“We’re in a place where we have more money than we have applications,” says Brandon Bates, assistant state conservationist with NRCS. And the agency really doesn’t want to have tosend this money back to Congress.
Category: Policy
Winter Issue 2024
A Last Best Hope for Coho in the Russian River
Now equipped with $8.4 million in federal money, conservationists are aiming to bring back the watershed’s salmonids
Winter Issue 2024
The Mystery of the Los Gatos Beavers
Years before beavers famously returned to Martinez, Los Gatos locals were spotting them in their creeks and ponds. How they got there, though—that’s a bit of a rabbit hole.
Latest Stories
Oakland’s Urban Tree Dreams Get (Partially) Funded
The city’s draft urban forest plan has drawn more than 800 comments—many clamoring for more native trees.
Conservation
Now We Are Asking Nature to Solve the Problems We Created
What’s a nature-based solution? An explainer.
History
How Dirt Biking Shaped the Bay Area—and the West
Sixty years ago, Bay Area bikers discovered the Panoche Hills, southeast of San José. Public lands management changed forever.
Wild Billions
Unburying the Creek Beneath It, A School Becomes a Steward
A Sausalito school gets $3 million to repair a riparian corridor, and help students reconnect with nature.
Latest Stories
Why a Mouse Matters
Salt marsh harvest mice are hard to find, and their fates offer a glimpse at our own coastal society’s future. A reporter tags along on an epic rangewide survey of salties—the Bay Area’s own endemic mouse species.
Summer Issue 2023
The Rewilding of California’s Parched Central Valley
As SGMA deadlines loom, groundwater sustainability agencies, environmental organizations, and farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are scrambling to prepare for a drier future by experimenting with ways to repurpose fallow farmland.
Summer Issue 2023
Historic Money for Bay Area Nature Has Started to Flow. The Challenge? Spending it.
Meet BIL and IRA—two federal bills with forgettable names that belie their enormous potential impact on the environment.
