Almost half of the world’s human population lives in coastal areas, and associated coastal development has significantly degraded or destroyed many coastal ecosystems. Burgeoning human populations and rising sea levels only further constrain the availability of habitat that coastal species depend on.
California’s 1,100 mile coast has more than 200 threatened, endangered or rare species living in coastal habitats. There are hundreds of coastal estuaries that provide critical rearing habitat for marine species, and are also important for recreation, water filtration, and carbon sequestration.
Only 10 percent of California’s historic coastal wetlands remain. Without intervention, we are at risk of losing 40 percent of our remaining coastal wetlands to sea level rise over the coming decades. Conservancy scientists are working to reverse these trends.
Scott A. Morrison, Norman Macdonald, Kelvin Walker, Lynn Lozier, M Rebecca Shaw
One of the greatest challenges in pest eradication is knowing when it has been achieved. This paper discusses why that is challenging, and why it is so important to consider how that challenge will be…
M.D. White , J.A. Stallcup, K. Comer, M.A. Vargas, J.M. Beltran Abaunza, F. Ochoa, S.A. Morrison
The California South Coast Ecoregion, a global biodiversity hotspot, is bisected by the US-Mexico border. Development near the border, ranging from urban sprawl to border security infrastructure,…
Gardali T. , A.L. Holmes, S.L. Small, N. Nur, G.R. Geupel, G.H. Golet
Restoration efforts on the Sacramento River are focusing on revegetating the land with native plants and restoring natural river processes in an attempt to recover wildlife populations. To evaluate…
Golet G.H., M.D. Roberts , E.W. Larsen, R.A. Luster, R. Unger, G. Werner, G.G. White.
River restoration projects have the potential to influence many of the services that rivers provide to people, yet rarely is this studied in a comprehensive manner. This paper reports on a set of…
United Nations Environment Programme, chapters co-authored by Scott Morrison
For the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, 2006, a team of environmental and social scientists assembled to assess the state of the world’s deserts. This report is the product of…
Mary G. Gleason, Matt S. Merrifield, Chuck Cook, Audrey L. Davenport, Rebecca Shaw
This study is the first marine gap analysis for California. It quantifies what is protected and what is not and highlights conservation needs and opportunities. Less than 5% of marine habitats are…
Mary Gleason, Matt Merrifield, Chuck Cook, Miguel Hall
The Conservancy's science and planning staff in California prepared this assessment of the most important areas for conservation of marine biodiversity in the Northern California…
Marty, Jaymee T.
Livestock grazing in the American West often conjures up images of cattle degrading riparian areas or spreading weeds throughout desert rangeland. But cattle grazing does not always or necessarily…
Scott A. Morrison, Douglas T. Bolger, T. Scott Sillett
Fragmentation-sensitive species – those that tend to disappear when their habitat is fragmented – pose particular challenges for conservation, in part because fragmentation ushers in such…
Mary Gleason, Matt Merrifield, Craig Mayer, Michelle McCutchan, Chuck Cook
The Conservancy's science and planning staff in California prepared this assessment of the most important areas for conservation of marine biodiversity in the Southern California Marine…
Scott A. Morrison, Douglas T. Bolger
Reproductive success of many species in arid environments can be sensitive to rainfall patterns: rainfall events can produce a boom of primary productivity that fuels an ecological response from the…
Scott A. Morrison, Douglas T. Bolger
Fragmentation-sensitive species – those that tend to disappear when their habitat is fragmented – pose particular challenges for conservation, in part because fragmentation ushers in such…
Douglas T. Bolger, Andrew V. Suarez, Kevin R. Crooks, Scott A. Morrison, Ted J. Case
Habitat fragmentation ushers in a wide array of ecological changes, and understanding the drivers and impacts of those changes is critical for conservation management. This study examines an often…