Bay Area Open Space Council facts for kids
The Bay Area Open Space Council was a group of many different organizations (65 of them!) that worked together to protect land in the San Francisco Bay Area. It started in 1990. Their main goal was to help these groups share ideas and work better together. Even though their main office was in Berkeley, California, the groups they helped were from all nine counties around the San Francisco Bay, plus Santa Cruz County.
In March 2020, the Open Space Council was replaced by a new group called Together Bay Area.
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What Did the Council Do?
The Bay Area Open Space Council worked on several important projects to help protect nature and connect people with the outdoors.
Protecting Important Lands
One big project was called the Conservation Lands Network. This project created a plan for how the Bay Area could protect its amazing variety of plants and animals, also known as biodiversity.
- A Big Study: Over 125 organizations and people worked for five years on this science-based study. They wanted to find the most important lands to keep the natural environment healthy.
- What They Looked At: The Conservation Lands Network studied a huge area, about 4.3 million acres (17,400 square kilometers). They looked at over 1,000 different things, like where redwood forests grow and where the California red-legged frog lives.
- Working Together: This project was part of a larger effort to protect the Bay Area's biodiversity. It worked alongside other projects like the Subtidal Habitat Goals Project and the Baylands Ecosystem Goals Project.
Mapping Protected Areas
The Council also worked with another group called Greeninfo Network. Together, they created a special map and database. This database, called the Bay Area Protected Lands Database (BPAD), showed all the protected areas in the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2010, Santa Cruz County was added, making it ten counties in total.
Working with Native Americans
The Open Space Council helped make a short film called Here and Now. This film shared stories about how Native American communities and land conservation groups worked together. It showed how important it is to combine ideas about fairness, protecting land, human history, and science.
Encouraging Outdoor Action
The Council also had a program called Outdoor Voice. Its goal was to get more people involved in protecting land. This program encouraged people who use parks in the Bay Area to take action. It covered all ten counties and used social media to reach park visitors.
