| Over 50,000 acres of conserved open space are owned and managed by the City of San Diego. City staff are responsible for conducting monitoring and management actions that are critical to maintaining and improving the biological value of the land. In 2014, the City of San Diego initiated a pilot program to incorporate climate change adaptation measures into its existing natural resource management planning program. A modified approach streamlined the process outlined in the National Wildlife Federation's Climate-Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice (2014) to combine institutional knowledge of the land managers with the best available climate science for the southern California region. The first plan including adaptation planning using the principles of climate smart conservation was for Tecolote Canyon Natural Park, a 950-acre coastal urban preserve in the City of San Diego. By incorporating climate adaptation planning into our existing land management planning process, the City created an efficient mechanism for translating climate adaptation science into actions that are ready for rapid implementation through existing organizational and funding structures.
|