Sierra Club Canyons Campaign

Eric Busboom, Lead Partner

“SDSVP was instrumental in developing the tools for sustainable growth of the Canyons Campaign and an essential partner in making the vision of San Diego Canyonlands, the new nonprofit, a reality. San Diego’s environment will benefit for decades to come.”
Eric Bowlby, Program Director, Canyons Campaign

After a three-year partnership with SDSVP, Sierra Club’s San Diego Canyons Campaign is ready to graduate from a growing program to a new nonprofit dedicated to San Diego County’s wonderful canyons. This highly successful campaign, nurtured by Sierra Club for over 8 years, has organized over 40 Friends Groups for canyons and utilized them as “nature classrooms” for thousands of San Diego’s youths.

Initially, the SDSVP team supplied assistance in the following areas: strategic planning, technology, marketing, public relations, and management training. Later, believing that a “spin-off” of the campaign would provide a focused governing board, more funding opportunities, and a chance for accelerated growth, SDSVP Lead Partner Eric Busboom hired a consultant to help develop a migration path and a new strategic plan. San Diego Canyonlands Inc. and its new hard-working board of directors will begin to implement this plan in the fall of 2008.

During the three-year investment period, the Canyons Campaign grew from 1 to 3 full-time staff; created 15 Canyon Friends Groups; generated 10,500 volunteer hours; enrolled 1,200 new Friends Group Members; engaged over 3,000 volunteers; and involved 1,800 youths in its educational and stewardship programs.

While SDSVP will continue to provide consulting and other resources as the new organization grows, the establishment of a new nonprofit focused on San Diego’s Canyons is a giant milestone to celebrate.

A Regional Canyonlands Park System

From The San Diego Union Tribune
3/14/2007

by Richard Louv

On the first page of “Canyonlands: The Creation of a San Diego Regional Canyonlands Park” appears a curious juxtaposition of two graphic images.

One is a depiction of a set of human lungs, with stem branches, lobes, trachea and bronchi. Directly below this image is a satellite view of Mission Valley, revealing the bronchi and branches of San Diego's urban canyons lacing outward through the region's vast watershed.

“Our canyons bring us nourishment, maintain our health and ventilate our lives. They are our lungs and bronchial tubes,” according to the report produced by San Diego Civic Solutions, a collection of business and grass-roots leaders. The white paper will be presented at tomorrow's “Greening the City” symposium, sponsored by the local chapter of Partners for Livable Places.

Comparing our canyons to lungs is no exaggeration, not to anyone who understands their natural role in cleaning our air and preventing flooding and providing a natural water filtration system that would cost billions to replicate; they offer breathing room for wildlife and people; they connect our neighborhoods, towns and cities; they nurture the region's spirit. No other city in the world can claim such a unique topology.

“The idea (is to create) a visionary open space park ... a framework for our region ... a green infrastructure for the future – a necessity, not a luxury,” according to the proposal, which recommends that most canyons would be open to the public, while the most ecologically sensitive canyons would become plant and wildlife preserves.

“This is the time to create the Canyonlands Park,” the authors write. “We will not have another opportunity to create a coherent open space framework for the region.”

This proposal (to be posted at www.sdcivicsolutions.com) summarizes several years of work, including two public charettes and dozens of meetings by Civic Solutions, Citizens Coordinate for Century 3, the San Diego Design Council, Partners for Livable Communities – and Friends of the Canyons groups, sponsored by the Sierra Club, which adopt canyons in their own neighborhoods, haul out trash, remove invasive species, and, in the absence of city maintenance and security personnel, patrol the canyons.

The challenges are considerable. Aerial and satellite photos reveal hundreds of miles of canyons; ownership is sometimes unclear and the canyonland classification is vague.

Among the threats: channelization of creeks; expansion of water, sewer and power lines; utility roads and bridges; languished funding for open space maintenance; encroachment by new housing and businesses; and a school district that would rather grade, say, the 32nd Street canyon into a flat playing field than use it for teaching – though studies show outdoor classrooms improve test scores in science and math.

Thus the necessity of creating one entity, the San Diego Regional Canyonlands Park, which would send this message: If you hurt one canyon, you hurt them all.

The canyonlands proposal for a public/private partnership calls for a variety of funding mechanisms, including grant writing to nonprofit groups and federal and state government agencies, private capital campaigns, alongwith fees and assessment districts.

“For canyons not already in the public realm, incentives could be offered such as tax relief for property owners that provide conservation and public access easements,” according to the report. (Not incidentally, property values adjacent to parks are usually enhanced.) In addition, the application of Transfer Development Rights could help divert development away from canyons to “more agreeable areas.”

The ongoing benefits of saving the canyons would be enormous: natural drainage and protection of the bay from runoff pollution; visual, psychological and physical relief; educational opportunities; habitat preservation; ecotourism (birding is now big business); more pedestrian links; and the enhanced character of surrounding neighborhoods.

Does San Diego have the political will to create such a park in the current era of civic retrenchment? Maybe. Historically, big city mayors and other officeholders hope to leave some sign of their passage more visible, decades into the future, than a balanced budget. Today, expensive brick and mortar won't do.

But our canyons already exist. As hawks circle above and the scent of sage drifts into our neighborhoods, these trachea and bronchi already breathe for us. To survive, they need signage, observation platforms and people power.

In 1868, San Diego civic leaders set aside 1,400 acres for Balboa Park. Today we have the chance to create a regional park every bit as important.

A San Diego Regional Canyonlands Park would be one of the longest-lasting gifts we could give to future generations. The most important thing to do now is to declare it so, and the future will come.

Sierra Club Canyons Campaign

Lead Partner: Mike Kole

The Sierra Club’s Canyons Campaign’s mission is to foster awareness, appreciation and ongoing community involvement in the protection and stewardship of the unique habitats found in San Diego’s canyons. The strategy is to establish and support localized “friends groups” for individual neighborhood canyons throughout San Diego County. Over the last six years, 34 new groups have been built.

This year, the program established five new Canyon Friend Groups, bolstered membership in seven others and led 584 children and adults on 21 educational tours.

SDSVP Partners Michael Kole, Eric Busboom and Susie Hayes have joined the Canyons Campaign Steering Committee and assisted in developing a capacity-building Strategic Plan. The Campaign has now leveraged SDSVP’s funding to double the budget and plans to triple the staff as it begins its second year of support.

“SDSVP’s steady support has enabled us to achieve broader campaign goals such as enrollment of students and youth groups into canyon restoration projects and promotion of a concept to establish a San Diego Regional Canyonlands Park.“

Eric Bowlby,
Campaign Coordinator