Protecting habitat and open space Bay Area and beyond

In some ways the Sierra Club's work for habitat and open space, in the Bay Area and beyond, is a straightforward continuation of the Club's oldest traditions - yet who among the founders could have anticipated today's urban needs and the threat of global climate disruption - and the ways that they would influence our conservation work today?

With 50% of the world's population living in cities (and the proportion is growing), we face a growing need for protecting wildlands near cities. These can not be vast pristine areas free of human impacts and presence, but they are essential for protecting the species that live in these urban areas - our own Bay Area is a biological hot spot of rare and endangered species - and they give urban dwellers opportunities to experience nature. Another key role of urban wildlands is for migratory birds. The Bay Area is on the Pacific Flyway, and many species are adapted to stopping here for rest and refueling. The wildlands that we protect here, especially bayshore and other wetlands, are critical for migratory birds.

Another unprecedented concern comes from global climate disruption and the vast wave of human-induced extinctions. As climates warm, many species will no longer be able to survive in their present ranges. By protecting larger, connected lands, we give these species the chance to move into other higher or more northerly, cooler locations. Similarly, as global sea levels rise, shoreline species will need to be able to move inland. Additional, less-predictable changes may create other kinds of habitat needs. Today's efforts to create continuous wild areas, to protect buffer zones, and to preserve patches of protected lands that may harbor genetically varied populations will be the key to survival of many species over decades and centuries.

Many of these lands are not the pristine wilds that the Sierra Club focused on its early days, but in today's world they play essential ecological roles.

Several of the articles in this Yodeler tell about campaigns for protecting particular wildlands scattered around Northern California. These lands happen to be unfamiliar to many of us, but they are within a few hours drive of the Bay Area, and deserve to be known better. With our large urban population, the Bay Chapter takes on responsibilities to help Sierra Club chapters elsewhere to protect their open spaces and wildlands.

One article tells about a major victory on logging issues - the approval of a new management plan that we hope will bring sustainable logging practices to the redwoods of Jackson State Forest (our largest state forest) in Mendocino County.

An article tells about the campaign to create a Blue Ridge Snow Mountain National Conservation Area. In this area wildlands are closely connected to farming and ranching lands, and it is vital to manage all the lands in a way that works for a variety of users and land-owners.

Even closer to home is the effort to prevent the expansion of the Cortina Landfill on Indian reservation lands on the margins of Suisun Marsh.

Within the Chapter we are always engaged in efforts to keep sprawl development out of the Bay Area's greenbelt. Our Tri-Valley Group is working to stop and reverse the expansion of the Altamont Speedway into lands that are supposed to be protected by the Alameda County Urban Growth Boundary. Similarly, in Contra Costa County we are concerned about attempts to approve "New Farm", a suburban sprawl development that could demolish the Urban Limit Line protections for all of the Tassajara Valley. At Camp Parks we are concerned about a development threat in the Livermore-Amador Valley. None of these are pristine wildlands - but they provide open space that helps define limits to our urban areas, and they are habitat for lots of wildlife, including endangered species. Even after we enact limit lines, we have to continue our efforts to keep development from encroaching on them.

Some of our efforts are about repairing human damage to our ecosystems. One article tells about a service trip by the Club's California/Nevada Desert Committee to remove fences that obstruct movement of pronghorns in the Carrizo Plain National Monument. (The Desert Committee sponsors lots of habitat-restoration outings.) Closer to home, an article tells of the Raven's or Presidio manzanita, one of the rarest of Bay Area plants, and of various opportunities for any of us to join in efforts to restore native plants all around the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. These are a part of the GGNRA Big Year project to raise awareness and protections for the GGNRA's immense variety of rare and endangered plants and animals.

One other habitat-repair project is our campaign to protect the Tomales Dunes. A recreational-vehicle park has been infringing on the dunes and operating withour required permits, and we are encouraging the county and state to bring it into compliance and to repair the damage to the dunes.

Two articles tell about opportunities to protect our aquatic habitats. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board has the opportunity to issue new permits that will greatly limit the amount of trash entering San Francisco Bay. The invasive quagga and zebra mussels are spreading into California and could devastate freshwater ecosystems, and our article tells of precautions that those of us who are boaters can take to avoid spreading these pests.

A set of articles tells of habitat and open-space opportunities in the Bay Area's urban areas. Environmental-justice leader Whitney Dotson writes about the relation between environmental justice and habitat (with special reference to the North Richmond shoreline, which he has campaigned to protect) - and how the environmental needs of wildlife and urban dwellers often coincide. An article on the Richmond General Plan tells of current efforts for zoning protection for more of these lands.

Another example of similar environmental-justice concerns is at Hunters Point and Candlestick Point in San Francisco, where the Chapter's San Francisco Group is actively involved in efforts to make sure that redevelopment does not undermine the possibilities for achieving a major bayside park to help meet the open-space needs for a community that has often been overlooked.

The Oakland hills are another area where the Northern Alameda County Group is opposing development pressures that threaten urban open space.

A joyful piece of habitat news has been the appearance of a family of beavers in downtown Martinez. Unfortunately, however, some town leaders are considering evicting the beavers, a move which could easily kill them, and we need to help them understand that beavers and people can be compatible.

At the state level, Sierra Club California is sponsoring a bill to extend outdoor-education opportunities for California children. Only if children get to experience nature are they likely to grow up to value and protect it.

Habitat and open space define a wide range of Sierra Club and Bay Chapter involvements. Practically every issue that we work on has some relation to habitat and open space, and as you read through the Conservation News section of this Yodeler, you will find other articles that might have been placed in this special section. With these concerns the Sierra Club began, and they remain permanent needs.

Donald Forman