October
16,
2007

Presidio Park Stewards at
Crissy Field
Friday October 19
Presidio Plant Patrol
Saturday
October 20
Friends of Glen Canyon
Fort Funston Nursery
Friends of Shields/Orizaba Rocky Outcrop
Friends of Brooks Park
Land's End Stewards
Presidio Nursery
For more information, contact info, and
directions to natural areas and restoration sites, go to the
Community Calendar
on the Nature in the City website.
Become a
member of Nature in the
City
today and get a new map! Go online, email or call 415-564-4107
to join us.
Nature in the City is a
project of Earth Island Institute, a 501(c)3 California non profit
public benefit corporation
And don't
forget to shop
at Cole
Hardware, the
city's favorite hardware store, and help Nature
in the City!
Calendar
Of
Events
| Oct. 18 |
Golden Gate Audubon Berkeley
GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year
Brent Plater |
| Oct.
20 |
Native Plant Landscaping and
Native Plant Sale at Garden
for the Environment
10AM
- 3PM. Pre-registration required.
Please call (415) 731-5627 to pre-register or for more information.
FREE! |
| Oct. 24 |
Nature in
the City will
have our 2nd TALK of
the season at Counterpulse.
The
8th annual Brower
Youth
Awards.
Reserve your spot today by going
here.
|
| Nov.
1 |
13th
Annual Native Plant Sale Yerba
Buena Chapter, CNPS
7:30 pm
Recreation
Room
San Francisco County Fair Building
Email:
Licia
De Meo or call 415-668-3136 |
| Nov
8-10 |
Shorebird survey
South
Bay Nov 8,
North
Bay Nov 9, Central Bay Nov 10.
For more information or to sign up, send availability, location
preference, contact info and bird watching expertise level to Mike |
*For
more calendar
items, as well as regular volunteer opportunites, go to the
Nature in
the City
Calendar
to view all posted events.
Top
Other
News
SFBC Says No to Prop H
(San
Francisco Bicycle
Coalition)
If allowed
to pass:
• Prop. H will
increase by fivefold
the amount of parking in our downtown core, the S.F. Planning
Department estimates that Prop. H would bring 20,000
additional cars to San Francisco every day.
• Prop. H
will give building owners the right to add private parking garages
regardless of whether existing or future bicycle routes are impaired,
sidewalk conditions are degraded, Muni stops are
moved, or landmark
street trees are cut down.
Along with working to defeat Prop. H, the SFBC is also urging members
to vote in support
of Proposition A,
the Muni Reform measure - it will
improve the efficiency of our transit system, giving more options for
sustainable transportation.
A Little Meat Does a Planet
Good
(TreeHugger)
It turns out the diet with the
smallest possible "foodprint" (for New York state) contains
a portion of meat and dairy.
Cornell
scientist Christian Peters is the lead author on the study showing that
although a low-fat vegetarian diet has a much smaller footprint than a
typical New Yorker, a little meat can go a long way in reducing the
ecological footprint. By taking advantage of crop rotation and better
land management strategies, grazing animals actually decrease the
amount of land needed to obtain the same calories.
The
recommended 'dose' for a sustainable small foodprint is to eat
only about 2 oz cooked meat or eggs a day. A single serving of meat is
often estimated to be about 3 oz, or the size of a deck of cards.
(insert quick math calculation here) This, leaves you with eating about
2 servings of meat every 3 days. Certainly, this small amount will keep
our buddy the cow (highland cow pictured) in business, but not in
feedlots.
Read more
about it here.
|
News
Board Vote on Park Bond
This just in!
This afternoon the Board of Supervisors voted
unanimously to place the 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks General
Obligation Bond on the February 2008 ballot. This is great news for the
City's natural lands and our citizens' connection to nature where they
live, since $5 Million dollars will go toward nature trail restoration
in Recreation and Park's natural areas. And the Port of San Francisco
committed to including nature restoration as part of their projects
along the waterfront.
THANKS TO
EVERYBODY WHO HELPED ADVOCATE FOR THIS!
Top
Butterflies
October 2nd
marked the day Liam O'Brien and Matt Zlatinuch snapped the attached
picture of
the city's 31st butterfly species.
The
California Sister, Adelpha
bredowii, with a "classic, paltry forewing
flap" glided past them and landed on an oak, allowing Matt to
take
this spectacular photo at the corner of Kobbe and Upton, in the
Presidio.
This confirms
John Hafernik's sighting from this time last year of this species along
Lobos Creek. It
was a solid sighting because this butterfly is obligated to oak as a
host. Shapiro's new book says this fall brood "disperses beyond its
range into cities to push the extremes of its range."
Says O'Brien,
"I think, however,
with this sighting's proximity to last year's, it's a breeding
population folks, and I think we have another magnificent species."
Top
Coastal Cleanup Tally
In San Francisco's 21 coastal
sites, an astonishing 17,580
pounds of debris was collected in the form
of 11,000
pounds of trash, 2,440
pounds of tires, 10
pounds of "e-waste", 10 gallons of hazardous waste,
and 4,120
pounds of recycling.
Nearly
70% of this haul was taken in on the eastern shore with 400 volunteers
(in just 3 hours)!
Literacy
for Environmental Justice, the California
Coastal Commission and the Golden
Gate National Parks Conservancy
spearheaded the efforts in the Bay Area and did a great job! A special
thanks to all of the partners, captains and volunteers that worked
along the shorelines as well. 
The Parks Conservancy posted
some info about how the west side of the event went here.
You can
link to the state wide results.
Here
is an article about the event that appeared in the SF Chronicle.
Top
Presidio
Watershed Update
Ecological restoration of the
spectacular natural landscapes of the Presidio is a high priority for Nature
in the City. Public comment on the Tennessee Hollow Upper Watershed
Revitalization Project
closed on October 9th. We spoke with the Presidio Trust last week, and
they gave us a sketch of the next steps.
The Trust
received something like 1500 comment letters, including
many from the environmental conservation community. They hope
to put together a public document of their responses to comments in
about one month. We hope we get some positive responses to our
concerns, which represent our request for the Trust to pursue the
maximum possible restoration of the Tennessee Hollow watershed. When we
get their responses, we will publish on our website and in our email
newsletter pending space, those comments that are relevant to
ecological restoration and conservation.
Top
Weeds in the City
The San Francisco Weed Management Area
(SFWMA) is a consortium of public agencies and local non-governmental
organizations dedicated to cooperating to prevent the introduction,
establishment and spread of invasive weeds in the City and County of
San Francisco. The group pays particular attention to the threat and
impact of weeds on our precious natural areas.
Nature in the City led a successful effort with our WMA colleagues to
secure funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture
to restore habitat on Twin Peaks as well as to collect existing
information about weeds across our many land management jurisdictions.
The SFWMA will pursue the habitat restoration project with the
cooperation of the San Francisco Fire Department, on whose land on the
north slopes of Twin Peaks the weed work will occur. Please visit
www.sfwma.org
to learn more about the Weed Management Area and the
problem of invasive weeds in San Francisco.
Top
Brower
Youth Awards
California Native Plant Society
Cole Hardware
Department
of the
Environment
Garden for the Environment
Nature in the City
SFWMA
Tennessee
Hollow Watershed Project
|