Parks, wildlands, and wildlife

For over a century, preservation of wild places and parks has been central to the Sierra Club's mission. A single Yodeler can present no more than a few highlights, but we promise you news and action alerts for our parks, wildlands, and wildlife in pretty much every issue.

Important progress is being made in almost every region of our Chapter.

• The East Bay Regional Park District is preparing to renew the tax that for 10 years has provided its funding for buying new lands. The way that it shapes its ballot measure will play a great role in the future of the East Bay.
• In eastern Contra Costa County a new Habitat Conservation Plan will soon be taking effect. We hope that this plan can be a model for how different interest groups can come together to agree on protections for wildlife and its habitat.
• In San Francisco a movement is coming together to protect native species and their habitat in one of the densest cities in the nation. We will be writing more about these efforts in coming Yodelers, but in this issue we will lead you on a walking tour of some of the remarkable areas of wild habitat that this city has been able to preserve.

In addition to these local efforts, the Bay Chapter actively supports state and national wildland campaigns. Our articles feature several current efforts.

• Ever since the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, environmentalists have worked to bring more roadless lands under its protection. Even today under the Bush administration a steady stream of wilderness bills is being passed.
• The National Landscape Conservation System includes some of the grandest federal wildlands. It is a new role for the Bureau of Land Management to carry out such a conservationist mandate.
• The Sierra Club is inaugurating an effort to expand the National Park System to include the complete range of the nation's ecological regions.
• One of the great problems for wildlands today is the use of off-road vehicles, which disturb wildlife and hikers alike, and damage soils and plant life. California is considering changes that could strengthen management of these destructive vehicles.

Also since the Club's earliest days we have organized hikes to bring people to nature and educate them about what's out there to be preserved. Our volunteers of the month for this issue, Diane Smith and Guy Mayes, are two of the Chapter's many outstanding hike leaders.

Still another of the Club's oldest traditions has been the use of photography to document and display the beauties of nature. In this issue we present a selection of the winners of this year's Yodeler Photo Contest.