Wrapping Up and Beginning Again in California

2020: A Year Like No Other

The past year has challenged all of us in ways we could never have anticipated. Despite months of warranted civil unrest, the transition to fully remote work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and navigating through a turbulent election season, Defenders’ Washington D.C.-based headquarters, six field offices and satellite representatives across the nation managed to continue giving a voice to wildlife by advocating for imperiled species and habitat conservation.

The California program was no exception. While adapting to myriad unexpected challenges, our incredible team of conservation advocates worked statewide to stand up for wildlife and wild places.

At the helm of the California team is Pamela Flick, who assumed the role of California program director this year and continues her work to advance species and habitat conservation statewide. In the Mojave Desert, Tom Egan weighs in on renewable energy and endangered species issues as California desert representative, with a special focus on the Agassiz’s tortoise and desert pronghorn. Jeff Aardahl, our California representative, works on protecting habitat for threatened and endangered species in the Mojave and Colorado deserts while advocating for responsible renewable energy projects. Rachel Zwillinger, our water policy advisor, provides expertise on implementation of environmental laws that affect Central Valley wetlands and the San Francisco Bay-Delta. Andy Johnson, who joined Defenders this year as a California representative, is our sea otter expert who focuses on marine and coastal issues. I also joined the team this year as California program coordinator and focus on legislative tracking, program administration and outreach!

The California program is also fortunate to work with several excellent contractors: Kim Delfino, Kate Kelly, Gena Bentall and Hal Candee.

Much of our work resulted in statewide strides for wildlife conservation. We submitted comments to the California Off-highway Motorized Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) Division on their proposed regulation changes in 2020, which resulted in cancellation of the proposals. The OHVMR Division attempted to give priority to off-highway vehicle recreation over maintaining wildlife populations and their habitats in all areas where off-highway vehicle recreation is allowed, which is contrary to California law. We also successfully fended off the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken wildlife protections in the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. For two years, Defenders organized widespread opposition to amending this plan, which came to fruition this year when the Trump administration formally abandoned its efforts. With the change in federal leadership, we will have an opportunity to fully implement this groundbreaking, landscape-level conservation plan for California deserts.

In 2021, we will turn our attention to national forests as the U.S. Forest Service initiates forest plan revisions for five northern California national forests, two other forest plans in the southern Sierra Nevada and federal and state resources are directed towards forest restoration and fire prevention. We will continue carrying out our gray wolf coexistence work in northern California through increased use of wolf-livestock reduction tools and strategies.

Defenders and our partners have also worked tirelessly to protect Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area from ongoing vehicle traffic and its associated impacts. To do so, we collaborated to create the People for the Dunes Campaign and submitted detailed comments on drafts of a habitat conservation plan, environmental impact report and a public works plan.

Besides our regionally specific achievements, the Defenders team worked on energy procurement initiatives that impact the entire state. Our team seeks to change the way energy planning and procurement is done in California so that conflicts with lands and water that are important for wildlife, plants and communities are avoided and impacts are minimized. To do so, we’ve monitored the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) Renewables Portfolio Standard proceedings, advocated for aggressive reduction of target greenhouse gas emissions and voiced our opposition to the procurement of new fossil fuel resources.

The California team has also been integral to offshore wind energy planning in the state. We have been closely tracking the process of floating offshore wind energy and submitted comments to the CEC on its Advance to Next-Generation Offshore Wind Energy Technology research concept. As development of offshore wind energy is becoming a reality in California, we look forward to bringing the lessons learned in land-based energy planning to offshore wind avoiding and minimizing impact to native species and their habitat.

Defenders of Wildlife’s California program plans to sustain the momentum we have built up over the past year and carry more wildlife successes into 2021. We will continue to seek new opportunities to advocate for California’s precious wildlife and wild places and anticipate that our next year will be just as full of achievements as the last.

California Program Coordinator

As California Program Coordinator, Monica LeFlore is responsible for leading the California Program’s public outreach efforts, conducting legislative tracking and advocacy, and providing administrative support

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