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(a) The Legislature finds and declares that the November 2023 report of the Outdoors for All initiative, “Providing Equitable Access to Parks and Nature,” proposes the following priorities to achieve Outdoors for All:(1) Establish spaces for people and nature to thrive. This priority includes strategies that:
(A) Develop, improve, and maintain local and regional outdoor spaces.
(B) Support tribal ancestral land return as a pathway for outdoor access.
(C) Support the use of cultural easements by California Native American tribes to protect cultural and
sacred sites.
(D) Support multibenefit solutions for access and environmental priorities.
(E) Support deferred maintenance projects statewide that seek to expand access to recreation and provide a safe and welcoming experience for visitors.
(F) Coordinate with school districts and regional governments to enhance green schoolyards and explore opportunities for schoolyards to fill gaps outside of school hours.
(G) Support connecting different sized outdoor spaces, including statewide and regional trail networks, to provide diverse experiences for all skill levels, with the cobenefit of creating wildlife corridors.
(H) Ensure outdoor space development and management is consistent with
California’s Climate Adaptation Strategy, Scoping Plan, and Natural and Working Lands Climate Smart Strategy.
(I) Support implementation of antidisplacement measures to ensure access to open space does not lead to gentrification.
(J) Collaborate with private landowners and federal, state, regional, and local governments to explore opportunities to expand recreation access on private lands.
(2) Foster belonging. This priority includes strategies that:
(A) Share culturally diverse, relevant, and relatable stories and images of California’s people and history through the programming, interpretive materials, art, and signage offered at outdoor spaces, cultural and historic places, and museums.
(B) Foster public appreciation of, and connection to, California’s natural and cultural resources.
(C) Support improvements to language access for outdoor programming, educational materials, and staff at open spaces, cultural and historic places, and museums.
(D) Build trust between and among staff and visitors.
(E) Create adult and youth-centered programming, including intergenerational opportunities, at outdoor spaces to inspire and build confidence across a broad range of recreational users and activities.
(F) Rename offensive and derogatory geographic features and place names across outdoor spaces to address historical wrongs and create safe and inclusive spaces.
(3) Connect people and the outdoors. This priority includes strategies that:
(A) Make information about California’s parks and outdoor spaces easier to find and understand.
(B) Explore opportunities to offer free broadband on state recreation lands, and cultural and historic properties, allowing for more accessible information, inclusive signage, programming, and connectivity to address safety concerns.
(C) Enhance and create more green, accessible, safe, active, public, and shared transportation options linking the outdoors and communities.
(D) Explore ways to provide free access to California state parks for low-income communities.
(E) Support tribal members in harvesting
culturally significant materials in outdoor spaces.
(F) Explore public-private partnerships to support gear libraries and low-cost outings and classes at outdoor spaces.
(G) Prioritize funding and a streamlined process for building lower cost coastal accommodations.
(H) Prioritize partnerships with nonprofits that provide youth and families from underserved communities and people with disabilities with access to state lands through supervised programming.
(4) Cocreate with communities. This priority includes strategies that:
(A) Conduct early, often, and meaningful tribal consultations with the goal of enhancing tribal partnerships and collaboration.
(B) Invite and embed meaningful tribal consultation and community engagement into grant processes.
(C) Update the grant applications of the Natural Resources Agency and its departments to increase support and reduce barriers for underserved communities, including California Native American tribes, and the organizations that serve them.
(D) Collaborate with other agencies to build best practices for public meetings that are accessible to people with disabilities and increase involvement by underserved communities through language access and greater transparency about state processes.
(E) Collaborate with the Governor’s office to enhance outreach efforts for appointed positions on Natural Resources Agency boards and commissions to increase community
representation.
(F) Identify opportunities for tribal governments and community-based organizations to cocreate and comanage parks and outdoor spaces.
(G) Continue to grow the Natural Resources Agency’s capacity to meaningfully engage underserved communities.
(5) Build equitable career pathways and a representative workforce. This priority includes strategies that:
(A) Bridge internship, conservation corps, and other career development programs to careers with the state.
(B) Enhance strategies and inclusive career outreach and programming through dedicated staff at the Natural Resources Agency’s career center.
(C) Continue
coordination of intra-agency workgroups and the Department of Human Resources to reassess job classifications, hiring processes, and salary ranges.
(D) Continue coordination efforts of intra-agency workgroups to develop career pathways strategies to support aligned efforts in employee retention.
(6) Align funding to achieve Outdoors for All. This priority includes strategies that:
(A) Develop and communicate an inventory of equitable access investments and impact.
(B) Prioritize resource efficiency and reduce redundancies.
(C) Establish partnerships with philanthropic and for-profit sectors.
(D) Align existing funding sources
to create multibenefit projects and programs.
(E) Streamline standards and decisionmaking tools for equitable outdoor access to determine strategic investments for the state.
(b) The Governor’s office, state agencies, and the Legislature, when distributing resources towards conservation and restoration goals during future budgetary deliberations, are encouraged to ensure parity in allocations toward urban nature-based investments.
(c) State funding agencies, including, but not limited to, the conservancies established pursuant to Sections 31100, 32320, 32510, 32555, 32602, 32633, 33200, and 33501 of this code and Section 66906 of the Government Code and the Wildlife Conservation Board, shall, when programming and awarding funds to revise, modify, or amend guidelines as necessary to meet the 30x30 goal, allow for
urban nature-based projects on degraded lands to be eligible and competitive for state funds.