by Matt Simmons, August 3, 2021 Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) reprinted with permission Two weeks ago, we [EPIC] reported a troubling trend in timber harvest plan approvals. CalFire has been approving THPs prior to conducting necessary biological surveys for endangered, rare, and sensitive species. This practice prevents the public and state agencies like the Department of Fish and Wildlife …
Read More »The Latest from FoGR
FoGR Monthly: August, 2021
Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is pleased to publish a new issue of our monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly: August, 2021.” This month’s feature is Sequoia Sempervirens – Coast Redwoods. Click on the image below to download the .pdf file (480 KB)
Read More »Friends of Gualala River launch new lawsuit targeting logging on North Fork
by Chris McManus Independent Coast Observer July 23, 2021 Reprinted by permission © Copyright Independent Coast Observer, Inc. www.mendonoma.com As part of its Salmonid and Watershed Restoration Project, Friends of Gualala River has launched a new lawsuit, this one focused on the Gualala River’s North Fork in the watershed’s northwest corner, the only hydrologic area of the watershed that is …
Read More »The Garcia: A River in Strong Recovery After a 30-Year Effort
by Craig Bell Forest & River News July 16, 2021 Craig Bell is a Garcia River watershed planner, as well as past President of the Salmonid Restoration Federation, former logger, commercial fisherman, and river guide. [excerpt:] The strong recovery we are witnessing today in the Garcia River is thanks to a 30-year effort that began in 1991 when Mendocino County …
Read More »Won’t back down – Friends of Gualala River continue protection efforts
by Tempra BoardThe Sea Ranch Soundings • Summer 2021 © copyright 2021, The Sea Ranch Associationreprinted with permission Friends of Gualala River (FoGR), our area’s grassroots watershed protection non-profit, continues its hard work defending the Gualala River from the threat of floodplain logging. On May 20, FoGR filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt logging of Gualala Redwood Timber …
Read More »FoGR Monthly: July, 2021
Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is pleased to publish a new issue of our monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly: July, 2021,” detailing different places along the Gualala River to visit. This month’s feature is Mill Bend. Each month will have a participation feature like a contest or list an upcoming event. It will feature different types of outdoor activities and where …
Read More »Video: The Gualala River watershed is in danger from proposed logging
The Gualala River watershed and the species that live within it are in danger from proposed logging of redwoods. Friends of Gualala River has produced an informative short video about the challenge our river now faces and how you can help. Please enjoy and share with your friends.
Read More »FoGR Monthly: June, 2021
Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is pleased to publish a new issue of our monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly,” detailing different places along the Gualala River to visit. This month’s feature is the Haupt Creek Bridge area. Each month will have a participation feature like a contest or list an upcoming event. It will feature different types of outdoor activities and …
Read More »Protecting Endangered Species:
The Case for a Preliminary Injunction
Friends of Gualala River and Center for Biological Diversity filed an Endangered Species Act lawsuit in September, 2020, against the Gualala Redwood Timber Company, to protect threatened and endangered fish, birds and frogs from the proposed “Dogwood” logging project which targets 100-year-old redwood trees in the floodplain of the Gualala River. The following are excerpts from our Motion for a …
Read More »FoGR Launches Salmonid and Watershed Restoration Project
Historically, the Gualala River was home to abundant coho salmon and steelhead trout populations that numbered in the tens of thousands. Today, the endangered coho salmon are all but gone and threatened steelhead are struggling to survive in the home river they evolved and adapted to over millennia. The dwindling salmonid population is a critical indicator of the declining health …
Read More »Redwood logging and climate change
Excerpted from “The effects of timber harvest versus forest protection in JDSF [Jackson Demonstration State Forest]” by John O’Brien, PhD. Dr. O’Brien has a doctorate in climate and atmospheric science from U.C. Santa Cruz, and lives adjacent to JDSF, but his comments on logging and climate change are relevant to similar redwood forest lands on the northern California Coast. Executive …
Read More »Mendonoma Sightings
Conservation Conversation
Did you miss Jeanne Jackson’s Mendonoma Sightings Conservation Conversation hosted by the Mendocino Land Trust on April 29th? If so, you’re in luck. Here is this wonderful presentation full of gorgeous photos of the wildlife and native plants along the Mendonoma coast:
Read More »FoGR Monthly: May, 2021
Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is pleased to publish a new issue of our monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly,” detailing different places along the Gualala River to visit. This month’s feature is the Gualala Bluff Trail. Each month will have a participation feature like a contest or list an upcoming event. It will feature different types of outdoor activities and where …
Read More »Saturday, May 1: City Nature Challenge: Cooks Beach, Hearn Gulch, and Gualala Bluff Trail
Redwood Coast Land Conservancy and Friends of Gualala River invite you to participate in the 2021 Gualala City Nature Challenge on Saturday May 1, 2021 from 10 am to noon. Visit Cooks Beach, Hearn Gulch, the Gualala Bluff Trail. Take a few photos of special natural features & enter them into the iNaturalist app. Between 10 am & noon on …
Read More »Forestry and Fish in Northern California – a reading list
Compiled by Alan Levine California Forest Management Practices And The Conservation Of Anadromous Salmonids https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=30710 by Stephen Swales Ph.D., Fisheries Branch, Wildlife and Fisheries Division, California Department of Fish and Game, November, 2010 In California and the Pacific Northwest, widespread declines in the abundance of anadromous salmonids over the last several decades have been attributed largely to the loss …
Read More »Video – Recovery and Resiliency in California Salmonids
Video: Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) celebrated Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021, with a free webinar on salmonids presented by Dr. Jacob Katz, senior scientist with California Trout. California Trout is a non-profit dedicated to protecting and restoring the state’s 32 species of salmonid fish. Dr. Katz directs the organization’s Central California region where his work focuses on redesigning …
Read More »Earth Day webinar with a fish biologist “Born with Gills”
Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 7pm via Zoom* *See instructions below on how to participate via Zoom Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) will celebrate Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021, with a free webinar on salmonids presented by Dr. Jacob Katz, senior scientist with California Trout. California Trout is a non-profit dedicated to protecting and restoring the state’s 32 …
Read More »Why It Is Time for a “CalFire Divorce”
The Case for Establishing an Independent Forest and Resource Management Agency to Secure Healthy Forests in California Excerpted from: Richard A. Wilson and Sharon E. Duggan, WHY IT IS TIME FOR A “CALFIRE DIVORCE”: THE CASE FOR ESTABLISHING AN INDEPENDENT FOREST AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AGENCY TO SECURE HEALTHY FORESTS IN CALIFORNIA, 12 Golden Gate U. Envtl. L.J. 1 (2020). https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/gguelj/vol12/iss1/2 …
Read More »Remembering Jim Biller
There is no more bittersweet moment than when Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) pauses to remember and thank those who gave a portion of their lives over to the river. Such a friend to the river was Jim Biller. Jim passed away in December, 2020, after a valiant battle with lung cancer. Together with his wife, Susan-Marie Hagen, from …
Read More »FoGR Monthly: April, 2021
Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is pleased to publish a new issue of our monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly,” detailing different places along the Gualala River to visit. This month’s feature is Gualala Point Regional Park. Each month will have a participation feature like a contest or list an upcoming event. It will feature different types of outdoor activities and where …
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Won’t back down – Friends of Gualala River continue protection efforts
by Tempra BoardThe Sea Ranch Soundings • Summer 2021 © copyright 2021, The Sea Ranch Associationreprinted with permission Friends of Gualala River (FoGR), our area’s grassroots watershed protection non-profit, continues its hard work defending the Gualala River from the threat of floodplain logging. On May 20, FoGR filed a motion for …
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Protecting Endangered Species:
The Case for a Preliminary Injunction -
Gualala River logging project clears hurdle in state court as federal case ramps up
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Under California cap-and-trade program, North Coast forests turn carbon uptake into cash
by Guy Kovner, The Press Democrat, January 3, 2016 [excerpt:] They say money doesn’t grow on trees, but a nearly 75,000-acre swath of redwood and fir forests blanketing the wildlands of Sonoma and Mendocino counties is generating millions of dollars as it contributes to California’s ambitious campaign to curb greenhouse …
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Preservation Ranch saved in record deal – June, 2013, San Francisco Chronicle
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Sonoma Deal Aims to Combine Logging and Preservation
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Sonoma County redwood forest spared from conversion into vineyards