California Air Resources Board

Purpose of the Meeting

The California Air Resources Board is hosting a Public Listening Session on Tracking and Assessing the influence of land management activities on California’s landscapes. The first objective of the meeting will be to provide the public with an overview for why the State is interested in gathering information on land management activities; particularly in light of two recent legislative directives (Assembly Bill 1279 and Assembly Bill 1757). The second objective of the meeting will be to gather feedback from the public on the issues of interest with regard to gathering and assessing information on land management activities.

Agenda

This will be a 1-hour long meeting consisting of a 20-minute presentation by executive leadership at CARB, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA), and the California Department of Agriculture (CDFA) as well as by CARB staff followed by a 40-min period over which members of the public will be allowed to share their thoughts and opinions.

• 11:00 – 11:10 - Introductory comments by State executive leaders
• 11:10 – 11:20 - Land Management Data Needs Overview (CARB staff)
• 11:20 – 12:00 – Public Comment and Feedback

Background

The State of California is interested in tracking and assessing land management activities and the effect they are having on the health and resilience of California’s landscapes. The commitment of the State to this issue is exemplified by two recent legislative mandates directing efforts to report on land management activities throughout the state.

Assembly Bill 1757 (AB 1757, 2022) requires CARB, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA), and the California Department of Agriculture (CDFA) to set targets for implementing an extensive set of land management practices over the next 20 years that are collectively referred to as ‘Nature-Based Solutions’. Examples of Nature-Based Solutions include conducting prescribed fire and fuel reduction on burnable landscapes to minimize the risk catastrophic wildfires; restoring disturbed, damaged, or historically altered landscapes; and conserving existing habitat and biodiversity through more guided stewardship of high-priority natural and working lands. These targets have already been defined per the existing legislative requirement; however, AB 1757 further requires that CARB standardize the methods by which these land management activities are reported and otherwise tracked.  It also requires that CNRA report California’s cumulative progress in meeting these targets over time.

Assembly Bill 1279 (AB 1279, 2022) more broadly mandated that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) identify and track the State’s path to achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. To achieve this goal, CARB must further assess the influence that land management activities are having on landscape carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions in order to estimate how present and future land-use practices will affect California's path to neutrality under different climate scenarios.