Mission & Goals
Restoring local biodiversity & wildlife habitat by connecting people with nature where they live.
Our program areas are public education, community ecological restoration & stewardship, and conservation advocacy.
These three program areas are strategies for achieving our mission, goals and objectives, along with collaboration.
Long-term ecological sustainability depends upon people and institutions changing how they interact with their local natural environment. In San Francisco, a new culture of local community ecological stewardship is emerging.
Nature in the City:
- Inspires wonder, knowledge, celebration and respect for the Franciscan bioregion.
- Restoresurban people's sense of interconnectedness with their local biodiversity.
- Builds community by catalyzing local wildland stewardship.
- Restores habitat for native plants, animals and rare and endangered species.
- Builds unity in the local environmental community to strengthen the city's grassroots movement for local ecological conservation and restoration.
- Applies pressure to City departments, policy and decision-makers to create institutional change to conserve biodiversity and natural areas.
We can restore urban watersheds and biodiversity by interacting dynamically and harmoniously with nature in the city.
Our Goals
Nature
- Restore the natural ecosystems, biodiversity, natural areas, watersheds and local ecological processes of the northern San Francisco peninsula, the Franciscan bioregion.
San Francisco exists within a local natural environment containing unique species, habitats, and communities, which are essential and critical parts of the regional, continental, and global ecosystem.
Culture
- Foster awareness, knowledge, celebration and respect for local nature and biodiversity and the idea that people can have a healthy and restorative relationship with nature.
Many San Franciscans live within one mile of a wildland, most of which harbor rich habitats of native biodiversity. By connecting with our local natural places, we can experience a sense of wonder with our own local nature and human-nature interconnectedness. We are reminded that we are not the only important species, and we learn to respect nature in our own backyards and beyond.
Community
- Build community around the healthy engagement of residents with their local nature and local ecological activism.
Sense of place and connection with local nature foster awareness of our collective interdependence with nature and each other. The essence of community stewardship is the naturally communal process of neighbors working together to restore the land, thereby reconnecting with nature, reconnecting with each other, and developing sustainable community and cultural ecological relationships. As we share in the joy of healing the land and restoring habitat for other creatures, we realize we can connect positively with nature
and each other in our own "backyard."
Policy
- Transform the policy-making, planning and behavior of the City's institutions and "urban sustainability" by fully integrating local nature and biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration.
True urban ecological sustainability is not achievable without the full integration of ecological restoration of our urban natural environment, biodiversity and watersheds. Our urban system must be compatible and sustainable with our local natural systems. Urban ecological restoration and natural resources management cannot be successful without educating government and political leaders about urban nature conservation and stewardship. Local natural processes and ecological design principles must be incorporated into nearly all government and institutional decision-making and projects.
Livability
- Optimize our urban quality of life.
Community ecological and watershed stewardship is indispensable to creating a more livable city. Optimization of the ecological restoration of San Francisco's abundant water resources and wildlife habitats and corridors, and restoring a positive relationship between people and urban nature where they live will all contribute to having a healthier and more fun place to live and exist.
Check out our programs, through which we are working to achieve these goals.