Sierra Club’s Bay Alive Campaign Involved in Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan Guidelines Due by End of Year
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, July 16, 2024: Sierra Club’s Bay Alive Campaign is actively engaging the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) as it develops its Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan (RSAP) guidelines due by the end of 2024. The RSAP guidelines will dictate how every shoreline community around the Bay prepares for sea level rise.
In 2022 and 2023, the Campaign collaborated with other environmental and environmental justice organizations to successfully advocate for amendments to SB272, to highlight the importance of environmental justice and nature-based resilience.
In 2024, the Campaign mobilized grassroots volunteers to ensure BCDC’s One Bay Vision prioritizes the use of nature-based adaptations for shoreline resilience whenever and wherever possible. The Campaign continues to mobilize volunteers with the same messaging to educate BCDC Commissioners as BCDC develops its RSAP guidelines. In addition to volunteer mobilization, Campaign volunteer leaders were invited by BCDC to participate directly in the development of its RSAP as members of two key advisory bodies.
Two Sierra Club volunteer leaders serve on BCDC’s RSAP Advisory Working Group, composed of practitioners with expertise in government, environment, equity and environmental justice, business, flood control, and other relevant topics, to help define the guidelines. Another volunteer leader has been working on the Bay Adapt Implementation Coordinating Group, consisting of executives from Bay Area sectors, to support the implementation of the Bay Adapt joint platform.
“We’ll all have to live with the results of these guidelines for decades to come, so it’s imperative we work together and get it right,” said Arthur Feinstein, Bay Alive Campaign’s Sea Level Rise Committee Chair. “Most importantly, we need solutions that prioritize Bay ecosystem health as a key resource for protecting our communities and ensuring we do so while also supporting disadvantaged communities.”
Bay Alive Campaign Co-founder Charles Schafer said “We need a robust and coordinated region-wide approach to sea level rise. An effective RSAP can improve coordination among jurisdictions and agencies, protect regionally important public assets, and ensure that strategies pursued in one place don't worsen impacts next door or across the Bay.”
The Campaign has also been working with other groups, such as coalitions and underrepresented communities, to provide campaign updates, provide education opportunities such as inviting BCDC to speak directly to the coalitions, and encourage coalitions to join the larger conversation.
About the Bay Alive Campaign
The Bay Alive Campaign is organized by Sierra Club Chapters located in the San Francisco Bay Area (Loma Prieta, San Francisco Bay, and Redwood Chapters) and Sierra Club California. The Campaign is both region-wide and local in its perspective. The goal of both sides of the campaign is to build equitable community and ecological resilience to sea level rise and promote a collaborative and regionally aligned approach to sea level rise adaptation that prioritizes nature based resilience strategies.
The Campaign’s region-wide work is performed by a committee composed of volunteers and staff from each chapter who develop region-wide policy positions and work with scientists, agencies and other entities that operate with a Bay-regional focus. Our regional effort focuses on the development of BCDC's RSAP guidelines for climate change resilience for our communities and the ecological health of the Bay. In addition, each chapter takes action in its own geographic location to build local awareness and influence local entities.
Watch our brief video highlighting what’s at stake.