Indigenous Cultural Burning Practices
Indigenous people traditionally used low intensity fire to shape landscapes, ensure the abundance of culturally important plants, create clearings for wildlife and open understories for access to foraging areas. Today, Good Fire has functionally been removed from our landscape due to the loss of cultural burning traditions combined with more than 100 years of aggressive fire suppression.
Goleta Riparian Corridor Wildfire Risk Reduction & Restoration Project
The Goleta Riparian Corridor Wildfire Risk Reduction & Restoration Project was funded by a California Coastal Conservancy Grant and builds on initial planning work by the Environmental Defense Center that identified wildfire risks and restoration opportunities in numerous sites within twelve watersheds.
Wildfire Resilience Collaborative
Santa Barbara is rich in natural communities that are specifically adapted to its Mediterranean weather patterns. These include coastal scrub, chaparral and foothill woodland plant communities, some of the world's most imperiled ecosystems.
Cheatgrass Management
Teton Program Update
Ten years ago we began working with the LOR Foundation to help assess the opportunities, threats and challenges facing the region and to outline a strategy to invest in regional wellbeing and resilience. Community leaders identified dozens of opportunities for deep impact that fell outside of the reach of their organizations, highlighting a critical need for greater collaboration.
Adapting to Our Changing Hydrology
Wyatt Penfold is a lifelong Teton Valley farmer, just like his father and grandfather. He grows potatoes, quinoa and other grains in the fertile soil that abuts the west slope of the Tetons. Wyatt is feisty and entrepreneurial and struggles to sit still. He lights up when he talks about water. With a combination of flood irrigation and center pivot sprinklers systems, Wyatt can produce amazing crops even in our extreme conditions.
SBC Water Quality Dashboard
Our Santa Barbara team has the great pleasure of living and working in the Santa Barbara region, while also interfacing with our teams working in the northern Rockies and in southern Baja California Sur. While far apart, all the communities we work with are facing the worst drought in the historical record, exacerbating long term challenges around water quality and water supply. Frustratingly, it can be remarkably difficult to get straightforward data on the state of our water.
Baja Team Update
LegacyWorks group is pleased to announce the newest member of the Baja Team, Alina Breceda-Martos. Originally from Sinaloa, Alina studied Environmental Engineering in Guadalajara and received her Masters in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science from Lund University in Sweden.
Weaving the Fabric of Regeneration in Mexico
We recognize that the good of the land can’t be achieved without the good of the people. And we work, hand-in-hand with local people, to address the inter-related web of issues that drive scarcity, or alternatively, can create abundance in a place.
Chumash Good Fire Project
Since our last letter to you, December rains have rejuvenated the hillsides and provided a brief respite from the concern of wildfires. Yet with such a dry, hot January and February and the continuing drought, we’re rapidly headed into a long season of very high fire risk. The question of how we learn to live with this new wildfire regime is at the forefront of our minds.
Our Growing Team!
At LegacyWorks Group we catalyze and facilitate collaborations that meet critical community needs. We’re always on the watch for promising opportunities and for the resources and partners necessary to move them forward. All three are fundamental to the work we do.
Santa Barbara Project Updates
LegacyWorks has played a central role in at least a dozen projects with real impact on the well-being of our communities, ecosystems and working lands. Our Fall Update gathers many of these stories…
Regional Priority Plan
Ten days ago, with the Alisal fire still smoldering and rain in the forecast, I had flashbacks to the Thomas Fire and subsequent debris flow. It was a visceral feeling that brought me back to that morning in January of…
Water in BCS's Eastern Cape
Three years ago we began a collaboration with the Baja Coastal Institute (BCI) to survey water issues to inform citizen action, improve policy, and prepare youth leaders through the public schools. The result is our recently-released East Cape Citizens’ Water Report.
Resilience Roundtables Wrap-up
In the summer of 2019, Sharyn Main took the lead on creating a new program at the Community Environmental Council focused on building community climate resilience – a roundtable series bringing together key leaders and climate practitioners responsible for climate change planning and decisions that determine how we respond to the climate crisis.
Partnering with Playa Viva
An exciting partnership is developing in Mexico! In late 2020 we began collaborating with Playa Viva, a boutique hotel located south of the Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo coastal resort area. We were invited by its founder, David Leventhal, and are collaborating with its all-female management team. Playa Viva is a founder of and a leader in the Regenerative Travel movement.
Congratulations White Buffalo Land Trust on Their Acquisition of Jalama Canyon Ranch
We are thrilled to share the news that our good friends at White Buffalo Land Trust acquired the 1000-acre Jalama Canyon Ranch last week after a successful $6 million capital campaign.
Tracking Variants
The pandemic has arguably become a race between vaccinations and variants, with vaccinations critical to keeping the spread of more contagious and more impactful variants of COVID from driving another spike in case counts here. The dashboard is now tracking both critical elements of what we hope is the final leg of this marathon.
Vaccination data added to Community Dashboard
Three months ago we launched the The Santa Barbara Community Data Dashboard. Since then we have worked closely with the County Public Health Department to refine and adapt the dashboard as the State changed policies and set, then lifted restrictions.
Clean Air and Clean Energy
The Center for Renewable Energy and Environmental Quality (CERCA), with San Francisco-based ACLIMA’s technology, has the best science-based, citizen-led air quality monitoring and reporting in the state capital of La Paz where most of the state’s power, including burgeoning Los Cabos, is produced.