Dear CNPS Members and Supporters,
We are only weeks into 2025, and likely all of us are feeling the effects of a very intense and disorienting time.
First, our hearts are with CNPS members, staff, chapters, and partners in Southern California, who are living with the direct impacts of the LA fires. People in our CNPS community have lost their homes, many were evacuated, and many more lived on high alert for days. The CNPS San Gabriel Mountains Chapter lost its restoration nursery and native seed library and is now regrouping to address the wide-scale damage and emerging threats to local habitat.
Yet, even under these terrible circumstances, so many of you have risen to the occasion as leaders and voices of recovery in your communities and beyond. I can’t imagine more powerful evidence of the importance of CNPS members and our collective work.
Together, we are providing valuable education, countering misinformation, and sharing hope by staying focused on our work, one step at a time. And that focus is needed now more than ever as we face the uncertainty ahead.
Federal implications
As you may be aware, the federal Administration issued an order last week freezing nearly all federal funding pending further review. Almost immediately, a federal judge blocked the freeze, and the Administration rescinded the order. However, federal agencies and grantees like CNPS remain uncertain of immediate and long-term implications. We are all feeling the weight of this confusion. I want to acknowledge with deep empathy our federal partners, CNPS members, staff, and organization partners who are grappling with the chaos of this moment, along with the broader federal workforce and communities who have been hardest hit by halts in government services.
CNPS is actively working with our federal contacts to understand any potential implications to our projects and how we might need to pivot our approaches for work to continue. As I write, we have not received official guidance to stop work on any of our federally-funded projects. We don’t know what will happen next, but we do know this: Our work and our mission have never been more important, and we know what must be done. Despite obstacles, we are achieving our mission—you and me and the many thousands who call themselves a CNPS member. In January, California celebrated the designation of the new Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments. We did so even as we mourned the real-time impacts of climate change in our state. The contrast of those coinciding events was yet another reminder of the urgency to protect healthy, intact ecosystems while we still can.
As CNPS, we feel a shared sense of responsibility to care for our native habitats and ensure they are passed on to future generations. And sometimes that means fighting for them.
This week, a new federal order directed Department of Interior staff to review public lands protected from fossil fuel extraction and mining development, and potentially revise protections for national monuments and other public lands. This process threatens all national monuments that were created via the Antiquities Act, including millions of acres of public lands in California.
Join CNPS Today
As we work together to protect California’s native plants and habitats, your support is more crucial than ever. Become a CNPS member today and help us continue our mission of conservation, education, and advocacy.
The good news is that California national monuments are widely supported. Not only do they protect irreplaceable habitat, they preserve culture, history, and natural places beloved for recreation. Working together with California Native American Tribes, business leaders, elected officials on both sides of the aisle, and community members, we will defend the integrity of the places Californians cherish. Please stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks.
Your advocacy through petitions, letter-writing, public testimony, and social media demonstrates the broad support for protecting California native plants and habitats that decision-makers need to see. Your local voice makes all the difference when your representatives need to know how their constituents feel about the important decisions of our time.
And it doesn’t stop with advocacy. From chapter leadership and education, to gardening, plant science, and more, your support—your actions—matter.
Now, as we hold each other up, our work continues.
Sincerely,
Jun Bando
Executive Director, CNPS
