Chile California Conservation Exchange 2019
THE CCCX PROJECT
The Chile California Council sponsors the Chile California Conservation Exchange (CCCX), an independent project initiated by Board members Ralph Benson and Tomás McKay. The CCCX Project was inspired by the remarkable similarities of the landscapes, coastlines and ecologies of Chile and California.
Each year, starting in 2017, the CCCX Project has invited approximately 35 Chilean leaders from the Government, academia, foundations and the nonprofit sector to gather and meet over three days with a like number of their California peers.
The first conference, in 2017, was in Sonoma County. In 2018 the CCCX conference was in Santa Cruz and in 2019 it was on Tomales Bay near Pt. Reyes.
Topics addressed include the climate crisis, coastal planning and management, marine protected areas, fisheries, large landscape protection strategies, implementation of the derecho real de conservación, the value of Mediterranean landscapes, support for national parks, private land conservation standards and practices, tax policy and conservation philanthropy,
The Project has spawned multiple ongoing collaborations and international friendships.
Links to the 2017, 2018 and 2019 conference programs and reports are below.
A 2020 conference was planned for Santiago, but events intervened – the pandemic and el estallido. It is unlikely that a large gathering will happen before 2022. In the meantime the CCCX Project is focusing on the “public trust doctrine” – a legal concept that is foundational to resource protection in California but not a part of Chilean law. The CCCX Project has assembled the leading scholars on the public trust doctrine in the U.S. and linked them with a group of leading constitutional and environmental law professors from law schools throughout Chile. Together they are producing a policy paper on the public trust doctrine and its potential relevance to Chile. The paper is expected by early 2021 and will be followed by webinars sponsored by the Council.
The CCCX Project has been funded by generous grants from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Marisla Foundation, the Weeden Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Resources Legacy Fund, the Windward Fund, and several individual friends.
