Executive Summary

A Core Group of representative land managers and researchers from federal, state, local, and private organizations is working together to coordinate the development and dissemination of ecological information needed by all parties involved in implementing the Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) areas for coastal sage scrub in Southern California. The group is exploring more effective and efficient mechanisms for addressing the ecological information needs of managers and decision makers involved in the NCCP. Their goals are to 1) reassess the research agenda intended to supply important new information to managers and 2) determine the most effective means for synthesizing new and existing ecological information into appropriate guidance for decision makers.

Through a series of working meetings, the group reached consensus on the general information needs most important to resource managers and identified the gaps in current research efforts needed to address those needs. They also made recommendations on how to develop more coordinated and effective organization and processes to enhance the ongoing coordination of research activities and the dissemination of the resulting information.

The group attempted to identify the general information needs of the managers and policy makers involved in the coastal sage scrub NCCP. They also listed the many recent and ongoing research activities that are relevant to CSS. By mapping the research activities to the information needs, the group identified gaps in which key information needs are not being addressed by current research. The group also prioritized the broad areas of information needs to help guide future research agendas. The broad categories to be addressed by research include:

  • Fire
  • Inventory and monitoring
  • Species persistence/demographics/genetics
  • Administration, socioeconomic considerations, and implementation
  • Exotics and invasives
  • Public use
  • Biophysical processes/ecosystem function
  • Reserve design/biogeography/landscape processes
  • Restoration and enhancement
  • General species, program-wide, and regional concerns
  • Historical land use/succession
  • Habitat management practices
  • Influence of adjacent land uses
There currently is no broadly recognized formal mechanisms for research coordination and communication of existing and new information to managers. A team of four individuals (including representatives from Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Game, The Nature Conservancy, and the Biological Resources Division of U.S. Geological Survey) constitute a Science Research Coordinating Committee for the NCCP program. However they have insufficient time to carry out all the work identified for research corrdination and information dissemination. Therefore, the Core Group recommended that a more focused function or office be established to coordinate research and information dissemination activities related to the coastal sage scrub NCCP. The proposed functions would be to:

Facilitate the identification of priority information needs of managers and the research and other efforts required to address those needs

  • Provide assessment and synthesis of ongoing research and its ability to address management needs

  • Communicate research results to managers and policy makers to effectively inform their decisions

  • Assist in the development and coordination of databases needed to implement land management programs.

The crucial need that the focal point function would fill is to enhance the collective ability of participants of the NCCP program to address and gain access to the best scientific information available. Ideally this proposed function would interact with both public and private sector agencies and would have adequate budget to carry out its facilitation role. It would not, however, fund specific research projects, but simply serve to coordinate new reand ongoing research and facilitate the exchange of information between research and management. It should be staffed both by people with research experience and with management expertise.

The Core Group will communicate the research guidance and recommendations in this report to those organizations in the public, private, and NGO sectors involved in the NCCP program. Their goal will be to assist the Science Research Committee to coordinate research and information dissemination efforts and to broaden the dialog necessary for the implementation of their organizational recommendations.

This report will be a living document distributed for broad comment and then placed on the World Wide Web, where it will be open to ongoing comment and refinement. The purpose of the report is to catalog and coordinate research and information dissemination activities, priorities, results, and lessons learned. These will evolve over time, and the report will adapt to reflect that evolution.