Year-end reflections as a new year approaches
Just over two years ago, I had the honor of joining CNPS as Executive Director. I was fortunate to enter the organization right as we were hosting the 2022 CNPS Conference in San Jose. That event turned out to be our most successful and inspiring conference to date. There, I was able to see the fullness of California’s native plant movement and was struck by the sense we were on the precipice of something big.
Since my earliest days on the job, I’ve witnessed our community of volunteers, members, supporters, partners and staff collectively achieve more than we could have dreamed possible. Together, we’ve celebrated national monument expansions, millions of acres of vegetation mapping, the 50th anniversary of the CNPS Rare Plant Inventory, the launch of a new Calscape.org website, a symphony of local chapter actions in every corner of the state, a new Education & Stewardship Program, and a unified vision around Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice. It’s not surprising to me that along with these many accomplishments and more, CNPS membership is now at an all-time high.
As we approach 2025, we do so in a spirit of celebration and adaptation. Celebration, because 2025 will mark CNPS’s 60-year anniversary, representing decades of achievement, generations of friendships, and deep purpose. Adaptation because we are entering a time of significant uncertainty and urgency in the world. As we commemorate CNPS’s long-standing strength, we will need to focus that energy as never before.
In October, I attended the (COP16) in Colombia, as part of an extended California delegation. Over those days, the world’s leaders gathered to address the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes the “30 by 30” (30×30) goal to protect 30% of the world’s lands and coastal waters by 2030 (on our way to 50% by 2050). This large-scale protection of lands and waters is essential to protecting nature and ecosystem processes, which are also key to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. California plays a particularly important role in advocating for progress as one of the world’s leaders in 30×30. At COP16, we learned that global warming is accelerating even faster than we feared. We were warned to prepare for a near future in which 3 degrees of warming may be our reality – a devastating marker that compels each of us to do everything we can to avoid that outcome and protect life as we know it.
Today, CNPS—as part of a network of organization, government, Tribal, academic, and industry partners—must do what we can to accelerate action to address the intertwined biodiversity and climate crises. We must ask ourselves how we as a native plant community and as individuals can contribute the most to solutions. How can we make the biggest difference?
From CNPS headquarters in Sacramento, we are hard at work on this question, as we finalize initial planning for three statewide biodiversity campaigns that will allow us to implement our CNPS Strategic Plan in the most ambitious and holistic possible way. We do so with determination and hope, and with humility, because we will need each other—you and me and everyone who reads this message—to realize our goals. You’ll see more on these biodiversity campaigns in early 2025, as we share them across CNPS and with our network of partners.
In closing, I want to express my deepest gratitude for you, our members and supporters. We stand together as part of California’s powerful environmental community, and our light shines brightly as we look to the future.
Happy holidays!
Dr. Jun Bando
Executive Director, California Native Plant Society
