Protect LA's Remaining Natural Areas and Wildlife to Create a Climate Resilient Future For Angelenos
LA's remaining natural areas and wildlife need you to demand their protection! Tell the City of Los Angeles you Support LA's Wildlife Ordinance and Common-sense development standards for a sustainable future. Read More
Why This Matters
The City of Los Angeles is fortunate to be located within a globally recognized hotspot of native biodiversity. While Los Angeles is a biodiversity jewel, development encroachment into natural habitat and fragmentation of that habitat threaten LA’s biodiversity. Innovative strategies, such as the Wildlife Ordinance are needed to ensure its resilience and sustainability and are vital to protecting Los Angeles’ remaining natural resources and habitat connectivity.
The Wildlife Ordinance not only protects the City’s wildlife but also ensures a safer and healthier Los Angeles for its residents while simultaneously protecting the rights of private property development. In addition to protecting LA’s wildlife and wildlands, it ensures greater fire safety and support for the pollinators and plant life that foster climate resilience. When the wildlife and wildlands are protected, we are ultimately enhancing the character and beauty of LA that makes the City and our property so valuable.
Photo by: Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife (CLAW)
URGENT! Support LA's Wildlife Ordinance!
Push back against business and development interests. Write the City Planning Commission that you support the swift adoption of the Wildlife Ordinance Read More
Last August, Sierra Club asked you to support the City of Los Angeles draft Wildlife Ordinance. The Ordinance will help wildlife survive in our Santa Monica Mountains through carefully crafted development standards that will protect both natural resources (critical habitat and connectivity) and property interests. The Planning Department recently released a Recommendation Report and an updated version of the Ordinance, which will be heard and considered for approval by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission on Thursday, November 17, 2022, at 8:30 a.m. Some of the protections written into the Ordinance have been weakened or removed, but even so, the Wildlife Ordinance remains a very important step in our efforts to protect natural habitats for wildlife and humans.
According to the Living Planet Index, a metric that's been in existence for five decades, animal populations across the world shrunk by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018. Experts say the steep loss of biodiversity is a stark and worrying sign of what's to come for the natural world and according to the report's authors, the main cause of biodiversity loss is land-use changes driven by human activity. While conservation efforts are helping, urgent action is required if we are to reverse nature loss.