by Mark Green, Executive Director
Dear friends of the California wild,
Summer along the California coast often means morning fog burning off to temperate, lovely days. Elsewhere in the state temperatures are much more extreme, driving us indoors. With kids out of school and vacations occurring, summer is often a relaxing time, but here at CalWild, things are really humming.
To begin with, we have welcomed some new faces:
- Dr. Eric Lane has joined our team as our new Director of Development and Communications. Eric brings amazing skills and experience to the role, and we know he will do great things with us!
- At our August Board meeting, we also inducted four new CalWild Board members: Jon Adams, Erin Medlin, Dan Rich, and Renee Roux. Each brings remarkable experience and commitment to help us achieve CalWild’s mission. Welcome!
As our fiscal year ended, we also thank outgoing Board members Bonnie Holman, Annie Nyborg and Johnathan Hodge, whose service to CalWild has been exemplary. Thank you so much!
Before diving into an overview of all the many campaigns CalWild is currently conducting, I want to announce CalWild’s new Happy Hour with the Executive Director: a quarterly Zoom call where I’ll give a short overview of what we’re working on and take questions.
You’re invited! The first Happy Hour will be Sept. 19 at 6:00 PM, and the Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82400306367?pwd=uKl3s0xjJUA2j7KGNPbb8srwdbC4bj.1 Come by and join me for a freewheeling conversation about CalWild’s current work!
Currently, CalWild’s work spans the entire state:
- Organizing in support of the new Chuckwalla National Monument continues as we hope the President will designate this more-than-600,000-acre desert gem before leaving office in January. The California State legislature just approved a joint resolution calling on the President to act to designate Chuckwalla, Sáttítla and Kw’tsan National Monuments.
- The Sáttítla (Mt. Shasta/Medicine Lake area) and Kw’tsan (southern desert) National Monument proposals continue to make progress. CalWild is providing organizing and strategic support as requested by the Tribes that are leading these conservation efforts. CalWild staff recently toured the Sáttítla area with members of the Pit River Indian Tribes and coalition allies—it is a beautiful place with unique features such as Glass Mountain, which is literally topped with solid obsidian.
- Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument: CalWild staff are engaging with the newly expanded National Monument as it embarks on its first Restoration and Management Plan. Such plans are where the rubber hits the road for conservation in National Monuments, determining in detail the permitted uses and management regimes.
- Our collaborative community visioning project for the Upper Eel River watershed moves into a new phase in September with the first of three constituent workshops. Representatives of communities with interests in the future of the region will come together to discuss how best to advance broad goals of habitat improvement, cultural conservation, fire resiliency, recreational opportunities and economic development. This community vision is meant to serve as a roadmap for funding and implementing the projects set as priorities by the constituencies participating in the project.
- On the agency and legislative lobbying side, things have been busy! CalWild is participating in the national coalition providing conservation input to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the President’s proposed National Old Growth Amendment. We have also met with multiple Congressional offices to express our concerns about the deeply flawed so-called “Fix Our Forests Act”, which if approved as written would damage our nation’s environmental regulatory laws and enable much more logging in the name of fire suppression.
- CalWild is also supporting 4, the California climate bond measure which will appear on the November ballot. This bond act will provide much-needed funding for habitat restoration, fire resiliency and other climate-friendly projects.
Those are the high points for this month. As always, we deeply appreciate your generous support for CalWild—it is you who makes these campaigns for our state’s wildest and most beautiful places possible. Thank you!
For the wild,
Mark
