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Welcome to our project website. Here, we are working to improve out-of-kind & off-site mitigation across the California coast.
This website serves as our main public-facing portal for products and information related to our ongoing effort to improve mitigation in coastal California.
Improved Mitigation Frameworks:
Guidance for Improved Restoration Efficacy Across California’s Coastal Zone
California’s coastal ecosystems are being stressed and damaged at an increasing rate thanks to existing pressures and our unfolding climate crisis. While the ideal response to injury is to restore the identical habitat at the original location, that isn’t always possible (e.g. if sea level rise eliminates a sandy beach). In these circumstances we mitigate off-site (e.g. down coast) or with out-of-kind approaches (e.g. reducing predators to boost subsequent bird abundance). Unfortunately, most existing state policies counsel on-site and in-kind mitigation exclusively, leaving agencies rudderless when circumstances make preferred mitigation impossible. We propose to create guidance for how/when to conduct out-of-kind and off-site mitigation by convening a series of well-funded working groups with a range of experts. Funding will allow us to 1) bring voices traditionally not involved in such discussions together with seasoned practitioners and 2) undergird our efforts with extensive compilation and analyses of existing literature and of data compiled from historic and extant mitigations. Both of these dimensions have been historically absent from traditional, short-term, and minimally-resourced science advisory panels. In addition to general recommendations (Phase 1), we will also (in subsequent phases) create specific guidance for ecological communities of particular concern.
