Save Mount Diablo

Land acquisition & land use: save mount diablo continues long-term negotiations to protect important properties. Accomplishments for the 3/31/2024 tax year include:- closed escrow and acquired the 6.69-acre krane pond property for $400,000 and other project costs within the missing mile that is contiguous with mount diablo state park. The missing mile is roughly a square mile on the northern slopes of mount diablo that contains much privately owned open space that has not yet been conserved. The krane pond property is contiguous with mount diablo state park and this property has one of the largest water sources on the north side of mount diablo which makes it critical for wildlife. - acquired the 10-acre balcerzak inholding property for $1,075,000 and other costs. The property is an inholding, surrounded by mt. Diablo state park, 3 miles up curry canyon and has been on our priority acquisition list for a long time.- secured an option agreement to acquire the 98.01-acre ginochio schwendel ranch, a high resource property, contiguous with other land save mount diablo has protected, in our most important acquisition area. The option agreement gives us until march 2025 to raise about $1.455 million to cover all the project costs.- leveraged our resources and assisted east bay regional park district in their acquisition of the 768-acre finley road ranch next to mount diablo. Save mount diablo contributed funds, staff time, and other resources to this land acquisition effort. - we continue to negotiate complex property transactions, the fruits of which will be brought to bear in the coming years. Our partners, especially the east contra costa county habitat conservancy and east bay regional park district, have continued the work to protect the marsh creek and morgan territory areas and place critical protections over essential habitat corridors. We meet with landowners and developers alike to push for high-quality mitigation associated with new developments. We coordinate closely with our partners on strategic additions to the overall network of preserved lands on and around mount diablo.- land use: save mount diablo regularly monitors the agendas of 55 different planning committees and public agencies. This work can take time as we research, write letters, testify, and collaborate on solutions. We responded to more than a dozen land use projects in the 2023 - 2024 fiscal year.- furthered our diablo range expansion work developing new partners and advancing advocacy efforts to protect important lands like tesla and del puerto canyon.- we supported or led three ballot measure campaigns, statewide prop 4 climate bond, a san benito county growth control measure a, and no on measure ii in dublin to defend a ten-year-old urban limit line we helped created there.

Education & outreach and recreation: save mount diablo offers numerous educational, outreach, and recreational programs to help directly connect our communities to nature and educate them about it, to provide opportunities to do service projects for our natural world, and to diversify the types of people served and involved with our land conservation work. These programs include, but are not limited to, the following:- our discover diablo free public outings series- our conservation collaboration agreement program, rebranded as diablo conservation experience, for local middle school and high schools.- our young diablo explorers program for 3rd to 5th graders.- our semester long land conservation course taught at california state university east bay.- our dr. Mary bowerman science and research program, which provides small grants to encourage more scientific research in the northern diablo range, bioblitz, etc.- enabled the public to enjoy our new mangini ranch educational preserve, run with a free online reservation system with over 4 miles of trails built there with the help of volunteers and local students.- staff and volunteers led 12 tabling events in the community to educate, inspire and connect the public to diablo range and some of the projects that we lead to protect it.- smd staff led an archaeological monitoring training for the tribe with the wilton rancheria.- as we reflect back on the completed april 1, 2023, to march 31, 2024 fiscal year, we feel immense gratitude for our supporters because they helped us complete another highly successful year from a programmatic, financial, and overall organizational perspective.