Drinking Water Protections: $3.8 billion to remove toxic pollutants from our drinking water supplies and help ensure all Californians have safe drinking water in their homes. Proposition 4 also invests in water recycling and conservation to cost-effectively increase our water supplies and improves dam and levee safety to prevent floods.  

• Wildfire Prevention Measures: $1.5 billion to prevent wildfires, reduce their damage when they do occur, and improve disaster response. 

• Extreme Heat Mitigation Programs: $450 million to develop and implement strategies to protect Californians from extreme heat. 

• Coastal Protection from Rising Sea Levels: $1.2 billion to safeguard coastal communities and resources from the impacts of sea-level rise. 

• Funding for ocean recovery including acre-based targets for restoring ocean ecosystems such as kelp forests, eelgrass meadows and native oyster beds, as well as funding for climate-ready fisheries and protecting CA’s Channel Islands.  

• Investments in improving ocean and beach conditions to reduce pollution and increase  water quality for marine life. 

• Wildlife Protection and Nature-Based Climate Solutions: $1.2 billion to preserve wildlife habitats, implement nature-based solutions to climate change, and prevent extinctions.  

• Climate-Smart Farms, Ranches, and Working Lands: $300 million to support sustainable agricultural practices. 

$700 million to enhance green spaces and ensure public access to natural areas. 

Public safety is extremely important to Californians, but climate impacts like heat, fire and flooding threaten well-being in multiple ways. The recent IPCC report shows that incidents of crime and domestic violence increase during extreme weather and heat events, and with the last eight years categorized as “the hottest year on record” California can’t afford to ignore the problem. 

Nature’s Solution: Urban Tree Cover

Increasing urban tree cover can lower temperatures up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s a cheap and durable way to uplift neighborhoods and decrease crime.

California’s drinking water relies on the health of our rivers and aquifers. But overpumping of groundwater and water diversions from rivers are drying up the water we all rely on. 

Nature’s Solution: Functional Flows

The Nature Conservancy led a state-wide initiative to determine how much water our rivers and streams need to support nature and people. We have the answer, now it’s time to make sure nature gets that water. California must transition to a future where our rivers are managed to benefit wildlife, a move that coincidentally gives them the tools to use against extreme drought and flooding. 

Californians can’t function if we can’t breathe. Smoke from megafires is keeping us inside, shutting down schools and businesses and impacting our health. At the same time, megafires have displaced whole communities.

Nature’s Solution: Forest Restoration

Ecological forest restoration is proven to prevent megafires. This proactive management technique includes thinning and controlled burns and it preempts the need for fire suppression so Cal Fire and the US Forest Service can better spend their resources. 

California is in a mental health crisis. Nearly 1 in 7 adults in our state experience a mental illness, and 1 in 14 children have an emotional disturbance that limits functioning (California Health Care Foundation). Access to nature is proven to positively impact mental health, but open space is less available to the Californians who need it most. At the same time, poorly planned development is eating into natural areas, removing open space access and increasing wildfire risk. 

Nature’s Solution: Open Space Around Cities

TNC has a plan to protect the natural lands that matter to Californians and sustain the native species with whom we share this state. Creating open space around communities not only improves mental health and protects wildlife, it saves lives in the face of wildfire. We’re working with the Paradise Rec and Park District to design an open space buffer for the new city plan that will reduce wildfire risk by nearly 70%.