Buying and Connecting land
Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy works with urgency to buy and connect land for wildlife. We identify, preserve, and steward the most important natural lands in and around the San Gabriel and Crescenta Valleys for mammals, birds, pollinators, and other native animals and plants. Since our founding in 2000, we’ve saved over 140 acres.Â
The remaining open space in and around Los Angeles is critical to wildlife survival in our urban-wildland interface, but it’s fragmented into islands of habitat. We work to reconnect these habitats and link them back to the vast open space of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Get to know our region of study by exploring the map below. Within the map you’ll see our Long Term Conservation Area (LTCA), Critical Wildlife Passage Areas (CWPA), wildlife routes, and our preserves.
We focus our efforts on CWPAs — areas we’ve identified as important to wildlife travel and habitat connectivity through documented wildlife sightings. There are currently 31 in number; each one presents its own unique challenges for wildlife passage. Most of our acquisitions in CWPAs maintain existing passage by stopping them from being developed on. We also buy properties to reestablish passage that has been interrupted, by creating or improving wildlife crossings, removing barriers, or making a corridor more desirable. For example, we’re working on buying properties in the Sycamore Canyon CWPA to keep a route open, to improve passage across Chevy Chase, and to restore creeks and habitat.
Going a layer deeper, wildlife routes are specific routes of travel we’ve been able to estimate through community wildlife sightings, our remote camera research, and by studying maps. These different elements come together to help us prioritize which parcels we should save.
PRIORITIZING PARCELS
Our work, anchored by field-based research, has led to the development of a robust, scientifically rigorous, and innovative urban conservation model. We know now that urban conservation is a fundamentally complex effort to reclaim, rehabilitate, and reconnect habitat. Success isn’t always measured by amassing thousands of acres of land. It can also be measured by strategically connecting fragmented islands of habitat and protecting small pockets of open space within one of the most densely developed regions on the planet.
We use biological studies and a unique Database-Driven Land Prioritization Matrix to rank parcels for their conservation value. High priority parcels contain riparian areas important to wildlife lifecycles and regional hydrology, include rare and keystone species, support the region’s signature oak and coastal sage scrub species, and augment adjacent protected areas. We also use connectivity modeling that visualizes permeability of the landscape to tell us the most likely routes that wildlife travel and remote triggered wildlife cameras to validate those routes and corridors.
Building wildlife corridors
How do we help wildlife navigate the urban sprawl and safely travel between areas of habitat? You’ve likely heard of wildlife crossings – like the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101 Freeway – but wildlife corridors are another critical part of the solution. Undeveloped parcels of land can be stitched together to create protected travel routes for wildlife. By studying how animals are already moving, and constantly monitoring the development of land in Los Angeles, we can protect and secure safe passageways across dense areas of development.Â
HAHAMONGNA TO TUJUNGA CORRIDOR
Our most pressing project is the Hahamongna to Tujunga Corridor (HTC), an envisioned network of wildlife corridors within our long-term conservation area. The natural open areas of our urban region are currently fragmented, meaning wildlife cannot easily or safely travel between them to find mates, shelter, food, or water. Our solution is to establish the HTC for animals to move among fragmented areas of natural habitat, to and from the surrounding mountains. This allows them to mix and mate with the wider population of their species and to hunt and forage in larger landscapes.Â
We work to secure passageways among the Verdugo Mountains, the San Rafael Hills, and Griffith Park, and ultimately link them back to the San Gabriels at each end of the range: Hahamongna Watershed Park in the east and Tujunga Wash in the west. These are also linked to waterways such as the Arroyo Seco, Verdugo Wash, and Los Angeles River. We achieve our goals through field research, community outreach, environmental education, strategic land acquisitions, habitat restoration, and land use planning.Â
The HTC will increase habitat connectivity in our region. ​
why does connectivity matter?
Fragmentation is one of the greatest stressors to ecosystems. Wildlife require movement to seek food, shelter, or mates; for juvenile dispersal, seasonal migration, and re-colonization after a local population is extirpated; or for species to shift their geographic range in response to climate change.
Enhancing connectivity and linking natural landscapes has been identified as the single most important adaptation strategy to conserve biodiversity during climate change. Connectivity supports predator-prey relationships, gene flow, pollination and seed dispersal, competitive or mutualistic relationships among species, energy flow, and nutrient cycling. Strategically conserving and restoring essential connections between wildland areas is an effective and cost-efficient means to reduce the adverse effects of habitat loss and fragmentation, and is an essential mitigation measure for climate change.
Species movement and range change have become nearly impossible in our region by the isolation of the San Rafael Hills, Verdugo Mountains, Griffith Park, the middle and lower Arroyo Seco, Debs Park, and Elysian Park. AFC recognizes the urgency of reconnecting them to restore movement, and is doing all we can to establish, enhance and protect habitat passageways through land acquisition, land use planning and governmental programs.
How did we envision the HTC?
AFC conducted a wide scale survey of the San Gabriel and Crescenta Valleys to determine which areas are critical to save habitat connectivity. Through our study we graded the ecological value of 5,461 individual parcels of undeveloped land. The land was evaluated and prioritized for its importance to regional conservation.
This helps us direct resources to the most critical locations.
The Corridor features land of exceptional value that is essential for sustaining ecological and evolutionary processes across the landscape. This includes:
- 20 different natural community types
- 47 species and plant communities listed as threatened, endangered, or sensitive
- Habitat that is critical to the survival of 2 species (the southwestern willow flycatcher and Santa Ana sucker)
- 3 areas designated by the County of Los Angeles as Significant Ecological Areas
- The Nature Conservancy’s identification of Tujunga Valley as an eco-regional priority
- An area designated by Audubon as an Important Bird Area.
How your support helps the project​​
The HTC is a huge undertaking! Reestablishing connectivity through our conservation region means:
- Collecting and updating the data for our land-prioritization tool by
- Increasing our GIS capacity to update our maps and database information
- Conducting in-depth biological surveys of CWPAs and properties of interest with our staff biologist as well as advisorsÂ
- Combing through the thousands of tax-sale parcels and constantly monitoring the availability of private parcels to buy
- Developing and maintaining strong working relationships with local jurisdictions and helping update their land use plans
- Educating funders about the Corridor and why small parcel conservation is so criticalÂ
- Making compelling cases for every grant we seek
- Lobbying at city and state levelsÂ
- Reaching out to educate communities near the Corridor about wildlife living among them, the benefits of habitat restoration, and need for fire fuel reduction
Your support is what allows us to pursue these many different avenues required to successfully establish the HTC.
 We are facilitating an interdependent network of conservationists and funders to establish and protect this corridor. Our state partners include the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, California Natural Resources Agency, National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and Wildlife Conservation Board. Additionally, we are engaging a long list of conservation organizations, cities, utilities, businesses, foundations and community members.