The Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve (ESNERR) and the Elkhorn Slough Foundation work separately and together within the watershed to protect and restore its habitats and resources. Each organization's stewardship program is primarily concerned with the properties it owns or manages, but the methods and goals remain the same.

• Protect intact, native habitats and sensitive species
• Restore degraded conservation targets
• Manage habitats that require ongoing manipulation
• Use restoration science and or adaptive management techniques that allow us to share, scientifically, with other land managers which techniques work, and which do not.
• Use a historical ecology model to research our local past and guide our management decisions
  
  

What is Stewardship and why do we need it?

ESNERR Stewardship Program
In order to preserve the important natural habitats that remain, the Elkhorn Slough Reserve’s stewardship program gives high priority to habitat protection within Reserve boundaries. In areas already degraded by past land uses, invasive species, or pollution, the stewardship program endeavors to sustainably restore at least some of the lost aspects of local biodiversity and natural processes.

ESF Stewardship Program
In the late 1990s, Elkhorn Slough Foundation made the strategic decision to acquire, protect and manage
lands, thus becoming a land trust. With the help of its partners, the Foundation adopted its Watershed Conservation Plan in 1999, calling for the balanced conservation of land and embracing the notion of a working landscape. The plan specifies four areas slated for protection:

1. The Northern Crescent of highlands above Elkhorn Slough, which drain into the Slough’s primary source of fresh water, Carneros Creek;
2. The Southern Crescent, bordering the Reserve;
3. Moro Cojo Slough, just south of Elkhorn Slough; and
4. The freshwater wetlands of Springfield Terrace, west of Elkhorn Slough.

Restoration Projects: See what both organizations have accomplished by checking out our Restoration Projects.

Get involved by volunteering.