WASHINGTON D.C.
Interior and Agriculture Departments join Western Governors to launch Collaborative Conservation Task Force
The Departments of the Interior and Agriculture today joined the Western Governors Association (WGA) to launch a Task Force on Collaborative Conservation designed to enhance collaboration across federal, state and local jurisdictions and focus on the strategic coordination necessary to meet our collective natural resource management challenges and improve environmental outcomes for communities across the West.
The agreement formally establishes the Task Force as a forum for federal, state and territory representatives to collaboratively and effectively respond to the land, water and wildlife challenges facing Western landscapes. The Task Force will be essential to strengthening this state/territory-federal collaboration as local, state and federal leaders implement President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which contains historic investments in wildlife restoration, drought mitigation and wildland fire resilience.
This Task Force will be an important forum for collaboration, but state and federal participants will maintain their commitments and responsibilities to consult with Tribal Nations and engage with key stakeholders on natural resource conservation and management priorities.
“Growing up in the high desert of New Mexico, I am no stranger to water scarcity, threats of wildfire and relying on the land. As climate change intensifies these environmental challenges, we have a unique opportunity to collaborate with our Western partners and advance our shared priorities, including implementing President Biden’s infrastructure investments to bolster communities’ resilience against more extreme weather,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. “I look forward to further coordinating with states and territories through this Task Force as we endeavor to conserve and protect our natural resources.”
“As Western communities grapple with environmental challenges exacerbated by climate change, such as increasing drought and more frequent and intense wildfires, bolstering effective collaboration between the federal government, states and territories to respond to these issues is imperative,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “This Task Force will be an important vehicle for enhancing cooperation between the Departments of Agriculture and Interior and our Western partners on the conservation challenges impacting the region, as well as coordinating critical funding like the investments secured in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will make a real difference for communities across the West.”
“This is an important milestone in strengthening collaboration between western states and the federal government, and builds on efforts like the USDA-WGA Shared Stewardship Agreement,” said Jim Ogsbury, WGA’s Executive Director. “Western Governors appreciate the value of cross-boundary coordination between federal, state, local, Tribal and private landowners on issues like wildfire mitigation, invasive species control, and habitat restoration. The Task Force is designed to drive to collective action on some of the biggest challenges we face on our western landscapes.”
The newly launched Task Force will help strengthen effective coordination and implementation of priority conservation programs and policies, including those affecting wildlife corridors, wildfire and drought resilience and response, and forest and rangeland restoration. It will also contribute to the development of a conservation atlas to advance the America the Beautiful initiative, while supporting the voluntary stewardship efforts of ranchers, farmers and other private landowners and to keep working lands working.
—Submitted
LAKEPORT
Fire Fund Webinar Series begins Tuesday
A series of webinars, to help the Scotts Valley Tribe to improve practice through trauma-informed transformation, as developed and standardized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Beginning with the Foundations topic, which covers core trauma-informed concepts and definitions.
This training will present the same series of webinars three times. Each series covers four topics through seven webinars. All webinars will take place on Tuesdays from February 8 through Dec. 13, 2022.
Objectives include:
- The development of a foundational tribe-wide understanding of trauma and trauma-informed transformation.
- Presentation of key resources from SAMHSA and NCTSN.
- Distinguishing between physical and emotional safety issues.
- Articulating the interaction between trauma and parenting, based on current research.
- Implementation of the public health model as it relates to parenting.
- Distinguishing between exposure, event, experience and internal and external symptom.
More information can be obtained through Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians in Lakeport at (707)263-4220.
—Submitted
CALIFORNIA
Audit: Inmates’ lives at risk under California law
California isn’t doing enough to ensure inmate safety in county jails.
That was one of the main takeaways of a scathing Thursday report from the California State Auditor’s office, which called on state legislators to revise laws that appear to have contributed to high numbers of jail deaths in San Diego County and across the state.
- One key problem: State law doesn’t require mental health clinicians to evaluate inmates’ mental health needs during their initial screening. In one case at the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, a registered nurse determined an inmate who had requested urgent mental health services didn’t qualify for an immediate appointment — only for the individual to commit suicide two days later.
- Another issue: Although state law requires jails to conduct inmate safety checks at least hourly, it doesn’t define what counts as an adequate safety check. The auditor’s office observed “multiple instances” at the San Diego Sheriff’s Department in which “staff spent no more than one second glancing into the individuals’ cells, sometimes without breaking stride” — only to later discover some inmates had been dead for hours.
Although the audit focused specifically on problems in San Diego County jails — where 185 people died from 2006 to 2020, one of the highest totals of any county — it also noted that California itself appears to be backsliding on inmate safety.
- Acting State Auditor Michael Tilden wrote: “Given that the annual number of incarcerated individuals’ deaths in county jails across the state increased from 130 in 2006 to 156 in 2020, improving the statewide standards is essential to ensuring the health and safety of individuals in custody in all counties.”
Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Assemblymember Akilah Weber, both San Diego Democrats: We “remain committed to accountability and to ensuring that the recommendations laid out by the State Auditor are implemented.”
The report comes at a moment of reckoning for California as state and local governments try to tackle the interwoven issues of incarceration, mental illness, homelessness and drug use — and address a backlog of unsentenced people languishing in county jails.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed reforming California’s conservatorship laws to give the state a “few more tools” for helping those with severe mental illness and is pouring billions of dollars into cleaning encampments and moving homeless people into housing with wraparound services.
- San Francisco is grappling with a drug overdose epidemic that in the last two years killed nearly twice as many people as COVID-19 did.
- Santa Clara County, torn between building a new mental health treatment center or a new jail, chose the jail — but noted that a brand-new facility with expanded mental health services and rehabilitative programs could help improve inmate outcomes.
—Emily Hoeven, CALMatters
