Collaborative Conservation Planning for the Gaviota Region, The Bren School, University of California Santa Barbara, 2022-2023

The Gaviota Region of Southern California encompasses a myriad of diverse cultures and organizations, including the Chumash Indigenous people, a strong ranching and agricultural community, residential communities, and an array of private, governmental, and non-profit institutions. Within this region lies the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve (JLDP). It is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), one of the largest non-profit environmental organizations in the world. As one of the most effective and efficient environmental protection organizations globally, the JLDP can potentially anchor conservation protection and management actions spanning the entire Gaviota Region. This project aims to create a decision-making framework to assist JLDP, local agencies, stakeholders, and rightsholders in setting collaborative priorities and developing a region-wide conservation management plan. Our primary deliverable is an interactive tool that combines information gathered from stakeholder and rightsholder interviews and data regarding the ecological characteristics of the Gaviota Region. We conducted 23 interviews with regional stakeholders and rightsholders to assess their conservation priorities. In addition, we combined numerous spatial data sets to represent the conservation values of the region — namely, biodiversity, water, climate resilience, and soil health. We analyzed a matrix of priority scores for given conservation values and combined these with spatial analyses for this region. These analyses formed the basis for our spatial planning tool and allowed us to determine the spatial priorities based on the reported priorities of the Gaviota Regions’ stakeholders and rightsholders.