Biodiversity

LOS ANGELES IS IN A BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT

Photo credit: Nurit Katz

Biodiversity is the variety of plants, animals, and other species interacting with their environment to maintain the balance of nature. In cities, these environments include the natural areas, urban landscapes, and other built environments that these species call home.

The City of Los Angeles is fortunate to be located within a globally recognized hotspot of native biodiversity. While Los Angeles is a biodiversity jewel, this designation also means that the biodiversity here is threatened, and innovative strategies are needed to ensure its resilience and sustainability. The survival and well-being of the City’s residents also depend on ecosystem services provided by biodiversity:

air pollution reduction
adapting to a changing climate
mental health and educational opportunities
water cleansing
aesthetic benefits

These services are built directly from an integrated ecosystem of natural biodiversity and sustainable urban landscapes.

GET INVOLVED

Create a wildlife habitat at your home, school, or business
Follow healthy soils principles
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BIODIVERSITY MOTION

Photo credit: Nurit Katz

In order to protect and enhance Los Angeles's biodiversity, Councilmember Koretz, who represents the 5th Council District, introduced a Biodiversity Motion. On May 10, 2017, Los Angeles City Council unanimously adopted his Biodiversity Motion, which includes three main objectives:

develop an index to measure protection, enhancement, and mitigation of impacts to biodiversity

develop policies and projects to enhance biodiversity, including improving access for communities that lack access and contribute toward broader ecosystem functions and sustainability

develop options for community outreach and engagement. City Council directed LASAN to oversee efforts to evaluate biodiversity in the City and develop an index to measure no net loss going forward.

EXPERT COUNCIL

LASAN enthusiastically embarked on this journey and brought together interested individuals to form both an Expert Council and an interdepartmental Biodiversity Team. The collective knowledge and data resources from these esteemed individuals were tapped to measure the Singapore Index and to provide the recommendations presented throughout the report.

In order to measure the Singapore Index for the City of Los Angeles and develop recommendations for a customized Los Angeles Index and biodiversity practices, LASAN’s Internal Biodiversity Team received input from City staff and local experts via three main partnerships:

An Interdepartmental Team composed of representatives from various City Departments that perform work related to biodiversity

A Stakeholder Group composed of individuals from City Departments, non-governmental non-profit organizations (NGOs), regulatory agencies, academics, and subject matter experts

An Expert Council composed of experts on various aspects of biodiversity who volunteered to lend their expertise and data to the endeavor

The Expert Council members who provided guidance on this effort represent the following organizations:

	Aquatic Bioassay and Consulting Laboratories, Inc.	Loyola Marymount University
	Arlene Hopkins & Associates	National Park Service
	Board of Public Works	Northridge Beautification Foundation
	California Department of Fish & Wildlife	Santa Monica College
	California EcoDesign	Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy
	California Native Plant Society	Stillwater Sciences
	California State University Los Angeles	StreetsLA
	Center for Biological Diversity	Studio MLA
	Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife (CLAW)	The Nature Conservancy
	City Planning	Theodore Payne Foundation
	Community Forestry Advisory Committee	Trust for Public Land
	Council for Watershed Health	UCLA
	CSUN	UCLA IoES
	Department of Recreation and Parks	UCLA, IoES, LENS
	Heal The Bay	University of California Cooperative Extension
	LA County	US Fish & Wildlife Service
	LA County Natural History Museum	US Forest Service
	LA Mayor’s Office	US Geological Survey
	LA Sanitation & Environment	USC
	Los Angeles Unified School District	Watershed Conservation Authority
	LA Zoo	WestEd

THE SINGAPORE INDEX ON CITIES’ BIODIVERSITY

LASAN measured the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity as the first step in implementing the Motion. Los Angeles is the first City in the U.S. to perform this measurement, joining Helsinki, Montreal, Lisbon, and a few other global cities. LASAN embraced its leadership role in this process, bringing together interested individuals to form an Expert Council and an Interdepartmental Biodiversity Team. The collective knowledge and data resources from esteemed individuals were tapped to measure the Singapore Index and provide the recommendations presented throughout this document.

See the full 2018 Biodiversity Report. Appendix A includes supporting information, links, and references integral to the 2018 Biodiversity Report. Appendix B provides additional information regarding the methods used to calculate each of the 23 indicators included in the Singapore Index for the City of Los Angeles.

CHARISMATIC UMBRELLA INDICATOR SPECIES

LASAN worked with the Biodiversity Expert Council to finalize a list of 37 indicator species for the City of Los Angeles. This list includes vertebrates and invertebrates that are avoider species, and typically are not found in built, urban environments. When these species are present, it generally means that the space possesses a broad suite of habitat quality and connectivity functions, is of sufficient size, and has relatively limited urban edge effects. LASAN's biodiversity team will track the observations of these species made on community science platforms, like iNaturalist and eBird, over time for one of the metrics in the LA City Biodiversity Index.

2020 BIODIVERSITY REPORT

LASAN is pleased to share the 2020 Los Angeles Biodiversity Report, the second such report produced for the City of Los Angeles. This document builds upon the action items and concepts identified in the 2018 Biodiversity Report, which documented measurement of the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity for Los Angeles, and contained recommendations for a customized LA City Biodiversity Index. The report includes the following:

Chapter 1- the LA City Biodiversity Index
Chapter 2- the “ecotopes” spatial management framework
Chapter 3- an approach for measuring urban habitat quality and connectivity in Los Angeles
Chapter 4- biodiversity case studies

Please see links at the bottom of the page to download the report, accompanying appendices, and associated public presentations.

AN INDEX SPECIFIC TO LOS ANGELES

Photo credit: Nurit Katz

The LA City Biodiversity Index is tailored specifically to the Los Angeles context and is designed to monitor progress toward the no-net loss target. The LA City Biodiversity Index was crafted with the guidance of project stakeholders and an Expert Council of local practitioners, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scholars, and City staff. It is intended to be institutionalized within municipal environmental management practices as a central tool in implementing a future LA Biodiversity Policy and guiding long-term management and monitoring of biodiversity stewardship. It includes three core themes of urban biodiversity: conservation of native biodiversity, social justice aspects of biodiversity, with a focus on equity, and governance and management activities.

SEPTEMBER 2018 EXPERT COUNCIL WORKSHOP

This workshop continued the discussion on developing a Los Angeles Biodiversity Index and the vision for biodiversity in the City. Here is a link to the presentations.

Dr. Mas Dojiri - LA Sanitation & Environment
September 2018 Expert Council Workshop

Katie Mika - City of Los Angeles Mayor's Office of Sustainability
Conserving and Enhancing L.A.'s Biodiversity

Conni Pallini-Tipton - Department of City Planning
Wildlife Study for the City of L.A.

Brad Shaffer and Joscha Beninde - UCLA
Urban Landscape Genomics of L.A.

Isaac Brown - LA Sanitation & Environment
Biodiversity Project Approach Roundtable

NOVEMBER 2020 APLD + LASAN BIODIVERSITY SYMPOSIUM

Dr. Isaac Brown - Stillwater Sciences
LA Ecotopes: A Spacial Framework and Database for Urban Biodiversity Stewardship

Dr. Mas Dojiri and Michelle Barton - LA Sanitation & Environment
LASAN's Biodiversity Update and the Los Angeles City Biodiversity Index