Land Conservation
LegacyWorks has its roots catalyzing innovative efforts to conserve, restore and steward the working lands and habitat that we depend upon, and land conservation continues to be a major part of our work. Whether we’re financing bridge loans, facilitating a complex partnership, helping conservation buyers find, protect and restore a dream property, or facilitating a landscape scale conservation collaborative or planning exercise, we love to show up in service of big land conservation outcomes.
Land Conservation Projects and Insights
Sentinel Landscapes are federally designated priority areas that contain high priority lands for multiple federal and state agencies along with military installations of national importance to the Department of Defense. LegacyWorks Group is supporting the evolution of the program at the national and local levels to better enable each Sentinel Landscape Partnership to set and achieve highly ambitious, landscape scale conservation, community and climate resilience goals.
Ellwood Mesa is an important node in a connected mosaic of protected lands in Goleta. It is also one of the most important overwintering sites for the western population of monarch butterflies. Monarch populations are declining globally, and the overwintering population at Ellwood has declined as well, raising alarm bells in the community.
In the face of unprecedented threats from climate change, development and land conversion, LegacyWorks is launching the Central Coast Conservation Loan Fund to accelerate the pace and scale of conservation, restoration and regenerative agriculture in the region.
In late 2019, the Ventura Land Trust had an opportunity to purchase Mariana Rancho, an iconic hillside property overlooking the city of Ventura. LegacyWorks helped the Land Trust develop a short-term finance strategy and a longer-term fundraising plan.
LegacyWorks supported White Buffalo Land Trust’s campaign to acquire the Jalama Canyon Ranch. Together we worked to understand and articulate the vision, purpose, principles and goals of the White Buffalo Jalama Ranch Project.
In 2015, LegacyWorks was engaged by the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County and its partners to develop a strategy for creating a report on the community’s natural resources and an online mapping portal to enable us to proactively conserve natural resources.