Building Habitat Connectivity for Climate Adaptation

The goal of this project is to tap into recent advances in habitat mapping, threat assessment, and climate change projections to co-produce a scientifically sound multi-county habitat connectivity roadmap for the region spanning from the Mayacamas Mountains to the new Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in concert with local land managers. The Inner Coast Ranges project area comprises an approximately 2M-acre landscape recognized as a biodiversity hotspot threatened by both habitat fragmentation and climate change.

This project built on a nascent Landscape Connectivity Network facilitated by Pepperwood and comprised of land trusts, parks and open space districts, with state and federal land managers. In partnership with UC Berkeley, the network creates a place-based decision support platform for prioritizing and implementing habitat connectivity projects on the ground across multiple jurisdictions. The product is a science-based prioritization of critical habitat pinch-points co-created with local land managers that identifies threatened linkages in high value habitat corridors. Specific products generated include a region-wide prioritization of threatened linkages complemented by linkage-specific portfolio reports that evaluate site-specific benefits in terms of climate adaptation, plant and animal species conservation, and watershed integrity. These portfolio reports provide critical support in advancing on-the-ground funding and implementation, primarily on the part of private land trusts and public open space districts, organizations that play a critical role in securing linkages between large state and federally-owned protected lands. The results empower local agencies to work more effectively on-the-ground to enhance connectivity and climate resilience in the Mayacamas to Berryessa Coast Ranges.