Safeguarding Communities

Our Program

The Sierra Club Safeguarding Communities Initiative will help communities reduce and prepare for the current and coming effects of climate change. This initiative is focused on achieving four primary outcomes:

1. Help reduce the wildfire hazard to rural communities.


2. Protect coastal communities by restoring and protecting coastal wetlands, dunes, and natural vegetation and by relocating human habitations a safe distance inland.


3. Protect and restore natural areas that serve as the water source for human communities and natural systems.


4. Convert natural hazard zones (floodplains, shorelines, landslide zones, avalanche chutes etc.) into natural areas that are free of human habitations. When extreme weather events occur there will be less property damage and loss of life, and the natural areas will provide valuable habitat for wildlife stressed by climate change.

Be Prepared

Carbon dioxide emissions already in the atmosphere will continue to heat the climate and threaten our communities for at least the next 40 years. That means in order to survive and thrive in a warmer world, communities vulnerable to climate change must prepare for more intense storms, drought, fire, water shortages, rising sea levels and other inevitable consequences of global warming.  Read more

• Safeguarding Communities Main
• Protecting Coastal Communities
• PLAN!T NOW Initiative
• Lead
• Mercury
• Protecting Clean Water