Partnerships
Sonoma Valley Collaborative
(formerly Sustainable Sonoma)
25 years after Sonoma Ecology Center was founded, we realized the need to engage the whole community in our vision of a Sonoma Valley where people, land, water, and wildlife thrive. We saw challenges in our community that no one organization could solve alone, but affect all of us. We saw that environmental, equity and economic issues intersect in ways that invite coordination and collaboration across those sectors.
Just weeks after the October 2017 fires, we convened a group of 30 community leaders across the broadest range of interests in Sonoma Valley to form the Sonoma Valley Collaborative Council, a coalition committed to working together around issues like emergency response, housing affordability and structural inequity.
Since its formation, Sonoma Valley Collaborative has played a critical role in the Valley’s emergency response coordination, helped our community understand its greatest hopes and challenges, and fostered new ways of approaching community challenges. Visit website.
Programa de Participación Comunitaria
The Community Involvement Program, funded by Proposition 1 in 2014, is being managed by Environmental Justice Coalition for Water (EJCW) and is a key element of the California Department of Water Resources’ Integrated Regional Water Managements (IRWM) planning process. We are working on this project in collaboration with EJCW, Sonoma Water, and Valley of the Moon Water District, as well as La Luz and the Family Resource Center. Click here to learn more / aquí para saber más en Español.
Team Sugarloaf
When the State closed Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in late 2011, Sonoma Ecology Center and four partners came together to reopen it. Team Sugarloaf is now celebrated around the state as an innovative partnership combining strengths of several groups to larger public purpose. The park is headwaters to important watersheds and protects over 40 rare plants, offers over 25 miles of trails and one of the best views in the North Bay, contains a large family campground, and has one of the largest amateur observatories in the world open to the public. Visit our Sugarloaf website to learn more.
North Bay Climate Adaptation Initiative (NBCAI)
In 2009, a group of scientists and experts working in resource management and public policy came together to discuss how our region could better prepare for a changing climate. This group, NBCAI, has since conducted research on what is likely to happen here, and is helping Sonoma County and its neighbors create strategies that will minimize the challenges ahead. Sonoma Ecology Center is a founding member of NBCAI, and continues to support this nationally-recognized work. Read our Climate Smart fact sheets or learn more about NBCAI.
Sonoma Environmental Education Collaborative (SEEC)
One of the most important gifts we can give to our children and their future is a connection to the natural world. Sonoma Ecology Center helped found SEEC in 2010, with the goals of bringing environmental educators together to share ideas and resources, and assuring that all children in Sonoma County have the chance to learn about where they live and to be outdoors. Read more about SEEC’s work.