January 27, 2025
Posted in: News Articles
A Glimpse into 2024: Highlights of Conservation and Community Impact
As we begin 2025, we reflect on a year of meaningful progress in our mission to preserve Sonoma County’s agricultural, natural, recreational, and scenic lands for future generations. This year, we conserved critical lands that enhance biodiversity, protect water resources, and support sustainable agriculture. Our stewardship efforts have deepened through restoration projects and partnerships, ensuring these landscapes thrive for generations to come. We also engaged with the community more than ever, offering opportunities to connect with the land through outings, youth education programs, and community events. Together, we’ve taken significant steps toward a healthier, more resilient Sonoma County.
Conservation expanded
In 2024, we made remarkable strides in protecting Sonoma County’s vital landscapes, conserving seven properties for a total of 2,321 acres. These lands represent a diverse range of natural and agricultural resources essential to the region’s environmental health and community character. Additionally, we facilitated the transfer of 253 acres of protected land to Sonoma County Regional Parks, ensuring increased public access and opportunities for recreation and education. The seven acquisitions include:
- Lafranchi (Laguna)
- McCormick Ranch – Regional Parks
- Mark West Wikiup Preserve
- Keiser Park Expansion 2
- Russian River Redwoods
- Southeast Santa Rosa Greenway
- Camp Meeker Forest Open Space Preserve
Championing Land Stewardship
Conservation easements are only effective in protecting land if they are actively and consistently stewarded. This ongoing stewardship includes establishing baseline documentation, conducting regular monitoring, addressing enforcement needs when necessary, and processing requests for permitted uses or amendments to ensure compliance and adaptability. Our teams worked tirelessly to ensure compliance while also maintaining working relationships with landowners.
We also continued maintenance and care over the land we currently own and manage. This includes co-leading public outings with Sonoma Ecology Center at Saddle Mountain Open Space Preserve and collaborating on burn plans for numerous sites. We worked closely with the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation to expand restoration efforts at Haroutunian South, a property that is home to two rare plant species – Sonoma Sunshine and Sebastopol Meadowfoam. We also continued conversations with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria on management practices at the Dogbane Preserve, a preserve protected specifically for the conservation of the dogbane plant used by many Indigenous tribes for cordage.
Building community togetherness
In 2024, our staff collaboratively created our DEI roadmap to ensure that diverse perspectives shaped our plan, aligning it with the values and needs of our team. Together, we identified key priorities, such as improving recruitment practices, fostering an inclusive workplace culture, and implementing ongoing training programs. And we look forward to sharing this roadmap with you all in 2025!
We worked to expand access to the outdoors by piloting our very own youth program, Semillas en Los Senderos (Seeds on The Trail) in partnership with Raizes Collective, serving BIPOC youth ages 13-18.
We expanded our social media presence to TikTok and NextDoor in an effort to reach a broader demographic of community members. All social media channels, including Facebook and Instagram saw a steady increase of followers and engagement in 2024.
Working to expand access
Our Buy-Protect-Sell program launched in 2024to help farmers and ranchers seeking to purchase their own small to midsize agricultural property. We will aim to make land more affordable by buying a farm or ranch property, protecting it with a conservation easement, and then selling the conserved land to a qualified farmer or rancher. Our goal is to buy, protect, and sell one property by the end of 2025.
We worked closely with partners to expedite public access at the Estero Americano Preserve and Soda Springs Ranch Open Space Preserve via our Initial Public Access and Operations and Maintenance funds. These initial public access funds provide funding for improvements like interim trails, parking lots, and accessibility features – all of which help open parks more quickly so folks can get out and start exploring. The freshly re-named Community Spaces Matching Grant Program underwent a major update to simplify the application process, provide technical support to applicants, and further center equity and accessibility. In the first round of funding since the update, we were thrilled to accept seven exciting new open space projects: Colgan Creek Neighborhood Park (Phase 5), Graton Town Square, Los Guilicos Master Gardeners’ Demonstration Garden, Mark West Area Community Park (Phase 2), Occidental Community Plaza, Russian River Community Park, and Tom Schopflin Fields (Phase 2). Learn more about the new Community Spaces projects.