Our friend, Ryan Jones, died on July 19th, at the age of 30, in a tragic motorcycle accident in the Bay Bridge tunnel through Yerba Buena Island. Ryan was an incomparable human being who brought inspiration, joy and comraderie to his GGNRA friends and colleagues and young people throughout the San Francisco community.
More Calendars
News
We're still here! We know it's been two months since our last newsletter, but we are back in action! While summer went by rather quickly, the kids are back in school, and vacations were not long enough, plenty of nature-related policy conversations permeated the months of June, July and August in San Francisco. Next newsletter we'll report on several fronts, but we will be focusing this time on the Recreation and Park Department.
One of our highest priorities as an organization is the success of the City's Natural Areas Program and the fate of its Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan. In addition, in February, the city saw the passage of the 2008 Neighborhood Parks Bond, which includes $5 Million for nature trail restoration in Recreation and Parks' Natural Areas.
The bond money is a wonderful opportunity to enhance San Franciscans' access to and experience of their natural world, and provides a much-needed injection of ecological health into the diverse habitats of these wildlands. Nevertheless, some of the usual suspects are organizing in their minds ways of diminishing the positive effects of the bond money on the natural areas. While Recreation and Parks has been sufficiently communicative and engaging with the conservation community around this subject, they still seem somewhat skittish about the role of the bond money in the necessary ecological restoration that will accompany most trail projects. Still, we're confident that we can help them stay the proper course, but it won't be without distractions from folk(s) who appear to care nothing about nature conservation in the city.
At last week's Recreation and Park Commission meeting, one citizen in particular tried a new tactic: (s)he stated during public comment that as much of 50%! of the Trails bond money should be used for ADA requirements! While the purpose of the bond money is to improve access to nature, it is not to pave over our natural areas, thereby defeating the whole purpose. ADA does not require that every project ever initiated accommodate everybody alive. Rather, the speaker at the Commission was very simply motivated to limit the success of the program. Thus, yours truly was compelled to spontaneously rise to the occasion and speak in support of the use of the $5 million for a sensible natural trail restoration approach. While we want more trails for people and bicycles everywhere, this relatively limited amount of money is strictly for the Natural Areas, and it's about time!!!
Other mythologies being propagated by nature naysayers include "only bricks and mortar are capital," and thus bond money cannot be spent on plants or erosion control. In fact, bond law revolves around improving assets. Are our lands assets? In fact, bunchgrasses can live for more than 100 years.
Look for these clever ideas and others to continue to pop up at the Recreation and Park Commission, PROSAC, community hearings, and other meetings and venues where the Parks Bond is discussed in the coming months and years. Watch this newsletter and our website to track when you can help and come offer rational comments about the conservation of urban nature in your own backyard.
Sincerely,
Peter Brastow
Check out our updated Media page to see all of the great press Nature in the City is getting! Recent articles from San Francisco Magazine , the SF Bay Guardian, and SF Gate.
Golden Gate Audubon would like to gather some information on what highrise buildings & lights do to the birds traveling through. They are looking for experienced birders to walk around these downtown high rises in the early AM to check for any injured or dead birds.
If you are interested, please contact Jennifer Robinson.
San Francisco Better Streets Plan
The Better Streets Plan will create a unified set of standards, guidelines, and implementation strategies to govern how the City designs, builds, and maintains its pedestrian environment. We encourage you to get involved and make comments on the plan around the use of local native plants and designing for local wildlife.
You can view the Better Streets Plan draft on their website. The deadline for comments is September 5.
Release of the Endangered Lange's Metalmark Butterfly
A daring attempt to help a nearly-extinct butterfly that began last August has been successful beyond the most optimistic hopes, and now biologists are about to re-populate one of the species’ few remaining habitats.
Read the full press release for more information.
Fall Preview
Stay up to date with all of Nature in the City's projects, campaigns, and partners this fall! Make sure to check the website regularly for action alerts and more nature news!
The Green Hairstreak Corridor Project is underway and still going strong! Although there are no more walks until next season, Liam O'Brien (the project lead) has been doing lectures and presentations about the project all year long. We are also growing local buckwheat (the butterfly's main host plant) in a number of locations and readying them for dispersal throughout the community.
We are having a meeting regarding a key piece of the Hairstreak's Corridor:
Wednesday, September 3rd
5:30 pm
Please RSVP to get the details!
Halfway along the corridor is a triangular piece of land at the corner of 14th and Pacheco that belongs to the Department of Public Works. Nature in the City has identified this location as a terrific place to initiate the Green Hairstreak project and the San Francisco Parks Trust will be walking us through a one page application permit of their Street Parks program.
If you live in the neigborhood we would love for you to attend and learn about what you can do to help the Green Hairstreak!
The GGNRA Big Year events are just getting better & better! The calendar has been replenished with another dozen trips for the winter and fall, with at least a dozen more to come! One great action item you can take part in continues through September:
Endangered Lessingia Monitoring
Wednesdays
1-4 pm
SF Lessingia (Lessingia germanorum) is the yellow flowered, federally listed, endangered dune plant species located in the Presidio. Join the Presidio Park Stewards for monitoring. Please contact Alyssa Babin for specific dates and meeting locations
And don't miss these upcoming events:
Slide Show Presentation
Randall Musem
Thursday, August 28
7:30 pm
Hundreds of competitors have been racing to see and save each of the GGNRA’s 33 endangered species by participating in the GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year. Join Brent Plater, director of the GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year, for a slide show of dozens of these Big Year species and learn more about the recovery actions that have already occurred in 2008.
Sea Watch
Fort Funston
Sunday, August 31
8 - 10 am
Join local naturalist Matt Zlatunich for a relaxing sea watch at Fort Funston, which has some of the wildest coastal views in San Francisco. RSVP required. Go to the Big Year website for more info!
These trips, and all the others now posted on the Big Year calendar, count towards the $2,000 grand prize!
Nature in the City will be at the 6th annual Heart of Cole Festival on Sunday, September 21! Be sure to stop by and say hello, and check out all the great vendors making an appearance at the fair.
Nature in the City is sponsoring two upcoming TALKS at CounterPULSE this fall. The first will discuss Candlestick Park on October 29, followed by Redesigning San Francisco, 1 Block at a Time on November 19. Check out the website for the full descriptions and directions to the venue.
Join Nature in the City!
At Nature in the City, we are doing our part of saving the planet by saving San Francisco's wildlife and habitats.
As the first organization whollydedicated to the conservation and restoration of the Franciscan Bioregion, Nature in the City, with our members, has become the voice of San Francisco's endangered biodiversity, wildlands & wildlife!
We rely on your support for our programs that bring people together with nature where they live as a local solution to the restoration of global biodiversity. We are entering a new phase of prioritization of important campaigns, namely the Green Hairstreak Corridor, the GGNRA Big Year, the Natural Areas Campaign, and the Twin Peaks Ecological Park and Preserve.
Please visit our evolving website to learn more about our great projects & programs, nature education & news, and to help save nature in the city!
Thank you for your commitment to nature in the city!
Nature in the City is a project of Earth Island Institute, a 501(c)3 California non profit public benefit corporation.
