conservation – Enviro Updates

Bill would shift state demonstration forests from logging to restoration

February 20, 2026

Sarah Stierch, MENDOCINO VOICE

A bill to change how California’s demonstration state forests are managed — placing greater emphasis on research, public access and forest restoration rather than logging — was introduced in the State Assembly on Friday.

Assembly Bill 2494 was introduced by Assemblymember Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa and co-authored by state Senator Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg.

According to Cal Fire, California has 14 demonstration state forests totaling 85,000 acres. Unlike state parks, they are working forests. Cal Fire manages the lands that are used to test and show forestry practices, conduct research, and harvest timber while remaining open to the public for recreation.

Two of the state’s 14 demonstration forests are in Rogers’ district: Jackson Demonstration State Forest in Mendocino County and Ellen Pickett State Forest in Trinity County.

Rogers introduced the bill with the goal of modernizing policies that he says haven’t been updated in decades and are not aligned with the state’s current climate initiatives.

Under current law, known as the State Demonstration Act, timber production is a key part of how demonstration forests are funded and managed. AB 2494 would shift that emphasis by stating that research, recreation and forest restoration are the primary purposes of the forests.

Forestsconservation, forest restoration, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, recreation, redwoods, sustainable logging

Conservation group purchases historic Sonoma County family ranch

December 19, 2025

Sam Mauhay-Moore, SFGATE

A Santa Rosa-based environmental nonprofit recently purchased a historic Sonoma County ranch complete with a trout-filled creek and a 13-foot-wide, 1,000-year-old redwood tree.

Calvi Ranch, a 69-acre property west of Occidental, had been owned by the Calvi family since 1935. In November, the conservation group LandPaths purchased the ranch from the family with funding from the California State Coastal Conservancy and anonymous donations, the nonprofit announced in a news release Dec. 10.

The ranch operated as a sawmill when it opened, but only smaller trees were cut — allowing the property’s old growth and mature second-growth trees to remain, including the massive, thousand-year-old redwood. Giovanni “Rico” Calvi, the ranch’s former owner, once raised goats on the property, the Press Democrat reported.

“I will never forget my first visit to the incredible Calvi property,” California Coastal Commission vice chair Caryl Hart said in the news release. “Dropping down into the redwoods, to the creeks and the beautiful meadows. The idea that it could become a LandPaths’ preserve was like a dream.”

Forests, Land Useconservation, Land Paths, redwoods

Urgent new ‘roadmap to recovery’ could reverse insect apocalypse

January 6, 2020

Patrick Greenfield, THE GUARDIAN

Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and aggressive emission reductions among series of solutions outlined by scientists

The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts.

The call to action by more than 70 scientists from across the planet advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species.

Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers used in industrial farming and aggressive greenhouse gas emission reductions are among a series of urgent “no-regret” solutions to reverse what conservationists have called the “unnoticed insect apocalypse”.

Alongside these measures, scientists must urgently establish which herbivores, detritivores, parasitoids, predators and pollinators are priority species for conservation, according to a new paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The animals are crucial to the healthy functioning of ecosystems by recycling nutrients, serving as pollinators and acting as food for other wildlife.

The paper comes amid repeated warnings about the threat of human-driven insect extinction causing a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, with more than 40% of insect species declining and a third endangered, according to the first worldwide scientific review, published in February 2019.

Climate Change & Energy, Wildlifeconservation, extinctions, insects, pesticides, pollinators, synthetic fertilizers

Trawlers return to Pacific fishing area in rare environmental success story

December 26, 2019

Associated Press, THE GUARDIAN

A rare environmental success story is unfolding in waters off the US west coast.

After years of fear and uncertainty, bottom trawler fishermen – those who use nets to catch rockfish, bocaccio, sole, Pacific Ocean perch and other deep-dwelling fish – are making a comeback here, reinventing themselves as a sustainable industry less than two decades after authorities closed huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean because of the species’ depletion.

The ban devastated fishermen, but on 1 January, regulators will reopen an area roughly three times the size of Rhode Island off Oregon and California to groundfish bottom trawling – all with the approval of environmental groups that were once the industry’s biggest foes.

The rapid turnaround features collaboration between the fishermen and environmentalists who spent years refining a long-term fishing plan that will continue to resuscitate the groundfish industry while permanently protecting thousands of square miles of reefs and coral beds that benefit the overfished species.

Now, the fishermen who see their livelihood returning must solve another piece of the puzzle: drumming up consumer demand for fish that haven’t been in grocery stores or on menus for a generation.

“It’s really a conservation home run,” said Shems Jud, regional director for the Environmental Defense Fund’s ocean program. “The recovery is decades ahead of schedule. It’s the biggest environmental story that no one knows about.”

Agriculture/Food System, Sonoma Coast, Wildlifeconservation, fisheries, groundfish, overfishing

Sonoma Valley zoologist seeks creative ways to save mountain lions — and the planet

June 8, 2019

Austin Murphy, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The day after a young male mountain lion made national news by paying a visit to the Santa Rosa Plaza in April, Quinton Martins ventured a guess as to why the feline ended up at the mall.

“Maybe he was going to the Apple Store to upgrade his Sierra,” deadpanned Martins, a big cat expert with a doctorate in zoology, a robust sense of humor and some unconventional ideas about how best to save the planet.

He followed that one-liner with a slew of scientific analysis. But the quip was vintage Martins, whose public relations instincts are as sharp as his tranquilizer darts. He is the South African-born founder of Glen Ellen’s Living With Lions, a project he leads for Audubon Canyon Ranch. One of his missions is to educate landowners, to show them that it’s better to coexist with apex predators than it is to shoot them.

With the help of volunteers and veterinarians on his team, Martins traps the big cats and collars them, allowing the public to monitor their movements and, in a way, get to know them. Not everyone is on board with this marketing-based approach.

“He’s told us many times he wants his animals to be media stars,” said Greg Martinelli, lands program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “There’s a difference between science and advocacy.” With Martins, he thinks, “those lines are a little blurred.”

Martins, for his part, makes no apologies for his unorthodox approach.

“Obviously we need to keep doing science,” he said. “But we have enough scientific information to know that the environment is in a desperate state, and something drastic needs to be done.”

The man who seeks nothing less than to overhaul and defibrillate the conservation movement grew up in Welkom, South Africa, which he describes as “a crappy gold-mining town” 90 miles northeast of Bloemfontein. His happiest hours were spent outdoors, camping and fishing with his father.

“We used to go to some pretty cool, wild places, to go fishing,” Martins said. “I remember the connection to nature, just sitting quietly, enjoying that peace.

Habitats, Wildlifebobcats, conservation, mountain lions, safety

Save the Redwoods League releases book on state of redwood forests on 100th anniversary

January 18, 2019

Meg McConahey, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

… California’s state tree is not out of the woods. More than a million acres of redwood forests remain unprotected, managed for timber. And even the protected forests’ health is threatened by the degraded land surrounding them, Hodder said. Some forests have been logged multiple times. Among the league’s current initiatives is to help existing forests regenerate, a difficult task considering the complexity of the old growth ecosystems that developed over millennia.

They are among the most awe-inspiring natural wonders of the world. As Mother Nature’s skyscrapers, redwoods are among the tallest living things on the planet — the most gargantuan approaching 400 feet. And although not the oldest — the bristlecone pine has a longer lifespan by a good measure — the most senior denizens of the redwood forests were alive during the lifetime of Julius Caesar.

Today, less than five percent of the original 2.2 million acres of coast redwood forests, which once covered the Northern California and Southern Oregon coast for more than 200 million years, still survive.

It took a scant 150 years for loggers and then major timber companies to fell California’s primeval forests. But one organization, the Save the Redwoods League, can be credited with helping to preserve what was left of these titans that had flourished since the days of the dinosaurs.

The conservation organization, which claims credit for helping to preserve 212,000 acres of coast redwoods and their cousins, the giant sequoias that inhabit the western slope of the Sierra, is celebrating its centennial, and marking the event with publication of a new book, “The Once and Future Forest: California’s Iconic Redwoods.”

Forests, Habitatsconservation, logging, redwoods

SDC study recommends confining development to existing campus

July 1, 2018

Chris Lee, KENWOOD PRESS

For more information about the site: Transform SDC

A conceptual plan for the future of the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) proposes large portions be designated for wildlife corridors and natural areas, with any new development confined to the existing central campus. This outline was presented at a June 23 “community workshop,” hosted by the consulting firm Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT), authors of a pending 3,000-page “Existing Conditions Report,” to offer a preview of its findings. Some 200 people attended.

The material that was presented focused primarily on the results of surveys and community outreach about the 860-acre campus, and an inventory of campus land and buildings. Notably, the land use proposal was presented as a recommendation from the consulting firm, not merely an expression of public opinion. “This is a framework for how we think the conversation should move forward,” WRT Principal Jim Stickley said.

The community input that informed the study was more direct. “A large hotel or resort would be seen as a failure,” said Tania Carlone, a facilitator for Consensus Building Institute, a subcontractor of WRT. “The general feeling was that there is a saturation of luxury homes, of tourism. Folks were consistently concerned that the development in the core campus could encroach on the open space.”

Supervisor Susan Gorin agreed that the community wants open space and parks. “This is who we are and this is what we value and believe in,” she said. Economist Walter Kieser of Economic & Planning Systems, another WRT expert, cautioned that the county’s housing shortage and low residential vacancy rate could create pressure to explore other options. “You see tension between uses that have a lot of market potential and uses that have a lot of community value,” he said. In the subsequent question and answer session, local resident Scott Braun was explicit about the possibility of a big development. “Anyone who thinks there aren’t plans out there is living in a fool’s paradise.”

Commissioned by the state, the $2 million WRT study began 14 months ago but was interrupted by the October fires. Completion is expected in July or August. As part of the study, 65 community members were interviewed. From this input, consultants identified five community priorities: protection of SDC land and water, preservation of a legacy of care, community character and historical preservation, contribution to economic diversity and viability of Sonoma Valley, and a focus on community benefit.

Land Use, Wildlifeconservation, housing shortage, Sonoma Developmental Center, wildlife corridor