annual report 2008 - The Sierra Club Foundation

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esilient habitats Wilderness advocates Marilyn and Allan Brown “At the same time that the Sierra Club is working to blunt the magnitude of climate change, it’s crucial that the Club advance its Resilient Habitats Campaign to reconnect wild areas and strengthen the survival potential of the natural world.” –Longtime supporters and advocates for wilderness, Marilyn and Allan Brown Conservationists agree on the necessary steps to help ecosystems recover from climate change: protect large core areas and connect migration corridors to allow plants and wildlife to move into more favorable habitats; reduce other stresses on vulnerable species, such as mining and logging projects; and apply better land management strategies. The Sierra Club Foundation is supporting this approach in 10 pilot ecoregions across the country: Alaska’s Arctic, North Cascades/Olympic Peninsula, California Coast, Sierra Nevada, Greater Grand Canyon, Greater Yellowstone, Great Lakes/Greater Quetico-Superior, Maine Woods, Greater Everglades and Gulf Coast/ Mississippi Delta. These special places share a combination of high risks, iconic landscapes and threatened species, a significant Sierra Club capacity to carry out effective campaigns, and solid science to back up our approach. There, we hope to create models that can be applied to other parts of the country and world. With support from The Sierra Club Foundation, environmental activists made important progress in 2008 towards protecting these key ecoregions. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order requiring all state agencies to draft a climate adaptation plan by June 2009. In Florida, water managers approved the purchase of 72,500 acres of sugar cane fields to help restore the Everglades. As we move into 2009, the federal government has also begun to incorporate climate change into conservation planning: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ordered the agencies within his department to collaborate to address climate change. And the US Agriculture Department has set up a new Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets to protect forests, water and soil. In addition to creating successful models in 10 targeted ecosystems, the Resilient Habitats Campaign is working to: • Institute resilient habitat programs on all federal lands • Increase resilience of priority wildlife habitats in every state • Incentivize private landowners to participate in resilient habitat programs • Increase carbon storage capacity of forests, wetlands and soils 12
Resilient Habitats: A Case Study from Southern California Sixty miles north of Los Angeles lies a vast, wild wildflowers to rolling oak woodlands and mountain ridgetops dotted with white fir trees. The land—a place where the Sierra Nevada roll into the Southern Coast Range, and the San Joaquin area sits at the intersection of four bioregions Valley and the Mojave Desert join across 7,000– that shelter a variety of endangered species, foot mountains. This ecological treasure, known including the California condor. as Tejon Ranch, is the largest continuous private Reaching an agreement to preserve the ranch property in California. Under a historic agreement wasn’t easy. The Sierra Club launched a public negotiated with the ranch’s owners by the Sierra education campaign, and members of the Club’s Club and its allies, 90 percent of the land will now Los Angeles and Kern–Kaweah chapters talked to remain protected from development. reporters, hosted community events, and participated in government hearings. What does this agreement have to do with global warming? Everything, explains Bill Corcoran, who With the Resilient Habitats campaign, the helped lead the Sierra Club’s negotiating team Sierra Club aims to replicate the success at on the deal. “The challenge we have with climate Tejon Ranch in 10 priority ecoregions around change is that the habitat areas of animals and the country. The Resilient Habitats campaign will plants will change over time as they move in strengthen ecosystems so that they can recover response to increased temperatures. So it’s important to protect large areas to accommodate from climate change, minimizing the loss of vulnerable wild places and wildlife. It will create a that movement,” says Corcoran. new conservation paradigm that views all efforts Tejon Ranch encompasses a diversity of elevations and rare native habitats, from fields through the lens of our changing climate. of “The challenge we have with climate change is that the habitat areas of animals and plants will change over time as they move in response to increased temperatures.” –Bill Corcoran Los Angeles Senior Regional Representative for the Sierra Club “The environmental movement can look at Tejon Ranch as a creative way to preserve large-scale, privately owned land as part of a strategy to build habitat resilience. Without the capacity of the Sierra Club to engage its members in protecting places like Tejon Ranch, and the support of The Sierra Club Foundation and its donors, it would be far more difficult to achieve conservation agreements on this scale.” —Bill Corcoran 13
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Page 7 and 8: Letter from Executive DirectoR Pete
Page 9 and 10: Donald Kennedy Thomas E. Lovejoy
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Page 27 and 28: $1,000-$2,499 (cont.) Timothy Allow
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