Biodiversity Resolutions Adopted Throughout Santa Barbara County 

Since April of this year, local municipalities have worked diligently with the Garden and our partners to develop and adopt local ‘biodiversity resolutions’ in acknowledgment of the critical need to support and enhance biodiversity regionwide. The cities of Buellton, Carpinteria, Goleta, Guadalupe, Santa Barbara – and the County of Santa Barbara itself – have all recently issued strong statements of support for biodiversity and sustainability principles as part of a growing biodiversity movement taking root throughout the south-central coast. We thank them immensely for taking this important step. 

These resolutions and proclamations can take many shapes. However, they are generally understood to serve as a value statement or a statement of support for a given issue. Most resolutions and proclamations are not legally binding, but do provide language that can be leveraged when pursuing more ambitious and/or specific policy goals. For our recent efforts locally, almost all of the biodiversity resolutions and proclamations, passed by local elected bodies, contained some form of the following key components: 

• Recognized statewide efforts to protect biodiversity, such as the statewide California Biodiversity (30×30) initiative,  

• Recognized the uniqueness of the south-central coast as a biodiversity hot spot, 

• Recognized the loss of habitat, flora, and fauna as key pieces of our current biodiversity crisis, 

• Encouraged efforts by government agencies, communities, and individuals to:
  • support local biodiversity initiatives, 
  • commit to integrating biodiversity considerations (and native plants!) into planning and policy efforts, 
  • encourage partnerships to advance habitat conservation, and 
  • direct agency staff to identify funding sources to help meet and establish biodiversity policy goals.  

As an example of recently adopted language, you can see the City of Carpinteria’s resolution here, along with its official announcement of its adoption.  

The effort to develop biodiversity resolutions locally did not emerge out of thin air. Indeed, the development of a shared Community Vision and Policy Platform for Biodiversity on the Central Coast spearheaded by the Garden in 2024 was the initial impetus, with its three key calls to action: 1) pursuit of signatories to the new policy platform, 2) formation of a biodiversity working group to consider emerging biodiversity issues, and 3) the pursuit of the development and adoption of biodiversity resolutions throughout the County.

The Garden has been leading on all three of these calls to action for the past year, with the following results:

• 55+ signatories (organizational) to the shared Vision and Policy Platform — from Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties.
• The Garden serves as co-chair of a regional Biodiversity Working Group that meets quarterly to discuss biodiversity efforts and initiatives; three subcommittees and 25 average participants guide the working group process.
• Pursuit, development, and adoption of six biodiversity resolutions/proclamations throughout Santa Barbara County.

The Garden and our partners on the Biodiversity Working Group are now engaged in even more ways to promote and enhance biodiversity regionally. We are actively engaged in the County of Santa Barbara’s Open Space Element Update process, we are supporting the development of educational resources on fire ecology, and we are now moving the biodiversity resolution effort into Ventura County!

As things move forward, we’ll be sure to plug in all members and friends of the Garden. As the saying goes, it takes a village.