Climate and Equity Prioritized in California Coastal Conservancy Strategic Plan

On Oct. 3, 2022, The Pew Charitable Trusts and its partners at Audubon California and Coastal Policy Solutions submitted comments to the California State Coastal Conservancy on its draft 2023-2027 Strategic Plan. The conservancy is a state agency that provides technical assistance and funding to local, state, and Tribal governments, as well as private entities, to support their efforts to protect coastal resources and to expand people’s opportunities to enjoy the coast.

The draft plan outlines four core goals—prioritize equity, enjoy the coast, protect and restore the coast, and be climate ready—along with an organizational goal to increase transparency and staff support. In their comments, Pew and its partners applauded the conservancy’s efforts while also calling for additional goals that focus on measuring progress toward the state's “no-net-loss” policy for wetlands, evaluating the extent of future coastal wetland habitats in the face of sea-level rise, including carbon sequestration as a specific benefit of protecting coastal wetlands, and securing long-term funding for Tribal co-management and resource stewardship activities.