ABOUT SFBJV

Mission

The goal of the San Francisco Bay Joint Venture is to protect, restore, increase and enhance all types of wetlands, riparian habitat and associated uplands throughout the San Francisco Bay region to benefit birds, fish and other wildlife.

Photo courtesy of Joe Didonato

Habitat Goals

  • Protect 63,000 acres, restore 37,000 acres, enhance another 35,000 acres of San Francisco Bay's tidal flats, marshes, and lagoons to benefit waterfowl, shorebirds, and other wildlife
  • Protect 37,000 and restore and/or enhance 30,000 acres of seasonal wetlands for breeding waterfowl and migrating shorebirds
  • Restore and.or enhance approximately 1000 miles of creeks and protect 40,000 acres of riparian corridors for resident and migratory songbirds

National Joint Venture Structure

The San Francisco Bay Joint Venture is one of 18 Joint Ventures nationally. Canada and Mexico also have both habitat and species Joint Ventures.

Joint Ventures were originally established to address the need for conservation of waterfowl and wetlands under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and have since broadened their focus to include habitats for all birds, consistent with major national and continental bird conservation plans and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative.

Through biologically-based actions, Joint Ventures work to ensure the existence of the diverse habitats necessary to sustain migratory bird populations for the benefit of those species, resident wildlife and the public. These actions may include:

  • biological planning, conservation design, and prioritization,
  • project development and implementation,
  • monitoring, evaluation, and applied research activities,
  • communications and outreach,
  • funding support for projects and activities

Nationally, Joint Ventures have protected, restored or enhanced more than 9.25 million acres of wetland and associated uplands for waterfowl and other wildlife and bird species.

Joint Ventures are led by a Management Board made up of partner representatives. There are many levels of participation in a JV, ranging from membership on the Board to participation within various technical teams and other working groups.

Formation of a JV begins with selecting a Management Board and preparing an Implementation Plan that details the conservation goals and the infrastructure and mechanisms needed to realize those goals. This plan is then submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for review. When the Implementation Plan is approved, the JV becomes eligible for federal funding.

San Francisco Bay Joint Venture Structure

The San Francisco Bay Joint Venture is composed of a Management Board and four Working Committees established to accomplish specific SFBJV objectives. These committees include diverse representation from state and federal agencies, environmental organizations, hunting and fishing groups, the business community, landowners, public utilities and local government. Members of each of these groups are expected to assist with external communications at national, state and local levels, help secure funding for projects supported by the Joint Venture and bring new initiatives to it.

Joint Venture Management Board

Photo courtesy of Sandra Scoggin

The Management Board consists of 26 agencies and private organizations whose members agree to support and promote the goal and objectives of the Joint Venture and who represent the diversity of wetlands interests found in the San Francisco Bay Region. The SFBJV offers the opportunity to acquire and restore more wetlands than was previously thought possible because of the leveraging capacity available through organizational cooperation.

Organizations & Agencies

Non Profit and Private Organizations

Public Agencies

Working Committees

Working Committees of the SFBJV help accomplish the specific objectives of the Joint Venture and can be established at any time by the Management Board. The SFBJV has the following Working Committees that meet on a quarterly basis:

Participation in these committees is open to interested members of the public affiliated with a private or public organization.

Objectives

  • Secure wetlands, riparian habitat and associated uplands through fee or permanent easement acquisition.
  • Restore and enhance wetlands, riparian habitat and associated uplands on both public and private lands using non-regulatory techniques. Improve habitat management on publicly and privately owned wetlands, riparian habitat and associated uplands through the use of cooperative management agreements and voluntary incentive programs. Strengthen existing and promote new funding sources for wetlands acquisition, restoration, enhancement and management programs.
  • Support monitoring and evaluation of existing restoration projects, as well as pertinent research studies, to improve future restoration projects.
Photo courtesy of Kent Steffens

In 2001 the Joint Venture published a 20-year collaborative plan for the restoration of wetlands and wildlife in the Bay region called Restoring the Estuary: an Implementation Strategy for the SFBJV. All 26 organizations and agencies on its management board have approved it. This Strategy establishes specific acreage goals for wetlands of three distinct types - bay habitats, seasonal wetlands and creeks and lakes, and lays out programmatic and cooperative strategies for accomplishing them. The Joint Venture partners have agreed to acquire, and/or restore or enhance 260,000 acres of these three types of wetlands over the next two decades all around our estuary. Restoring the Estuary builds on the science-based recommendations of the San Francisco Estuary Baylands Ecosystem Goals Project (1999), by reaching beyond the Bay's margins and into the watersheds to determine acreage goals. Together, these goals, objectives and strategies will help guide the renewal of the wetland ecosystem rimming the Bay that defines our region.

The partners of the Joint Venture recognize the many "ecological services" that wetland and riparian habitats provide, through their capacity to buffer the impact of floodwaters, cleanse pollutants from runoff, recharge overdrawn water supplies and provide critical habitat for waterfowl and hundreds of fish and wildlife species. Fifty percent of threatened and endangered species in the Bay Area depend on wetland and riparian habitat and up to 90 percent of commercial and recreational fish species use these areas in the San Francisco Bay for spawning grounds. Wetlands and riparian habitat also provide economic benefits, recreational opportunities and generally contribute to a higher quality of life for residents in the densely populated San Francisco Bay Area.