The Los Angeles City Council on March 2 approved a motion that directs the city’s Department of General Services to identify city-owned surplus property in the Santa Monica Mountains Zone and codify that the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy shall have the first right of refusal to acquire such lands for conservation.

In 2008, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa initiated the “Own A Piece of L.A.” program to itemize, account for and offer undevelopable slivers of city surplus land and/or remnant parcels to adjoining neighbors, since the properties are deemed incapable of independent development and can only be of use to adjoining property owners.

However, with advanced engineering innovations in recent decades, development in sensitive ecological areas has increased, resulting in the fragmentation and degradation of essential remaining wildlife habitat connectivity and corridors, particularly in the Santa Monica Mountains Zone, which is home to the Southern California subpopulation of the mountain lion.

Local mountain lions are now a “candidate” species under consideration for listing as “threatened” under the California Endangered Species Act by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“While I have been working with the city planning department for the better part of a decade to protect wildlife habitat connectivity in the Santa Monica Mountains, it is imperative that we be certain we are not at the same time inadvertently selling off parcels for development that could obstruct the very linkages we are working so hard to protect,” Councilman Paul Koretz, 5th District, said.

“Wildlife habitat connectivity is so essential to the survival of the cornerstone species we share our Santa Monica mountains with, and many areas are in serious danger of being blocked if we do not act urgently and consciously,” said Paul Edelman, deputy director of natural resources and planning for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Los Angeles is located in a global biodiversity hotspot called the California Floristic Province, which means that it includes more than 1,500 endemic plant species, that at least 70% of the area’s original habitat has been lost and that the rest is endangered by human activities.

Much of the remaining biodiversity within Los Angeles is located in the mountains and hillsides including the Santa Monica Mountains Zone. Plants and animals need the interconnected ecosystems to continue to exist and flourish within the urban context, and the biodiversity hotspot is jeopardized by increased development and habitat fragmentation.