LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire/ —The Los Angeles & San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council and the Sacramento River Watershed Program will host a conference February 23 in Sacramento and continuing February 24 in Los Angeles to discuss the value of environmental “report cards” to California’s society and ecosystems. The conferences will bring together experts from across the State to discuss what has been and what still needs to be done so that these “report cards” can have an impact. This is the first time anyone has looked at this issue comprehensively at the state-wide level.
These symposia will initiate a statewide conversation about “sustainability report cards,” which are an important tool for achieving environmental sustainability across California. These report cards will improve the impact of a wide assortment of efforts by measuring the effectiveness of our solutions.
Bringing together experts to talk about community and environmental well-being will allow attendees to the conference to grasp the significant efforts underway and consider the benefits and challenges of implementing sustainability reporting at the regional level. In addition, attendees will learn what is already happening throughout California and be able lend their own ideas and expertise to the discussion.
“We all want a healthy environment,” said Nancy Steele, Executive Director of the Watershed Council, “but how we determine what ‘healthy’ means varies quite a bit. Agreeing on basic measures to assess our progress will have positive outcomes for our communities and environment. Hearing about great programs from across the country will lay the groundwork for innovation in regional reporting.”
For more information and to register for the February 23rd conference in Sacramento, please visit http://www.sacriver.org/events/index.php?action=ShowEvent&eventid=368. For more information and to register for the February 24th conference in Los Angeles, please visit http://lasgrwc2.org/programsandprojects/upcomingsymposia.aspx.
A partial list of invited panelists include
Celeste Cantú (Santa Ana Watershed Protection Authority), Shelley Luce (Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission), Beth Jines (Director of Sustainability, City of Los Angeles, Office of the Mayor), Fraser Shilling (UC Davis), Eric Stein (Southern California Water Research Project), Dave Eggerton (Sacramento River Watershed Program), Mary Nichols (California Air Resources Board), Joan Clayburgh (Sierra Nevada Alliance), Nancy Steele (Los Angeles & San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council), Tina Swanson, Caitlin Cornwall and Deanne DePietro (Sonoma Ecology Center), Celeste Cantu (Santa Ana Watershed Protection Authority), Marcos Athamasoulis (Healthy Communities Institute), Kamyar Guivetchi (Department of Water Resources), Karen Larsen (State Water Resources Control Board), Sharon Scherzinge (CALTRANS), Dejuene’ Shelton (Great Valley Center), and Jessica VanArsdale (California Center for Rural Policy), Beth McGee (Chesapeake Bay Foundation), Shannon Parry (City of Santa Monica), Arthur Winer (UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability), Tam Doduc (State Water Resources Control Board), Lisa Micheli (Pepperwood Preserve).
