The San Francisco Bay Area Conservancy (the Bay Conservancy) helps public agencies and private nonprofit organizations preserve open space, protect and restore fish and wildlife habitat, promote the use of habitat restoration projects for environmental education, provide public access to open space areas, and restore urban waterfronts in the nine Bay Area counties.

To accomplish these goals , the Bay Conservancy staff works actively and collaboratively with project stakeholders, providing both funding and services. We may assist with such varied project needs as building consensus among stakeholders; crafting and negotiating the terms of a property acquisition; assembling matching funds; and engaging and directing the work of biologists, engineers, or other specialists. The needs of the particular project determine the type of assistance that the Bay Conservancy provides.

The size and complexity of Bay Conservancy projects range from creating and managing multi-year regional programs with scores of stakeholder groups to funding property acquisitions that enlarge parks and protect wildlife habitat to funding incremental habitat restoration by students and other volunteers.

Since the Bay Conservancy was created by the Legislature in 1997 as a special program within the State Coastal Conservancy and began receiving appropriations earmarked for the Bay Area in 1999, we have helped develop and fund over 230 projects , urban and rural, large and small, in Bay and Delta waters, in streams and on land.