Our mission

To create an “Emerald Necklace” green infrastructure network, an Emerald Necklace Vision Map of parks and trails throughout the Los Angeles Basin to connect the Mountains to the Sea, and in doing so, improve access to recreation and link Southern Californian communities to nature and each other, expand access to safe non-vehicular transportation, create culturally meaningful public spaces within blighted communities, and protect urban communities from the harmful effects posed by climate change.

What is the Emerald Necklace?

The Emerald Necklace is an interconnected loop of parks and greenways along our urban waterways. Nestled in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley and extending from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Angeles National Forest down to the Pacific Ocean, providing desperately needed recreational areas.

Emerald Necklace Vision Plan

An important part of our mission is working with other organizations to make the Los Angeles region into a recognized leader in park and green space creation opportunities working to offset the effects of climate change.

In 2005, Amigos de los Rios introduced the initial Emerald Necklace Vision Plan that outlined a detailed strategy for the development of a 17-mile loop of beautiful multi-benefit parks and green-ways connecting 10 cities and nearly 500,000 residents along the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel rivers watershed areas of East Los Angeles County.

Over the past 15 years, we have been working as a liaison between the community and public agencies to facilitate the collaborative effort known as the Emerald Necklace Expanded Vision Plan.