The Conservancy appoints Christina Fischer as new executive director.

September 1, 2011

 After a national search, the Board of Governors for the Santa Lucia Conservancy is delighted to announce the selection of Christy Fischer as our new Executive Director.

Christy has dedicated over 20 years to leading innovative, science-based approaches to protecting biodiversity on privately owned lands in California. A Central Coast native and life-long resident, Christy developed and managed an award-winning ecological monitoring program for Santa Clara County creeks and served as Executive Director of the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District before joining The Nature Conservancy in 2000, where she led TNC's work in the Monterey Bay region for the past seven years. Recent accomplishments with TNC include working directly with seven multi-generational ranching families to permanently protect over 23,000 acres of exceptional grasslands, oak savannas, streams and riparian woodlands; improving steelhead trout access to over 70 miles of critical habitat, leading collaborative efforts with Salinas Valley vegetable growers to improve national agricultural policies, and raising over $20,000,000 in private and public conservation funds to support these efforts.

In January 2011, Christy received a national award for conservation leadership from the National Marine Fisheries Service as a result of her successes working with landowners on the Salinas and Arroyo Seco Rivers in Monterey County, and also received The Nature Conservancy's statewide "MVP" award for team leadership and individual accomplishments in the region. What could lure her away from such success with The Nature Conservancy? Check out her interview with the Santa Lucia Conservancy's Chair of the Board of Governors, Bill Shaw to find out.

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An Interview with New Santa Lucia Conservancy Executive Director, Christy Fischer

Hear more about Christy's passion for innovation and conservation in the Central Coast in the following interview, captured as she is completing her first month in her new role.

Bill: What motivated you to accept this new role with Santa Lucia Conservancy?

Christy: The last 10 years have seen one of the greatest surges of public funding for conservation that we may ever experience, and I have been privileged to be a part of that. Future generations will reap the rewards of these investments through the human and economic benefits of healthier air, water, and lands. As the funding tide turns, however, we can see clearly that our work is not done. To ensure a sustainable future for our children, there are additional lands and waters that must be managed to ensure their ecological health. The question is: how can we accomplish this? We need new tools for working together with communities to identify and protect the most important places, with little public funding and without eliminating the economic productivity of the land. Tom Gray and the Rancho San Carlos Partnership built a strong foundation for something very exciting and important here on the Preserve, which may offer a valuable model for conservation in the post-bond world.

But beyond that, heading up the Santa Lucia Conservancy as Executive Director is simply an opportunity I couldn't pass up. The Conservancy's primary purpose is working with a vibrant, conservation-minded community to protect, steward, and learn from a unique approach in one of the most spectacular places on Earth. This is important work, in the corner of the world I hold most dear, and offers the opportunity to help lead the way for future conservation efforts throughout the West and beyond. Pretty hard to say 'no' to that!

Bill: Why do you feel the Santa Lucia Preserve could be such an important model?

Christy: Through the extraordinary vision and commitment of the Rancho San Carlos Partnership and others who participated in the planning process, 90% -- 18,000 acres of the 20,000 acre Santa Lucia Preserve -- has been permanently protected without any commitment of public funds. That is an amazing achievement. To put it into context, a neighboring property, the roughly 10,000 acre Palo Corona Ranch, was purchased with public funds in 2002 for around $37,000,000. Even more remarkable, perhaps, was the simultaneous creation of a strong, independent non-profit organization – the Santa Lucia Conservancy – to ensure the long-term stewardship of the natural resources supported by those 18,000 acres. But to know if the model really works, we need to understand how well those protected lands are doing in terms of sustaining biodiversity and healthy functioning natural processes, like watersheds.

Bill: That sounds like a big challenge. Do we have what it takes to do it here?

Christy: Creating and testing a new model for conservation doesn't happen overnight, especially when the goal is sustaining the ecological health of a large, complex landscape. But here at the Santa Lucia Preserve we have a tremendous advantage. In addition to extensive biological assessments performed as part of the original development proposal, the Santa Lucia Conservancy's crack science staff has spent the last twelve or more years assembling a tremendous body of information regarding the natural assets of the Preserve – from spotted owls in old growth redwoods to tiger salamanders in old stock ponds – which can be used to assess how effective this community design is proving to be for preserving biodiversity. This wealth of scientific data offers a unique opportunity to gauge the success of this great experiment in conservation-development design.

Bill: Who will be interested in hearing what we learn, and how might it be used in other places?

Christy: The lessons we learn here can help inform and influence conservation strategies and development decisions anywhere there is a confluence of highly diverse, ecologically important lands and a growing human population. On the Preserve, the design that made the most sense in 1995, given the extraordinary value of the land and the local real estate market, was to create an affluent luxury community. However, in other markets and geographies, it is likely a similar approach could be effective on other economic levels as well. Throughout the West and well beyond, the private housing market is likely to recover long before public conservation dollars begin to flow once again. Effective, science-based conservation-development models will be an increasingly important strategy for protecting ecologically sensitive lands and waters, wherever they may be. The Santa Lucia Conservancy is well-positioned to help lead this effort.

Bill: Can you say more about how important the people who live on the Santa Lucia Preserve are to the long term health of its lands, waters, and wildlife?

Christy: The residents and staff of the Preserve are essential partners in this conservation design. Without their initial investments, the Preserve would never have come into being. As we move forward into the future, their commitment to the health of this special place continues to be essential. While the Conservancy is here to help ensure the natural legacy of the Preserve is protected, it is the individual, day to day decisions of the Preserve residents and staff that make the biggest difference in the long run. Well managed lands pay all kinds of dividends to society, among them safe drinking water, abundant wildlife, protection from catastrophic wildfire, carbon storage, and places of extraordinary beauty. Working together in this special place, the Conservancy and the community are creating a lasting legacy that will contribute to the health of future generations both on the Preserve and in the broad, exquisite coastal landscape far beyond.

Bill: How do you see your role moving forward?

Christy: The Executive Director of a small non-profit is responsible both for managing the staff and day-to-day business of the organization and also providing the leadership and guidance necessary to ensure it fulfills its purpose in terms of contributing to the health and well-being of the communities it serves. I am looking forward with great delight to the opportunity to work with the talented board and staff of the organization, the many committed Preserve members who love this place, our close partner, the Sonoran Institute, and the broader science and conservation community to ensure the Santa Lucia Conservancy achieves its full potential in advancing both the art and the science of conservation in the West.