South Humboldt Bay, endangering sensitive species including steelhead, Chinook and Coho salmon. A broad coalition, No Coal In Humboldt, has formed to prevent the coal train development through the sensitive Eel River Canyon.
Resource Renewal Institute
For Restore Point Reyes Seashore: Seizing the moment for the park, the planet and the public
$7,000
To mount a timely legal challenge and build on growing local and national advocacy campaigns to oppose the recently approved management plan for Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS). Based on incomplete and inaccurate data, the approved plan locks in ranching operations on public lands in perpetuity, largely ignoring climate change, water quality impacts and extreme drought conditions. In revising the management plan for PRNS, the Park Service ignored 90% of public comments and the overwhelming opposition of over 60 environmental organizations representing millions of members. A successful outcome could provide a blueprint for other grassroots organizations to combat commercial resource extraction in National Parks.
National Parks Conservation Association
For Colorado Desert Public Lands Project
$17,000
To inventory open space areas, assess community needs and viewpoints in local park-poor communities, and work to craft a proposed solution that protects natural and cultural resources, while increasing access to desperately park-poor communities in the East Coachella Valley and elsewhere in the California portion of the Colorado Desert. The Colorado Desert area, comprising the desert portions of Riverside County, as well as Imperial County and parts of southeastern San Bernardino County, has some of the most important wildlife habitat that would ensure California’s climate resilience. It is a critical landscape adjacent to the Colorado River encompassing all of California’s Sonoran Desert. Through the Colorado Desert Public Lands Project, NPCA will work in coalition to help protect these critical wildlands.
Tuleyome
For Save Condor (Walker) Ridge
$35,000
To design and implement a multilingual communications, education and outreach plan and conduct an Objects of Interest study to support a campaign to protect Condor Ridge (also known as Molok Luyuk or Walker Ridge). Molok Luyuk is one of the most important areas of rare serpentine plant habitat in the state, and hosts over 30 rare species. The area is threatened by fragmented management under both BLM and the Forest Service, which makes it vulnerable to recurring proposals for industrial-scale wind energy installations, rampant illegal OHV use, and neglect. The ultimate goal is to include Molok Luyuk as part of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, establish tribal co-management, and ensure effective stewardship of the Monument through a comprehensive management plan. The current campaign will educate the public and decision makers about Molok Luyuk, engage them with the area, and build urgency for protecting it.
The Environmental Center of San Diego
For San Diego 30×30 Reboot
$24,000
To revitalize and expand the San Diego 30×30 Regional Working Group by increasing outreach, engaging more organizations, improving communication and collaboration, and increasing group effectiveness. This will allow the Environmental Center of San Diego to build a diverse, effective, and organized coalition ready to leverage state funding as it becomes available and steer it towards the most strategic regional conservation projects. The grant supports hiring a part-time organizer to revitalize the working group, increase the coalition’s effectiveness and collaboration, expand the group to include new and more diverse constituencies, and improve outreach and communication about 30×30 to key local officials and the general public.
Past Grants (2017-2021)
Community Governance Partnership
For Cannabis Removal On Public Lands (CROP) Project
$25,000
To develop educational materials for the new federal administration, new Congress and the press on the importance of removing and restricting toxic, trespass cannabis grows from wild, public lands. CROP will provide decision-makers with key information to guide new policy and inform legislation to address this longstanding, seemingly intractable, problem. They will encourage increased state and federal resources for reclamation, increased Forest Service law enforcement presence in National Forests, and increased criminal penalties for bringing toxicants on to public lands.
The Watershed Research and Training Center
For Completing CA’s First 5-year Prescribed Fire Strategic Plan
$23,000
To complete California’s first 5-year strategic plan for advancing the use of prescribed fire in the state. This plan will become the guiding framework for policy and cooperative investments on behalf of the CA state agencies (CAL FIRE, CA Air Resources Board, etc.), the federal land management agencies (US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service) and their partners in the conservation sector, tribes and other allies over the years to come, providing a shared platform to align energy and resources towards more good fire in CA.
Friends of the Inyo
For Conglomerate Mesa Defense
$25,000
To launch a multi-faceted defense campaign to stop efforts to develop a cyanide heap leach gold mine on Conglomerate Mesa. Located just two miles from the boundary of Death Valley National Park, Conglomerate Mesa is ecologically significant as an oasis for a number of sensitive and rare desert plants, including the iconic Joshua Tree. The Mesa is also culturally significant, indeed sacred, to two local area tribes, both of which are steadfastly opposed to exploration or mining activities of any kind. To protect the Mesa Friends of the Inyo will initiate a defense campaign, including social media paid advertising, a highly visible billboard on Highway 395 near Conglomerate Mesa, and use of financial media outlets to ensure that potential mining company investors and current shareholders see the level of community backlash to mineral exploration in Conglomerate Mesa. They will also conduct an economic analysis of the unseen costs of the boom/bust mining economy and its potential effects on Lone Pine and other local communities and pursue a legal challenge of BLM’s approval of expanded mining exploration.
Walker Basin Conservancy
For Protecting the Bodie Hills Using Science and Stakeholder Engagement
$22,000
To defend the Rough Creek watershed within the Bodie Hills from proposed exploratory gold mining by collecting data on the status of Rough Creek and developing partnerships with key stakeholders to strengthen the case for protection. The data collected will help create a baseline understanding for conditions in Rough Creek, Bodie Creek and their tributaries. This will lay the foundation for future restoration efforts that would improve wildlife habitat and remove Rough Creek from the impaired waterbody list, and help inform the potential reintroduction and eventual recovery of the native Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT), a federally listed species, to the creeks.
Native American Land Conservancy
For Coyote Hole Visitation Threat Relief Project
$24,543.01
To launch an urgently-needed volunteer site monitor corps to provide well-trained and equipped people to ensure there is no further unauthorized or harmful use of Coyote Hole Preserve. The influx of visitors to Joshua Tree National Park and surrounding areas during the pandemic has created negative impacts on the Preserve, which includes dozens of rock art panels and is rich in Native American cultural artifacts. Climbing and increased visitation since the pandemic has resulted in damage to the rock art and unauthorized removal of cultural heritage items, now held by the National Park visitor center. A volunteer corps will help to reduce the impact of visitors, monitor the site, and consult with tribes and tribal elders to ensure the cultural heritage items are dealt with in the most appropriate manner.
Friends of Plumas Wilderness
For Building 30×30 Capacity in the Sierra-Cascade Region
$25,000
To develop a multi-pronged lands designation campaign—including a local National Monument effort and a state-wide effort —to protect federal lands in Plumas County as a critical part of California meeting its 30×30 climate, biodiversity, and equity goals. The landscape where the Sierra Nevada and Cascades meet, often called the “Lost Sierra”, is largely unprotected yet biologically diverse, geologically stunning, and brimming with nationally significant cultural, historical, and recreational values. While 65% of this landscape is federal land, only 10% is protected. This makes it a key area for conservation under CA’s 30×30 initiative. Friends of Plumas Wilderness will take a leadership role for the Northern Sierra region in the Sierra Nevada 30×30 coalition and help build new partnerships around 30×30.
Defenders of Wildlife / California
For Communications Support for Proposed Desert Conservation Program
$20,000
To support communications efforts to increase conservation investment in the California deserts region, home to the largest still-intact ecosystem in the lower 48 states. Unfortunately, California funding initiatives, including past bonds, have invested far less conservation funding into the deserts region than other areas of the state. This project will build support within the deserts region for increased funding for projects that address the impacts of climate change; protect, enhance or restore desert habitat and sacred ancestral lands of local indigenous peoples; provide public access and recreational amenities; or reduce the threats of wildfire, drought, flood and other catastrophic events.
Nature for All
For Importance of Public Lands and the California Citizens Redistricting Commission
$23,000
To advocate for public land enhancements and protections for the Angeles and Western San Bernardino National Forests as part of the congressional redistricting process. Nature for All will educate the nonpartisan California Citizens Redistricting Commission about the importance of these landscapes, and urge the commission to recognize that communities adjacent to public lands have a special interest in how they are managed and should be placed in the same congressional districts as the public lands. If Nature for All is not there to make this case, the welfare of the national forests may be ignored by the commission and hundreds of thousands of people could be disenfranchised and placed into different congressional districts than their neighboring public lands in which they hold a special interest.
Sierra Business Council
For Biomass in the Sierra: A Case for Healthy Forests and Rural Economies
$4,1300
To coordinate an effective and efficient outreach campaign to build awareness around the benefits of rural biomass utilization as a tool for wildfire mitigation, forest health, and rural economic development in the Sierra Nevada. Sierra Business Council will print and distribute copies of their recently released white paper, “Biomass in the Sierra: A Case for Healthy Forests and Rural Economies,” and hold in-person meetings and presentations with key California decision makers, forestry experts, and academic groups to increase support and investment in rural biomass utilization and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
California Native Plant Society
For Protect Walker Ridge: Preserving a Global Plant Diversity Hotspot
$24,840
To implement a two-pronged campaign to stop a proposed wind development and secure the long term protection of Walker Ridge, a region that contains more than two dozen rare plant species. The campaign, relying heavily on virtual engagement techniques, is designed to have immediate impact, while also raising the site’s profile and building a constituency of individuals and organizations that understand and care deeply about the importance of Walker Ridge.
Los Padres ForestWatch
For Defending the Los Padres National Forest from Loophole Logging
$25,000
To halt two planned logging projects targeting old-growth forests in Los Padres National Forest; the Cuddy Valley Project and the Pine Mountain Project. LPFW will file an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the protection of the Cuddy Valley, and conduct surveys for California spotted owl and other species at risk from the Pine Mountain Project.
California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund
For Protect Our Desert Water: Eagle Crest
$25,000
To stop California state legislation AB 1720, which threatens the aquifer under Joshua Tree, creates unwarranted and needless exemptions for its pumping, and authorizes a wasteful hydroelectric energy storage project in the town of Eagle Crest in Riverside County. CLCVEF will continue its long standing effort to halt this project, employing a multifaceted communications campaign across California that raises public awareness about the bill and exposes the corruption and true intentions of the supporting company, NextEra.
California Wilderness Coalition
For Building State Support for Inventoried Roadless Areas
$7,500
To educate and urge state officials to exert their influence in U.S. Forest Service (USFS) projects that threaten inventoried roadless areas (IRAs) in California. IRA’s are some of the wildest remaining areas of our national forests. CalWild will inform state offices of four recent projects which threaten IRAs with logging, road-building, and/or new off-highway vehicle routes, and work to get letters from the state in support of modifying the projects or asking for full environmental impact statements.
Earthworks
For Protecting CA Wildlands from the “Critical Minerals” Agenda Toward a Just and Clean RE Transition
$25,000
To produce and disseminate a report on the fallacy of “critical minerals” rhetoric, preferred policy options and alternatives to new mining for the renewable energy transition, and public lands at risk from unregulated mining. California wildlands, notably sacred sites near Conglomerate Mesa, Panamint Valley, and areas around Death Valley, are at risk from U.S. policy proposals to fast-track new mining for so called “critical minerals.” Earthworks and allies will use this report to inform key members of California’s Congressional delegation and the Biden Administration as part of an early 2021 congressional briefing on critical minerals, and advocate for comprehensive mining reform toward a more circular economy and less new mining on public lands.
Resource Renewal Institute
For Restore Point Reyes Seashore
$15,000
To delay the National Park Service’s finalization of a General Management Plan for Point Reyes National Seashore until a new, more open-minded administration and secretary of the interior are in place in Washington DC. Resource Renewal Institute will develop, gather and share extensive scientific research, documentation, expert testimony and public input with the California Coastal Commission whose own consistency determination process will influence the final Park Service decision.
Defenders of Wildlife / California
For Providing Policy Recommendation for Improved Fire Management for More Resilient Forests
$25,000
To analyze the current policy terrain and provide recommendations to support ecologically beneficial management of California’s public and private forests, including the increased use of prescribed fire. Defenders of Wildlife/ California will assess the best options for policy change and formulate a suite of recommendations to be utilized by Defenders and shared with other conservation organizations working on resilient forest management.
Vet Voice Foundation
For 25 Years of Desert Conservation Radio Ads
$6,380
Vet Voice Foundation, in conjunction with the Better World Group, created five radio ads to run in Kern, Fresno, San Bernardino, Imperial or Riverside Counties. These ads featured a U.S. Army Veteran who was born and raised in California. Throughout his career, he trained and was stationed in the California desert (Ft. Irwin). In the ads, Vet Voice Foundation highlighted the 25th anniversary of desert conservation, economic and national security, recreation, and water. The goal is to reach counties impacted by years of desert conservation and to share this from the perspective of a veteran.
Imperial Valley Desert Museum Society, Inc.
For Community Connections: Celebrating Desert Wonders
$5,000
Imperial Valley Desert Museum will conduct a series of community-focused and educational events to connect the communities of Imperial Valley with their local desert, inspire interest and activity in desert spaces, and foster advocacy for their conservation. On Saturday, November 16, IVDM will host a free community event, Ocotillo Rocks. It will feature family-friendly activities and educational talks focusing on the desert, with geode-cutting, panning for gold, hikes, and exhibits by community partners like BLM and Sonny Bono Wildlife Refuge. IVDM will virtually engage audiences on desert conservation through videos of desert wildlife, capturing them on outdoor cameras and sharing them across the Museum’s social media networks. IVDM will host a series of Museum-led public hikes onto desert public lands through its “Lowlanders” beginner hiking program. These hikes include historical, cultural, and scientific talks and allow for deep conversation and meaningful exploration of desert spaces.
Mojave Desert Land Trust
For California Desert Protection Act (CDPA) 25th Anniversary Commemorative Celebration
$9,394
Mojave Desert Land Trust’s California Desert Protection Act (CDPA) 25th Anniversary Commemorative Celebration Project is a series of events open to the public, organized by a group of desert community members, organizations, and local governments, and held throughout the region in September, October and early November of 2019. The aim of CDPA 25th Anniversary Commemorative Celebration is to highlight and show support for protected lands throughout the desert while celebrating the milestones of the CDPA over the last 25 years and recognize elected officials, grass-root organizations, stakeholder groups and individuals whose work in the Mojave Desert provide important conservation benefits and unique recreation activities. MDLT will do this by creating content that promotes connecting, protecting, and respecting the desert’s unique natural, historic and cultural, and recreational resources values forward into the future.
Victor Valley Chamber of Commerce
For Gateway to the Mojave National Preserve
$25,000
To analyze the current policy terrain and provide recommendations to support ecologically The Victor Valley Chamber of Commerce is partnering with the High Desert Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Desert Conservation Act and to begin branding the Victor Valley as the Gateway to the Mojave National Preserve. This project is to use billboards on the well-traveled Interstates 15 and 215, featuring professional photography of the Mojave National Preserve and verbiage for the 25th anniversary of the Desert Conservation Act, as well as the introduction of the Victor Valley as Gateway to the Mojave National Preserve. They are also planning a kickoff event featuring a classic car ride from Victor Valley to Amboy to highlight the beauty of the Mojave National Preserve. Victor Valley’s enthusiastic willingness to identify themselves as a Gateway to the Mojave National Preserve is a huge step in changing the culture and strengthening support for protected lands in the region.
Conservation Lands Foundation
For Celebrating 25 Years of Conservation in the California Desert
$28,200
The Conservation Lands Foundation (CLF) has been working to oppose the current Administration’s re-opening of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, or DRECP. Covering more than 10.8 million acres across the Mojave Desert and Colorado/Sonoran Desert ecoregions, the DRECP was a hard-won victory that protected over 6 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands for conservation, while allowing renewable energy development on 388,000 acres of less-sensitive land, creating a unique and forward-thinking balance among responsible renewable energy development, conservation, and recreation. For this project, CLF will facilitate and support a range of activities including an art exhibit at the San Bernardino County Museum, hosting the Desertlands.org/25years website to share information about anniversary events and lands protected in the past 25 years, and helping their grassroots partners host local events to commemorate lands protected in the California Desert. Commemorating the lands that have been protected over the past 25 years and the anniversary of the California Desert Protection Act is a prime opportunity to engage communities, cities, counties, and chambers of commerce to acknowledge and state on the record their support for these protections and the benefits they bring.
Inland Empowerment
For General Support
$20,000
To achieve the following three objectives: 1) Pursue legal action that will result in San Bernardino County over-turning its appointment of a new Supervisor, and instituting a fair and transparent process for filling the Third District seat; 2) Coalesce support around the court case, bringing an eclectic group of allies together who historically do not interact, including community based organizations, local environmental groups like the Sierra Club, and local labor; and 3) Conduct a successful communications plan that not only covers the court case but also shines light on the Board of Supervisors and educates voters and residents about the lack of transparency and respect for process.
Central California Environmental Justice Network
For Protect California’s Public Lands from Destructive Oil and Gas
$25,000
This project will enhance the organizing capacity of regional and state groups to protect California’s Public Lands from fracking. The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Bakersfield Field Office is analyzing the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing for new oil and gas production leases on 400,000 acres of BLM-administered public land and an additional 1.2 million acres of federal mineral estate. The planning area includes Kern, Fresno, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties. Groups from all these Counties will join forces to educate and mobilize residents to oppose the expansion of fracking into Public Lands. CCEJN will create bilingual materials to educate the public on the practice of fracking and how the proposed expansion of fracking to public lands will affect their communities, and will mobilize residents from affected communities to attend the public hearings and offer public comments. CCEJN will additionally collect 1000 community postcards and submit them at the public hearing, and generate a Communications Strategy with local and regional partners to co-create op-eds to strategically keep the public informed and activists ready to mobilize.
Resource Renewal Institute
For Restore Point Reyes Seashore
$15,000
Two years of legal effort with partner organizations resulted in Resource Renewal Institute’s landmark settlement with the National Park Service at Point Reyes National Seashore. The litigation sought to protect the National Seashore from a special interest ranching plan that would bypass NPS management requirements, disregard public input, and threaten wildlife and natural resources. The settlement has put in motion a long overdue overhaul of the nearly 40-year old NPS Management Plan, which was drafted long before current scientific understanding of dairy farms’ impacts to water quality. The new plan requires an environmental review including a vitally important public comment period. The grant will support organizing to ramp up the public outreach campaign in preparation for the final public comment and response period which begins in July and lasts for 45 days.
Safe Alternatives for Our Forest Environment
For Standing Strong for Public Lands in Trinity County
$25,000
Trinity County is a little over two million acres in size, and over 76% of the region is managed by the federal government, which has historically meant considerable protection for the region’s wild and scenic rivers, abundant wildlife, recreational economy, and remote wilderness. But our current federal government’s abdication of environmental responsibility in favor of aggressive resource extraction has encouraged a small number of radical right-wing activists in Trinity County to wage a wholesale war against wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and public lands in general by packing public meetings, submitting a stream of entirely fact-free letters-to-the-editor and otherwise dominating the public discourse over public land management in the region. Trinity County-based SAFE proposes to fight back by printing a special insert for the Trinity Journal (the only local newspaper) extolling the value of public lands and by recruiting 800 people to sign a community letter in support of public lands. That represents 10% of Trinity County’s population. This would send a powerful statement about public support for local public lands and help boost support for Rep. Huffman’s and Sen. Harris’ Northwest California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forests Act (HR 2250 and S. 1110).
National Parks Conservation Association
For Continued: Opposing the Cadiz project
$10,000
To continue to oppose the Cadiz project, which threatens to drain 50,000 acre feet of water yearly for 50 years from beneath nationally significant desert lands. The project would impact surface springs and the connected aquifers underlying Mojave Trails National Monument and Mojave National Preserve. In 2015, the Department of the Interior determined that this project requires NEPA review. The new administration has overturned that ruling and is propelling the project forward above concerns from its own agencies and scientists. The State is the regulator of last resort. Without their intervention, this project will likely progress. Cadiz’s business plan notes that construction is scheduled to commence this year. It is therefore critical for state legislation to pass this year so that state agencies are authorized to conduct environmental review providing them with rationale to disallow the project. As such, with legislators and coalition members purposefully working on this issue, it is imperative to continue with this strategy during this crucial juncture of this legislative campaign.
Los Padres ForestWatch
For Rapid Response to Central Coast Drilling/Fracking and Commercial Logging
$25,000
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has released its draft Environmental Impact Statement that could open up more than one million acres of federal public land in eight counties in Central California to fossil fuel drilling and fracking, and Los Padres ForestWatch will prepare technical comments to reach out to key landowners, local elected officials, and other stakeholders affected by the plan to encourage them to submit comments, and to encourage the public to attend hearings. Additionally, the U.S. Forest Service recently approved a plan to allow commercial logging across more than four square miles in the Los Padres National Forest, and Los Padres ForestWatch will file litigation to stop the project.
Friends of the Inyo
For California Desert National Conservation Lands Super Bloom Photography
$1,800
To photograph the super bloom in Conservation Lands across the California Desert like Conglomerate Mesa and Panamint, including close up and landscape level photos. Friends of the Inyo will then use these images for the Conglomerate Mesa and Panamint Valley National Conservation Lands campaigns and share them with conservation partners also working on defending the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan and protecting these places from industrial-scale mining.
California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund
For Protect our Desert: Prevent Water Pumping from the Mojave Aquifer
$25,000
To pass California Senate Bill 307, which is the best chance to stop the Cadiz water project. The Cadiz project would pump more than 16 billion gallons of water per year from beneath the Mojave Desert, threatening fragile flora and fauna in one of the most unique protected National Monuments, in order to sell the water for profit to wealthier Southern California districts. CLCVEF will use a combination of direct lobbying efforts in-person in Sacramento and in-district, as well as digital outreach to trigger constituent actions and patch-through calls from constituents to their representatives. Engaging their inside knowledge of key legislators in Sacramento, CLCVEF will identify the 4-5 Senators who will provide the most strategic leverage to ensure passage of SB 307. Employing the tactics described above, CLCVEF will engage with these targets to build the support needed to move them to positions of strong support and to pass this critical legislation.
California Wilderness Coalition
For Central Coast Wild Heritage Campaign 2019 Bill Rollout
$10,085
To pass the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act (CCHPA), which will permanently protect 245,665 acres of federal land as wilderness, establish two scenic areas totaling 34,512 acres, and protect 159 miles of wild and scenic rivers. CalWild will work with long-cultivated networks and the Central Coast coalition to utilize earned and paid media to demonstrate diverse and widespread support for wilderness and wild rivers, and specifically the CCHPA. Through earned media in particular, CalWild will highlight key features of the legislation as a way to garner additional recognition and support from key constituencies. Through coalition member emails, newsletters, social media outreach, and events, CalWild will engage supporters by featuring information about the area and posting calls to action.
Native American Land Conservancy
For Protect Mojave Desert’s Sacred Springs
$9,000
To bring tribal voices and organizations to support protection for groundwater in the Cadiz and Fenner Basins through advocacy, outreach, and and media efforts. NALC will provide additional support and education in Sacramento to ensure decision makers understand the importance of the Cadiz Water Mining Project to tribes, and that tribal resources and values are considered by State officials who are unfamiliar with the region, yet will be casting votes to decide SB 307 in the coming months. By focusing on support for stronger California agency role in groundwater protection, NALC will aim to protect springs, seeps, and groundwater from destructive groundwater pumping projects in Mojave Trails National Monument and Mojave National Preserve.
National Parks Conservation Association
For Opposing the Cadiz project to protect precious water resources underlying California desert parks
$21,000
To stop the Cadiz Project, which threatens to drain 50,000 acre feet of water yearly for 50 years from beneath nationally significant desert lands. To do so, NPCA will reintroduce SB120 in the Senate, with key co-sponsors in place, and broad media attention; execute a strong media strategy to ensure this issue remains a top California environmental issue and that there is awareness of the need for immediate action; and build grassroots and grasstop support throughout California to communicate the broad support for the protection of desert water and Mojave Trails National Monument.
Defenders of Wildlife / California
For California Wildland and Wildlife Defense: Building Public Resistance to Environmental Rollbacks
$25,000
To expand media coverage through editorials, op-ed and news stories about the environmental rollbacks affecting public lands, which then will increase public awareness and place pressure on (a) key Congressional members to resist proposals to weaken environmental protections and (b) state legislators and agency officials to advance state policies that will help to protect federal lands and resources against Trump Administration and Congressional rollbacks. Increased public and media pressure will help to advance protective state policies, including efforts to defend U.S. Forest Service lands, BLM Lands and national wildlife refuges, and to oppose the various rollback efforts.
California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund
For Conservation Perspectives in California
$20,000
To define the most impactful messaging on key environmental issues, and then use this information to immediately begin public outreach on imminent environmental concerns; including Land and Water Conservation Fund reauthorization, offshore drilling, and national monument protections. The knowledge gained from the focus groups will also be used to inform, educate, and persuade decision makers at all levels to prioritize and champion these issues.
California Native Plant Society
For Desert Defense Campaign to Protect and Preserve Desert Botanical Treasures and the DRECP
$24,727
To protect the California deserts from devastating mining, development, and exploitation. While it tiers off of work that has been ongoing for years, this is a new and unexpected emergency. Last month the Trump administration took an action that is intended not only as a direct attack on California but also an attack on federal lands, federal agencies and their dedicated staff, and on the very concept of bringing adversaries together to develop collaborative conservation plans.
Conservation Lands Foundation
For DRECP Defense Phase 2 Communications and Accountability
$20,000
To initiate a coordinated communications and accountability campaign in order to defend the millions of acres of Desert Lands protected as part of California’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP).
Environmental Defense Center
To Protect the Santa Barbara Channel MPAs and CINMS from New Offshore Drilling
$20,000
To serve as the lead local organization for the legal efforts to push back the Trump administration’s recently released plan to open more than 90% of our nation’s offshore waters to oil and gas exploration. EDC’s efforts will include research, educating the public, advocating for protections regionally and in Sacramento, and ultimately commenting on the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement anticipated this year.
Save our Shores
For Saving the Davidson Seamount
$10,000
To lead a fresh campaign to raise public awareness, empower the community to write and call local, regional and state legislators and petition Congress to stop the Administration from removing Sanctuary protections from the Davidson Seamount.
Friends of the Inyo
For Defending Wildlands of Conglomerate Mesa
$8,020
To continue media outreach to keep community members and local elected officials informed and engaged about exploratory drilling related to a possible open-pit gold mine on Conglomerate Mesa, and complete a hydrological review to understand impacts to water resources to help make a case against the exploratory drilling with regulatory agencies.
Endangered Species Coalition
For California Endangered Species Act Field Campaign
$15,000
To organize key California voices—e.g., veterans, faith, and others—to oppose the Department of Interior’s proposed regulations on the Endangered Species Act, which would gut protections for California’s threatened and endangered species and the wildlands on which they rely.
Sierra Business Council
For Giant Sequoia National Monument Support Billboard
$21,940
To fund a billboard with a call to action for support of the Giant Sequoia National Monument and a consideration of the business community that benefits from its status.
Resources Legacy Fund
For Protect California from Offshore Oil Drilling
$25,000
To support a broad and diverse constituency of California residents to voice their strong opposition to new offshore oil drilling in the Pacific at a public meeting in Sacramento, at local rallies around the state, and through other means during the public comment period.
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center
For Digital engagement in defense of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
$25,000
To use social media and online engagement to demonstrate widespread public support for the Cascade-Siskiyou to target elected officials and the White House, in hopes of discouraging further proclamations that take away protections for National Monuments.
Sierra Club Foundation
For Our Wild California
$14,300
To stop new oil drilling in federal waters off the coast of California, protecting current and proposed marine monuments and sanctuaries, our coastal economy, communities, and wildlife by mobilizing a strong public response to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) proposed five-year drilling plan.
California Wilderness Coalition
For Defending the Desert Conservation Plan
$20,000
To harness the Bureau of Land Management’s review process to unequivocally demonstrate the private and public support of – and the immense value in – the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP).
California Wilderness Coalition
For Giant Sequoia and Carrizo Plain National Monuments Defense
$5,000
To lead the defense of Carrizo Plain and Giant Sequoia National Monuments. These areas have supportive networks that haven’t been mobilized for years. As a group that led much of the organizing on the original designations, CalWild has revitalized long standing relationships to rally against this unprecedented attack.
WildPlaces
For Giant Sequoia National Monument Advocacy and Community Response Project
$15,000
To educate and engage communities and local agency representatives within Tulare and Kern Counties as to the importance of maintaining the current size of the Giant Sequoia National Monument while advocating through media and public forums the dire necessity to respond immediately to threats that will reduce the size of and introduce resource extraction into the Monument.
Defenders of Wildlife/California
For Preserve California Campaign
$25,000
To educate state legislators and Governor Brown, through coalition building, advocacy, and media, about the importance enacting two critical bills — Senate Bill (SB) 49, the California Environmental Defense Act of 2017, and SB 50, the Public Lands Protection Act, that will serve as a backstop against federal efforts to erode environmental protections and give away public lands. SB 49 protects California from federal actions to undermine or abandon critical public health and environmental protections by ensuring that California will maintain, at a minimum, the existing standards for protection for our state’s people, wildlife, and natural resources. SB 50 would establish a new state policy to discourage the conveyance of federal public lands to private developers for resource extraction and development and directs the State Lands Commission to establish a right of refusal by California for any federal lands proposed for sale or conveyance to other parties.
Native American Land Conservancy
For Protect Mojave Desert Sacred Lands by educating groups about AB 1000
$15,000
To provide additional support and education in Sacramento to ensure decision makers understand the importance of the Cadiz Water Mining Project to tribes and that tribal resources and values are considered by State officials who are unfamiliar with the region, yet will be casting votes to decide AB 1000.
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center
For Defending the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
$10,000
To prevent any reduction or rescission of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and subsequent efforts to roll back the 1906 Antiquities Act.
Sierra Forest Legacy
For Media support to defend the Giant Sequoia National Monument
$10,989
To provide media expertise to support the ongoing campaign to defend the Giant Sequoia National Monument.
John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute
For Stop Logging Bills Campaign
$15,000
To educate and politically activate the public to stop the Westerman logging bill, HR 2936 (The “Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017”), which would greatly expand and accelerate logging operations on federal forests by eliminating full compliance with forest plan requirements, opening up roadless areas to road building and logging, allowing logging projects as large as 30,000 acres to proceed without NEPA impacts analysis or public participation, and preventing judicial review by requiring binding arbitration or eliminating non-profits’ ability to recover fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act.
Friends of the Inyo
For Protecting Conglomerate Mesa Campaign
$6,050
To support the campaign to protect Conglomerate Mesa from the proposed mining operation, which could lead to an open pit cyanide heap leach gold mine. The mining operation would likely permanently destroy the Conglomerate Mesa’s biological, historical and geological values, as well as negatively impact the local outdoor recreation economy.
Sierra Business Council
For Giant Sequoia National Monument Support Billboard
$21,940
To fund a billboard with a call to action for support of the Giant Sequoia National Monument and a consideration of the business community that benefits from its status.
National Parks Conservation Association
For Opposing the Cadiz Project
Statewide
$14,160
To build legislative support with the State of California and simultaneously implement a coalition building strategy to protect the Cadiz Valley Aquifer from the groundwater extraction project proposed by Cadiz Inc – a program in direct contrast to California’s sustainable management legislation for the state’s groundwater basins. This strategy is in line with the strong statements that Governor Brown and legislative leadership have expressed regarding efforts by the Trump Administration to roll back environmental protections and regulations.
Mojave Desert Land Trust
For The Cadiz Hydroecology Project: A water study to protect the east Mojave
Southern Desert
$20,000
To conduct a water study project as part of broader program initiative to prevent the Cadiz groundwater project from destroying the east Mojave Desert’s fragile ecosystem and preserve landscapes of the Barstow, Needles and Twentynine Palms communities that are rich in Native American history and home to the longest undeveloped stretch of Historic Route 66, and the Amboy Crater National Landmark.
Los Padres ForestWatch
For Save the Carrizo Plain
Central Coast
$20,000
To keep the Carrizo Plain National Monument intact by educating stakeholders and the general public about the importance of monument designation, the threats facing the CPNM, the benefits of monument designation (particularly economic benefits to local communities), and how concerned residents and businesses can contact decision-makers to show widespread community support for retaining the monument designation.
