Special Notice / Hearing: None__
Vote Required: Majority
To: Honorable Board of Supervisors
From: Dave Pine, President, Board of Supervisors
Supervisor Carole Groom, District 2
Subject: Resolution adopting the Coastal Hope Vision for the protection of coastal habitats
RECOMMENDATION:
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Adopt a resolution adopting the Coastal Hope Vision for the protection of California's coastal habitats.
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BACKGROUND:
This September, in San Francisco, the Global Climate Action Summit will bring together leaders from across the world to showcase their achievements and make renewed commitments to put the world on track to prevent the most serious impacts of climate change facing our world today. This event is a key opportunity for communities to elevate timely commitments or statements of action and achievement.
In the Spring of 2018, the California State Coastal Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy released a statewide habitat assessment, entitled "Conserving California's Coastal Habitats: A Legacy and A Future with Sea Level Rise," that highlights the urgent need to take action to protect coastal ecosystems from the impacts of sea-level rise.1 The study found that more than half of California's current coastal habitat by area is highly vulnerable to five feet of sea level rise - that includes 76% of California's iconic beaches, 58% of rocky intertidal habitat, 58% of coastal marshes, and 55% of tidal flats. In addition, sea-level rise will further stress populations of 39 rare, threatened, or endangered species, and 41,000 acres of public conservation lands are projected to be drowned by subtidal waters.
The study presents a blueprint for conservation of coastal habitat in the face of sea-level rise, under which by concerted, coordinated and sustained action it is possible to have as much coastal habitat statewide as there is today despite five feet of sea-level rise.
The County's coastal habitats on the Bayshore and the Coastside provid...
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