The program has three goals: to save the great ecosystems of the North American West; to reduce the environmental impacts of fossil-fuel energy systems by promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy sources; and to build an infrastructure for environmental concerns among California's growing but still underrepresented populations in the L.A. basin and the Central Valley.
The Hewlett Foundation has supported environmental protection in the West for years. The lands in the West are vast and majestic, but fragile, and today they face unprecedented development pressures.
Energy and global warming have been called the chief environmental concerns of our time. Energy problems are solvable at a very modest cost, but not without much greater political will.
And California, long the leader in environmental policy, is undergoing a vast demographic shift. California's fast-growing regions and populations need sound representation on environmental issues, backed by science and built upon the community concerns of these new constituencies.
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