Goals and Progress
The goal of RCA is to fulfill the mandate of the MSHCP to set aside 500,000 acres of western Riverside County for the preservation of habitat and protection of the 146 species listed in the MSHCP. While the RCA’s permit from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to do this work lasts until 2079, most of RCA’s work of acquiring land is expected to take place in the first 25 years.
While 69%, or 347,000 acres was already public or quasi-public land when RCA was formed in 2004, 153,000 acres remained to be set aside.
The MSHCP identified 20 core areas, 10 non-contiguous habitat blocks, and 28 linkages between areas of habitat as the system of conserved land that would meet the goals of the MSHCP for habitat preservation and species protection. Core areas have the right resources to provide live-in habitat and support the life history requirements of one or more species covered by the MSHCP. Some linkages between the core areas are large enough to provide live-in habitat but most are constrained by existing patterns of development and while they provide for movement between core areas, the options for assembling larger live-in habitat areas are limited.
These areas of core habitat and linkages are at the heart of the MSHCP. They comprise the area to which the MSHCP “criteria” are applied and from which the 153,000 acres are being acquired. This Criteria Area has been divided into cells or cell groupings for organizational and evaluation purposes.
Within this remaining 153, 000 acres, the goal for federal and state governments is about 37% or 56,000 acres and the goal for members of RCA is about 63% or 97,000 acres.
To date, RCA has acquired 41,621 acres, or 27% of the 153,000-acre goal: 15,828 from the federal and state governments, and 25,793 through its members and partner agencies.
Financial contributions toward the goal stand at $382.3 million: $129.4 million from the state and federal governments and $252.4 million locally.
Overall, Riverside County is more than 388,000 acres toward its half-million acre goal or 78%.
Every year, RCA produces an annual report that summarizes its progress toward these goals.
