In the News
Uncertainty Looms Over Bay Area Climate Projects Under Trump: ‘We’re in Triage’
KQED, March 2025
“If we don’t think differently and organize differently, it’s going to set us back years, if not decades, in the work to adapt to and mitigate the climate crisis.”
With Trump’s War on DEI, Local Environmental Organizations Rethink Diversity Commitments
Bay Nature, February 2025
“We’re being an oak tree. Our roots are deep and strong, and we are standing tall, and we sometimes need to bend and sway with the winds, but that doesn’t knock us over,” Annie Burke says. “We just continue to do the work we are here to do.”
Bay Nature’s 2025 Local Hero Awards
Bay Nature, December 2024
Bay Nature announced that TOGETHER Bay Area Executive Director Annie Burke will be named the 2025 Bay Nature Local Hero for Conservation Action! This award goes to an individual who has made or is currently making significant contributions to the conservation of the natural landscapes, wildlife, and/or flora of the San Francisco Bay Area, through leadership, advocacy, legal action, acquisition, and/or stewardship.
How Local Conservationists Are Planning for the Trump Era
Bay Nature, December 2024
“The four years ahead will make these relationships even more essential, Burke says. Nuestra Casa, a small community-based organization that received EPA support for a shoreline cleanup program, for example, has already reached out to collaborators at the much larger San Francisco Estuary Partnership to ask for advice in managing any potential audits. ‘We don’t need to make up something new today. It’s an ethos in the Bay Area to work together,’ says Burke. ‘It’s time to lean in on that. It’s time to go deeper.'”
Proposition 4 offers $10 billion in bonds for fire, water, land protections
Daily Bruin, October 2024
“’Prop. 4 really can help us invest in solutions now that prevent some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and what costs, say, a million dollars today is only going to cost us so much more in the future,’” TOGETHER Bay Area Executive Director Annie Burke told the Bruin. “’It’s a small down payment on the kind of investments that we need to make.’”
What’s in Prop. 4, the $10B Climate Bond on the Ballot
Bay Nature, October 2024
“TOGETHER Bay Area, a regional coalition working toward climate resilience and equity in the Bay Area, similarly names projects that Prop. 4 could theoretically make possible, including the preservation of open space in Coyote Valley (south of San Jose), fire relief in state parks, a second wildlife crossing of Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and refurbishment of Bothin Marsh in Mill Valley to fortify it against sea-level rise.”
Letter to the Editor: Prop. 4 funds are needed now; vote yes
Mercury News, September 2024
TOGETHER Bay Area’s member organizations are waiting for significant investments, like Proposition 4, to implement over 150 projects across the Bay Area. We encourage voters to vote yes on Proposition 4.
Climate change won’t wait for better budget years. Californians need climate bonds now
Mercury News, May 2024
In the face of increasing pressures from both accelerating climate change and the contracting annual state budget, California needs a climate resilience bond on the November ballot, so that voters can voice their support for consistent, continued funding of essential state programs that provide clean drinking water, wildfire mitigation, wildlife protection and clean air.
Hiking For Who You Want to See in Nature
Bay Nature, April 2024
“Black and brown people are seemingly underrepresented in the outdoors compared to their local populations, although local data is scarce. In a voluntary mail-in survey of visitors to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) conducted by the National Park Service (NPS) in 2016, of the roughly 1,500 respondents, 86 percent were white, 10 percent Asian, and 2 percent Black.
“Some conservation organizations and land management agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond have been trying to understand the reasons behind those statistics and to deliver on DEI aims—particularly within the last five years….Many reforms, Annie Burke explains, ‘are happening below the radar,’ through hiring policies, systems-level shifts, efforts to return land to Indigenous communities, and more. But, Burke says, ‘there’s so much more work to do.'”
As development sprawls across the Bay Area, a 27-mile wilderness trail is a model for preserving open space
East Bay Times, April 2024
“It is true that the Bay Area has more open space than any other metropolitan area in the country. But park managers and open spaces advocates like Burke caution that reality is underscored by decades of work, planning, and hard-won battles. The history of Ohlone Regional Wilderness is testament to that. As Burke put it, these lands are never saved — they are always in the process of being saved.”
Why California’s 30x30 Initiative Gives Me Hope
CNRA Blog, August 2023
The global 30×30 movement is mobilizing collective action to address the sixth extinction of biodiversity and to ensure a thriving planet for all living beings. When I take a minute to zoom out and look at the big picture, California’s 30×30 initiative fills me with hope. Here’s why.
After Conserving 631,000 Acres in First Year, California Looks to Next Phase of 30×30 Plan
Local News Matters, June 2023
California has preserved nearly 1,000 square miles of land and sea in the first year since it implemented a benchmark goal to protect 30 percent of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030, according to a recent report.
California Talks Next Steps After Conserving 631K Acres In One Year
SFGate, June 2023
Executive Director Annie Burke said 30×30 gives her hope because “it’s a tailwind instead of a headwind. That doesn’t mean that all the details and all the things are perfectly figured out and there’s not a dialed plan for all the things,” she said. “What it means is that we’re all using the same language and moving in the same direction and figuring it out together.”
Opinion: Climate Leadership Means Funding Nature-Based Solutions
Mercury News, June 2023
Climate change is here and happening now. The good news is that solutions are available if we choose to act and if our elected leaders invest public funds. Now is the time to mobilize at the pace and scale needed to address the biggest challenge of our lifetime. The state budget is one important step in that direction.
Marin Reveals Wish List For Open Space Projects
Marin Independent Journal, April 2022
A coalition of Bay Area agencies and organizations known as Together Bay Area released a list this month of more than 110 projects, from new trail networks to purchasing privately owned open space, that it says could be completed by the end of the decade.
Bay Area Hopes For More Than 100 New Park Projects by 2030
San Francisco Chronicle, April 2022
The Bay Area could see an unprecedented investment in parks and open space over the next decade, from newly protected redwood groves to freshly restored Native American sanctuary sites, as a sweeping land conservation initiative gathers momentum.
Push to Preserve More of California
KCBA Salinas and KTVU Bay Area, April 2022
TOGETHER Bay Area has more than 100 projects in mind for the next decade, which could help California reach its goal of conserving 30% of the state’s lands and coastal waters by 2030. Ideas include new trails, protecting wildlife with highway crossings, and tougher fire protection plans.
Governor's Commitment to Environment Within Reach
KCBS Radio, April 2022
TOGETHER Bay Area membership has identified over 110 projects that can help the state achieve its 30% by 2030 goals. They’re not just nice to have, they’re essential projects.
Opinion: Four Keys to Reaching California Conservation Goals
Mercury News, October 2021
30X30 initiative could profoundly transform the Bay Area, making region more resilient to climate change. Only significant investments in agencies like the State Coastal Conservancy will move forward multi-benefit projects.
Ode to Sam: A Legacy of Partnership for Sam Schuchat’s 20 Years at the Coastal Conservancy
Bay Nature, June 2021
Sam and his team at the SCC are collaborative and essential partners for TOGETHER Bay Area members. Our 69 members are working collectively for climate resilience and equity in a variety of ways.
Writing a New Playbook: A Regional Coalition for Healthy Lands, People and Communities
Park Stewardship Forum, January 2021
There are over 100 agencies that steward and manage public lands in the San Francisco Bay Area in the ancestral territories of the Muwekma Ohlone, Miwok, Kashia, Pomo, Mishewal Wappo, Amah Mutsun, and Patwins tribes and bands. But none of these 100 agencies had a guide for responding to the global pandemic that shut down public life in the Bay Area in March 2020.
Organizing for Resilience
Bay Nature, January 2020
Climate change is happening here in the Bay Area to all of us. There is certainly a dark side of climate change, but I believe there is also a bright side: an opening to usher in the change that our planet and society so desperately need. The opportunity, the gift, to be in community with our neighbors. And the urgent call for changing how we steward the land and connect people to it.