SCAG is in the process of developing an innovative online regional mapping tool known as the SoCal Greenprint. This will be a strategic conservation mapping tool that highlights the benefits of natural lands, waters, and agricultural lands, including access to parks and trails, habitat protection and connectivity, clean water, clean air, food production, and increased resilience to climate change.
The goals of the SoCal Greenprint are to protect, restore, and enhance natural lands, public greenspace, working lands, and water resources and the benefits they provide to people and nature throughout the SCAG region. It will support planners, conservation practitioners, developers, infrastructure agencies, and other stakeholders in integrating the protection of natural and agricultural resources into land use and infrastructure plans and avoid potential litigation by identifying and assessing environmental issues early in the planning process.
SCAG has engaged The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a leading international conservation organization with experience creating Greenprints in California, to lead this process with input from a diverse group of stakeholders in the fields of planning, conservation, community organization, developers and more.
What to Expect
The SoCal Greenprint will:
- Map, measure, and contextualize the values of nature’s benefits and services within the region’s ecosystem, economy and community
- Aggregate existing data in an interactive online format
- Help decision-makers plan for future development with nature in mind
- Encourage and highlight conservation efforts that provide multiple benefits for nature and people throughout the SCAG region
- Function as a resource for conservation information that anyone can access, for free
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WHAT IT IS
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WHAT IT IS NOT
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A document and framework to advance the pace and scale of voluntary conservation in a region
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An acquisition map or regulatory plan that puts constraints on land use for any public or private entity
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An assessment that identifies landscape features that are important to residents and communities, like recreation, habitat, water resources, habitat, climate change resiliency or community
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A complete inventory of everything important within an area or new data set
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An analysis that illustrates how conservation values may work in concert with each other and with other values
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A comprehensive solution for natural resource protection
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A resource that helps stakeholders understand shared priorities and facilitates collaboration
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A requirement that stakeholders engage in projects
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A tool that addresses the needs and opportunities for keeping working and agricultural lands viable
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An effort to subvert private property rights
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Targeted Users of the SoCal Greenprint
To help guide development, SCAG and TNC have identified a number of targeted users that could utilize the SoCal Greenprint to inform land use decisions that could better protect, restore, and enhance natural lands, public greenspace, working lands, and water resources. While the SoCal Greenprint is developed with these targeted users in mind, it will be freely available to anyone.
Project Timeline and Schedule
The Greenprint is anticipated to be ready for stakeholder input and user testing in Summer 2021, with a launch planned for Fall 2021
Committee Guidance
Steering Committee
SCAG and TNC have assembled a Steering Committee to guide the development of the Greenprint. Steering Committee members are responsible for making decisions on the strategies to achieve outcomes and are focused on identifying and meeting Greenprint user needs. They attend monthly meetings with SCAG, TNC, and GIN to provide feedback on the Greenprint, and assist with outreach and identifying key contacts.
Steering Committee members include representatives from Audubon California, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Friends of Harbors Beaches and Parks, Nature for All, Tataviam Land Conservancy, and UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
Advisory Committees
TNC and SCAG have also assembled a Strategic Advisory Committee and Science and Methods Advisory Committee that include experts and external stakeholders from the building industry, local governments, infrastructure and natural resource agencies, conservation organizations, community organizations, landowners, parks and open space districts, scientists, and academia. The intention is for the Committees to reflect the diversity of people, landscapes, and experiences within the SCAG region.
The role of a Committee member is to participate actively in committee meetings and provide feedback to SCAG and the TNC team at key inflection points throughout the data gathering, development, and refinement process. This includes:
- Connecting with regional stakeholders who should be engaged or might provide additional expertise
- Providing input on themes and metrics
- Identifying sources of data
- Providing feedback on data communication and interpretation
- Supporting developing case studies
- Participating in beta testing of the Greenprint tool
Contact
India Brookover
Phone: (213) 236-1919
Email: brookover@scag.ca.gov
