Tools and Guidance

California Oaks Planting Guide. The guide is intended for landowners and land managers and includes six helpful sections that guide you through the process from finding seeds and materials to where to plant on your land to caring for oaks once they’re in the soil.

Tending the Edges: The Benefits of Hedgerows on Bay Area Working Lands. Spanish version. English version. A beautifully illustrated booklet created by the Marin Resource Conservation District with collaboration from Point Blue and other partners. It highlights the potential benefits of pollinator hedgerows for working lands in Marin County and beyond

Building Multibenefit Recharge Basins.
This 3-page document highlights best practices as understood by wildlife experts and practitioners as of February 2020. If you are interested in participating in a pilot project or providing feedback, please contact recharge@pointblue.org.

Sierra Meadow Planting Palette Tool and accompanying User Guide. The purpose of this tool is to help restoration practitioners plan for climate change by identifying plant species that have traits that will increase the likelihood that they will survive, recruit, and continue to provide additional co-benefits under projected future conditions. Read more here.

Integrating climate adaptation into land conservation: A climate-smart framework for land trusts. January 2020. This handbook provides land trusts and other land conservation practitioners with a guide to integrating climate change projections and climate adaptation approaches into the process of private land conservation.

Sierra Meadow Prioritization Tool. This tool provides a strategic, flexible approach for prioritizing Sierra meadows to achieve multiple benefits. It can be used to inform decision-making about which meadows to prioritize for restoration, protection, and/or conservation actions that will maximize benefits to biodiversity and ecosystem targets.

A guide to climate-smart meadow restoration in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades. May 2019. This handbook provides restoration practitioners with guidance to incorporate climate change considerations into the planning and design of Sierra Nevada meadow restoration projects.

Transition Zone Restoration Guide. Field-tested protocols, monitoring framework, restoration recommendations, and project reports to help restoration practitioners and scientists evaluate upland-wetland transition zone habitat and refine restoration practices that maximize the benefits of transition zone habitat to birds.

Reactivating our Floodplains. Please view and share this new two-page resource Point Blue and partners created to highlight and promote how key stakeholders can work together in the Sacramento Valley to manage flooding to provide multiple benefits, including flood protection, agricultural production, and biodiversity.

Climate-Smart Restoration Workshops: The resources below are the materials and presentations archived from the workshops. Special thanks to the Resources Legacy Foundation for their support.

Climate-Smart Restoration for Practitioners, November 9, 2018

Planning for Climate-Smart Restoration with Landowners, November 28, 2018

Train the Trainers in Climate-Smart Restoration, December 5, 2018

 

Climate-Smart Restoration Toolkit

A set of resources for restoration practitioners interested in designing climate-smart restorations — restorations that will allow habitat to adapt under different future climate change scenarios and provide multiple benefits for wildlife and people.

Trends and Traditions: Avifaunal Change in Western North America

W. David Shuford, Robert E. Gill Jr., and Colleen M. Handel, editors. Documents and syntheses the patterns, rate, and causes of changes in Western North American bird species in a time of rapid climate change, expanding human population, and accelerated resource extraction.

Coastal California Waterbird Conservation Plan

Encompassing the Coastal Slope and Coast Ranges of Central and Southern California and the Central Valley, The Coastal California Waterbird Conservation Plan is a prime example of one way Point Blue packages our science for natural resource management use. This plan is regional, but associated with the larger Waterbird Conservation for the Americas initiative.

ACCESS Oceans Partnership

A partnership that supports marine wildlife conservation and healthy marine ecosystems in northern and central California by conducting ocean research to inform resource managers, policy makers and conservation partners.

Ross Sea Bioregionalization Site

The Ross Sea, Antarctica, is the least affected stretch of ocean remaining on Earth. This site provides access to datasets and maps relevant to exploring physical and biological aspects of the Ross Sea, contributed by more than 40 projects spanning 100 years.

Bird Species of Special Concern

A collaborative effort of Point Blue Conservation Science and CA Fish and Game that provides a means of exploring and contributing to an examination of California’s at-risk bird species. The site offers data summaries, maps, climate models, resources for bird conservation and provides a way for the user to suggest changes to the list and ratings of birds of special concern.

Our Coast Our Future

Provides Bay Area natural resource managers, local governments and the public with a science-based, decision-support tool to plan for, and respond to, sea level rise and storm hazards along the region’s outer coast.

Scenario Planning for Climate Change Adaptation

A guidance for resource managers. Published in 2013 by Point Blue Conservation Science and the California Coastal Conservancy.

Atlas of Colonies of Inland Breeding Seabirds

An interactive website showing the locations of breeding colonies of seven species of inland breeding seabirds.

Future San Francisco Bay Tidal Marshes

A climate-smart planning tool that helps managers make informed decisions about how to restore and protect SF Bay’s tidal marshes.

State of the Birds Report, San Francisco Bay

The first-ever summary presenting the state of bird populations in San Francisco Bay.

Guide to the Pasture Plants of Coastal San Mateo County

A very cool guide to Central Coast pasture plants written and illustrated by Point Blue’s Mel Preston, published by TomKat Ranch, and supported by other partners in the region.

Bird Conservation Plans

A collection of bird conservation plans by habitat type for California. These plans summarize the status of focal bird species, the extent of habitat available, and provide a series of recommendations for managing the habitat for these species.

Map Based Access to Avian Data Summaries

An easy-to-navigate interface to 569 million avian observation records at over 15,000 locations in the state of California.

Carrizo Plain Le Conte’s Thrasher

Establishes a baseline population for the Le Conte’s Thrasher, a CA species of special concern, within the Carrizo Plain National Monument. This information will assist in long-term monitoring of the population and in assessing the impact of habitat loss.

Conserving Birds in CA Oak Woodland Habitat

A handout summarizing tips for improving bird habitat in oak woodlands.

Conserving Birds in CA Coastal Scrub and Chaparral Habitat

A handout summarizing tips for improving bird habitat in coastal scrub and chaparral.

Habitat Enhancement Guide Marin and Sonoma

An easy-to-use guide to habitat restoration and enhancement for riparian and oak woodland habitats in Marin and Sonoma Counties, California.

Habitat Enhancement Guide Sacramento Valley

An easy-to-use guide to habitat restoration and enhancement describing practical steps that landowners and land managers can take to improve bird habitat in the Sacramento Valley.

Modeling bird distribution response to climate change

An interactive website mapping tool showing the potential effects of climate change on bird communities, to help guide effective conservation and inform land management decisions.

Restoration Works

A handout summarizing Point Blue’s science showing that riparian habitat restoration works for protecting birds.

Restoring Sierra Meadows

How to assess mountain meadow health and find resources in your area to restore your meadow.

Sagebrush Bird Conservation Network Study Areas Database

An interactive website showing the locations of sagebrush bird study areas.

Sierra Nevada Avian Monitoring Information Network

An interactive website intended for use by natural resource managers and other stakeholders across the Sierra Nevada to help inform adaptive management decisions.

The Western Hummingbird Partnership

A website for the network of partners collaborating to build an effective and sustainable hummingbird conservation program. Contains resources and tools.

State of the Birds San Francisco Bay, 2011

This collaboratively created report provides status of key indicator species and critical habitat types around the San Francisco Bay, gives policy recommendations, and shares conservation success stories.

 

Point Blue’s STRAW Program has the special role of managing the Novato Baylands Restoration site along the San Francisco Bay in Novato, CA and hosting important information about this site. The technical documents below provide insight into the huge collaborative effort at this location.

note: we are in the process of migrating these resources to our website, so if you come across challenges, please know this is a current and active process. Feel free to email info@pointblue.org if you have an urgent request.