The San Francisco Bay Area is bejeweled with hundreds of parks and open space preserves as well as a rich set of laws and policies meant to ensure the survival of vulnerable species and ecosystems. Real people made this happen through a dedicated call to stewardship.

Saving El Palo Alto

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Imagine a landmark so prominent that anyone looking south from San Francisco or north from San Jose could spot it. Spanish missionary Padre Pedro Font wrote in his diary in March 1776: “I beheld in the distance a tree of … Read more

Darn ‘Skeeters, the Unwelcome Summer Guests

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A little standing water is all it takes for mosquitoes to get going, so it’s no wonder they’ve been making evolutionary hay for over 30 million years—and acting as efficient disease transporters along the way, even here in the temperate Bay Area.

Disappearance of Native Oaks in the Bay Area

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Although solidly rooted in California’s natural and cultural history, our native oaks are disappearing at an alarming rate. The loss of these magnificent trees to urbanization and Sudden Oak Death has been widely publicized, but there is another threat that … Read more

Altamont Pass Wind Debate

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In the January-March 2004 issue of Bay Nature, Ear to the Ground covered the deaths of hundreds of raptors each year at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in Livermore. In response to the large numbers of bird kills in … Read more

Bolinas Lagoon

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Land management changes are also on the table for the Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County. Beginning in the 1880s, logging, road-building, and grazing around this 1,100-acre tidal estuary introduced tremendous amounts of silt to the lagoon’s mudflats and marshlands. The … Read more

Magna Albany Mall Plan

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In May of 2002, Magna Entertainment Corporation, owner of the Golden Gate Fields racetrack, adjacent to Berkeley and Albany, proposed a development project totaling more than 1 million square feet, in place of the existing racetrack. In February of 2004, … Read more

Marine Sanctuaries Public Comment

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The Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association is also encouraging folks from coastal California to participate in several last-chance review planning sessions for the Gulf of the Farallones, Monterey Bay, and the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries. Since 2001, the sanctuaries have … Read more

Rush Ranch and China Camp Become a NERR

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Rush Ranch Open Space features the largest intact brackish tidal marsh in the San Francisco Estuary. That’s why it has been designated, along with China Camp State Park, as California’s newest and largest National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR). The NERR … Read more