About Us
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Links to regional plans and other groups:
Chollas Creek Enhancement Program | Groundwork San Diego Chollas Creek
Escondido Creek Watershed Action Plan | San Elijo Lagoon Conservancy
Rose Creek Opportunities Assessment | Rose Creek Watershed Alliance
San Diego River Park Plan | San Diego River Park Foundation
San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy
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San Diego Canyonlands performs political advocacy work to promote, protect and restore San Diego's valuable canyons and creeks. Current issues:
SDCL is currently working to protect approximately 10,000 acres of City-owned natural open space by dedicating these lands as open space parkland to protect them from sale and development as our city grows and develops.
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Building Canyon/Creek Friends Groups
To build a new canyon Friends group, we start with an educational tour. We distribute, door to door, 1,000-3,000 invitations to a free educational tour in the neighborhood canyon. At these events we collect names and contacts for those interested in the Friends Group. Tour guides include Canyon Staff as well as knowledgeable volunteers and experts in native plants and San Diego wildlife.
We later invite tour participants and other local residents and stakeholders surrounding the canyon to attend an organizational meeting of the new Friends Group. At these meetings we train and enroll leaders. The attendees take on a variety of responsibilities.
We help the friends groups plan and implement clean-ups and restoration events, often providing tools, donating native plants, and recruiting additional volunteers. Professional consultants volunteer to help establish habitat restoration plans. We help groups coordinate with authorities such as Park Rangers, on creating Canyon Enhancement Plans.
Eventually these groups function on their own to perform these and other duties to care for their local canyons.
Support for Friends Groups
Another goal of San Diego Canyonlands is to develop services for Canyon Friends groups in order to help them function effectively, efficiently, and sustainably to achieve their canyon enhancement goals. SDCL will work to increase efficiency by providing a central source for a variety of expertise and essential resources. Resources include tools, extra volunteers for projects, coordination with city rangers, restoration techniques, and possibly professional restoration consultants. We offer list-serve and web-based support as well as continued effort to build the volunteer and member support of each Friends Group.
We have built a County-Wide Canyons Coalition and facilitate quarterly meetings where the individual groups get together, share concerns, resources and information, and support each others efforts. The groups will often let their collective voices be heard when individual canyons are threatened. Please contact us to receive meeting notices.
Canyon Friends Groups in Action!
Watch a Video of the Friends of Swan Canyon in Action (90 seconds).
Watch a Video of the Friends of 47th Street Canyon in Action (2 minutes).
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San Diego Canyonlands is dedicated to educating San Diego’s youth about the value of open space, community stewardship and volunteerism as well as developing a ’sense of place’ in San Diego's nature. In his books Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder (2005) and The Nature Principle (2011), author Richard Louv shows how our children learn better in natural, outdoor settings, and how nature can help ward off Attention Deficit Disorder and childhood depression (see www.childrenandnature.org for more info).
Our Programs
Through collaborations with other non-profits we have helped develop several youth-oriented programs and act as canyon hosts during "nature classroom" learning activities. Also, SDCL works with at-risk youth in City Heights and Southeast San Diego where gangs and delinquent behaviors are wide-spread. These communities have the greatest deficiency in park and open space amenities in the city. We enroll youth in our nature-based education and stewardship programs, providing positive activities and opportunities to learn about nature in hands-on, experiential ways. Youth who we serve learn quickly that they can make a difference in the community they live in as well as help solve regional environmental challenges. Empowering youth to significantly benefit their community builds self-esteem.
SDCL has collaborated to develop several youth-oriented educational programs centered on San Diego's canyons. In addition to raising awareness and appreciation for San Diego’s unique eco-systems, all of our youth programs seek to foster a sense of place, ownership, and an ethic of stewardship. All programs provide opportunities for hands-on learning and canyon enhancement activities.
OutdoorExplore! An after-school program for K-6 students developed in partnership with San Diego Audubon Society. Link
Kids in Canyons A collaboration with the Ocean Discovery Institute'sAquatic Adventures that brings standards-based curriculum to the classroom with educational field trips to the canyons. Link
Children & Nature Network The Children & Nature Network is leading a movement to connect all children, their families and communities to nature through innovative ideas, evidence-based resources and tools, broad-based collaboration and support of grassroots leadership. Link
School Community Service Program Offers learning opportunities for high school and middle school students to "learn as they earn" their required community service credits by helping with canyon stewardship activities. Link
Jackie Robinson YMCA Nature Exploration Project SDCL began a partnership with Jackie Robinson Family YMCA (JRYMCA) in July 2010 to create a sustainable, nature education and stewardship program that provided youth with a non-competitive program option, with access to nature and opportunities to learn about the unique Chollas Creek eco-system. The opportunities to develop nature-educational projects at the JRYMCA are rich because the YMCA owns the property and Chollas Creek flows right through it. We hope to gain additional funding to further develop the program, build sustainability and continue converting a blighted creek area into a healthy nature classroom or nature exploration area for children.
Youth Group and Scout Programs Please contact us if you are interested in a youth group project or event.
NOTE for Youth Volunteers:
Youth volunteers are encouraged to participate with an adult. Unless supervised by an authorized youth program leader (such as a Scout leader, or a teacher, etc.), or unless prior arrangements are made with SDCL staff, a minor’s participation in SDCL canyon activities requires the presence of a parent. High School Students can earn Community Service Credit by participating in our restoration and cleanup events.
All youth must also have a parent or guardian sign a waiver before participating in any of our volunteer activities.
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Environmental Calendars
Conservation Groups
- Back Country Land Trust
- California Native Plant Society, San Diego Chapter
- Groundwork San Diego Chollas Creek
- Preserve Calavera
- Sierra Club, San Diego Chapter
- San Diego Audubon Society
- San Diego Natural History Museum Canyoneers
- Santa Margarita and San Luis Rey Watersheds Weed Management Area
- Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Chapter
- California Chaparral Institute
- Buena Vista Creek Ecological Reserve
- Encinitas Trails Coalition
- Friends of Blue Sky Canyon
- Friends of Famosa Slough
- Friends of Goodan Canyon/Sycamore Ranch
- Friends of Hellhole Canyon
- Lakeside River Park Conservancy
- Otay River Conservation Program, Wildcoast
- Preserve Calavera
- San Dieguito River Park
- San Diego River Park Foundation
- SoCal Wetlands Recovery Project
- Chaparral Lands Conservancy
Government Sites
- County of San Diego
- City of San Diego
- San Diego Open Space Parks
- SANDAG, San Diego’s Regional Planning Agency
- Multiple Species Conservation Plan (”The Preserve”) (MSCP)
- Municipal Code Search for the City of San Diego
