Investing in Collaborative Landscape Partnerships on Santa Barbara County's Gaviota Coast
May 2025 - Our team recently supported and facilitated a diverse group of partners in a six-month planning process to identify mutual goals and opportunities for collaboration in landscape conservation along the Gaviota Coast. The effort, led by local and state representatives from key federal agencies with regional conservation and stewardship responsibilities, aims to develop high-level goals and mutual priorities as part of a competitive process that will eventually lead to establishing a Sentinel Landscape designation for the region surrounding Vandenberg Space Force Base. For more information about Sentinel Landscape, check out this LINK to see what other partnerships are getting done through this kind of conservation collaborative.
LegacyWorks facilitated one-on-one interviews and engaged in focused outreach to key partners, critical stakeholders, and elected officials to gather priorities and build support. Additionally, we organized three planning workshops that involved over 40 individuals from 30 partner organizations to support the federal leadership team and landscape partners in preparing a competitive Expression of Interest (EOI).
The Expression of Interest (EOI) outlines the need for a formal designation, the military rationale for expanding landscape partnerships, and the conservation and community resilience priorities of key federal partners involved in the Sentinel Landscape partnership. In addition to the Department of Defense (specifically Vandenberg Space Force Base or VSFB), the involved agencies include the Department of Agriculture (NRCS, Cachuma RCD, and Los Padres National Forest) and the Department of the Interior (USFWS).
Sentinel Landscape partnerships offer a framework for collaboration as well as a dedicated long-term source of funding for coordinating efforts. Protecting the military's mission and achieving broader landscape conservation goals are interconnected and can be more effectively accomplished through this collaborative framework. In the case of the proposed Vandenberg Sentinel Landscape, partners have identified several key goals: protecting the base from unplanned development and encroachment by preserving working farms and ranches; reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires by promoting landscape-level wildfire resilience; improving water resilience and quality; and conserving and restoring habitats for some of the region's most vulnerable species, including the southern California steelhead, coastal seabirds, marine mammals, and various plants and animals that depend on large undisturbed corridors and protected lands.
The partners also collaborated to establish a governing structure, and propose a preliminary boundary for the Sentinel Landscape. LegacyWorks continues to assist the federal partners on the leadership team in enhancing visibility and support for the proposal among key personnel within each agency's leadership and other vital allies in our region.
The most important outcome of this work has been the partnership's growing commitment to collaboration, regardless of the result of the current designation cycle. All partners agreed that developing the EOI highlighted the importance of continuing to convene and collaborate moving forward, irrespective of the results of the 2026 designation cycle.
The culmination of this process was the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Ventura Office submitting an Expression of Interest (EOI) on April 6 on behalf of the other partners for the 2026 National Sentinel Landscape designation cycle. The Federal Coordinating Committee (FCC) for Sentinel Landscapes will review the EOI this spring. If the FCC sees merit in the EOI, we can expect an invitation to the partners to develop a full Sentinel Landscape proposal later this year.