CLN Progress Report: Reasons for Hope
The Conservation Lands Network (CLN) is a regional strategy that sets goals, tracks progress, provides tools, and catalyzes on-the-ground land conservation in the Bay Area. The CLN supports an ambitious goal to conserve 50% of the Bay Area’s lands by 2050, focusing on protecting biodiversity and enhancing climate resilience.
Not only has the Bay Area land conservation community created the CLN, but we continue to update it – to monitor our progress towards the goals we set, and to update those goals to meet the evolving needs of biodiversity, the land, the people who steward it. This December, TOGETHER Bay Area will release the CLN 2.0 Progress Report, which measures progress towards the five regional conservation goals since the CLN community set them in 2019.
This report reflects the work of local conservation organizations who have worked tirelessly to conserve new lands. It contains scientific analysis and interconnections to state goals and regional planning processes. And it contains a lot of hope. Here are a few reasons why:
We are making progress. More than 100,000 acres have been conserved over the past five years, bringing us closer to our regional goal of conserving 50% of the Bay Area’s lands by 2050. And those acres include important and essential habitats for native animals like Coho salmon, Alameda whipsnake, and Golden Eagles. This progress means enhanced resilience to the impacts of climate change, and reduced risk of losing species to extinction.
We are collaborating. Around 150 people contributed their expertise and time to create CLN 2.0 and the goals against which we’re measuring progress. Dozens of organizations, dozens of funding agencies and foundations, hundreds of researchers, and thousands of practitioners are collaborating on a daily basis to conserve and steward the region’s lands. And through collaboration we will achieve much more, with more durability, than what we could do alone.
There are hundreds of programs and projects led by local organizations which benefit the land and people. From stewarding healthy forests to restoring tidal marshes and engaging volunteers in planting trees, there’s a tremendous amount of thoughtful conservation action happening today. This 10-county region is home to a thriving network of environmental professionals and conservation practitioners who are actively coordinating for the health of the land and our communities.
And we aren’t stopping anytime soon. Starting in 2025, we will convene over 300 practitioners and experts to assess the health of the region’s habitats, set new goals for land conservation, and evolve the CLN project to meet today’s challenges and opportunities. The outcome will be clear goals and metrics, and a large and diverse community of professionals and practitioners mobilized to reach those goals.
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