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 »The Latest from FoGR
Mendonoma Sightings
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 …
Read More »Photo Contest Winner: March, 2021
Female Merganser, by Chris Beach
Photo Contest Winner: March, 2021 — Female Merganser, by Chris Beach
Read More »Gualala River logging project clears hurdle in state court as federal case ramps up
by Mary Callahan, The Press Democrat, March 28, 2021 [excerpt:] A legal battle over plans to log in the lower Gualala River flood plain is heading into a fifth year, despite a recent victory in state appeals court by Gualala Redwood Timber and Cal Fire which first approved the project back in 2016. The fight over the 342-acre timber project …
Read More »Endangered Species Act Lawsuit Advances
PRESS RELEASE Contact Information: Friends of Gualala River Charles Ivor, President (707) 337-0147 cfifish@mac.com or info@gualalariver.org For Immediate Release, March 22, 2021 Endangered Species Act Lawsuit Advances The Endangered Species Act [ESA] lawsuit filed by Friends of Gualala River [FoGR] and the Center for Biological Diversity [CBD] against Gualala Redwoods Timber [GRT] was given approval to move forward last Thursday. …
Read More »A public process that excludes the public
by John Dunlap, member of the Guerneville Forest Coalition This op-ed was published in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on March 7, 2021 Reprinted with permission of the author A plan to log 224 acres of redwood and Douglas fir trees along the Russian River in Guerneville is just one of several timber harvests proposed or scheduled to take place …
Read More »New publication: “FoGR Monthly”
FoGR is excited to tell you about a new monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly,” that will detail different places along the Gualala River to visit. 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 you can do them. Click on the image below to download …
Read More »Far North THP Documents
The Far North timber harvest plan (THP 1-20-00150-MEN) was filed by Gualala Redwood Timber in September, 2020. The plan calls for logging redwood trees in 227 acres of the headwaters of the Little North Fork of the Gualala River. The plan was approved by the California Department of Forestry and Fire protection (CDF, also known as CalFire) in February, 2021. …
Read More »Save the Redwoods League Protects Nearly 15,000 Acres in Mendocino County
Save the Redwoods League press release Feb. 9, 2021 [excerpt:] Save the Redwoods League today announced the successful protection of Mailliard Ranch, a 14,838-acre property in southern Mendocino County and the largest coast redwood forest left in private family hands. The $24.7 million project secures three conservation easements across the entire property, which safeguard the land from subdivision and development, …
Read More »Jan. 27, 2021 – River mouth open after heavy rain (drone video)
Drone video of ocean waves, estuary and river mouth opening after atmospheric river dropped several inches of rain on the Gualala River watershed. Video created by Mike Nelson; used with permission.
Read More »River mouth opens on Dec. 27, 2020
The mouth of the Gualala River opened to the ocean on Sunday, Dec. 27, 2020 at ~11:30am, reconnecting the important lagoon fish rearing habitat for out-migrating salmonids, synchronized with suitable stream conditions for returning spawners. This is a high tide, high swell, low-energy breach condition in the photos. When the lagoon is full and it breaches on a low …
Read More »Why are salmon dying?
The answer washed off the road
When we think of timber road runoff threats, we habitually think of fine sediment, indirectly affecting coho (and steelhead) by habitat degradation. But this is direct acute mortality by rubber tire chemicals. A new wrinkle on wheeled vehicles operating on rough, abrasive gravel haul roads. – FoGR by Erik Stokstad Science 04 Dec 2020: Vol. 370, Issue 6521, pp. 1145 …
Read More »Introducing our 2020 FoGR Newsletter
We are excited! This annual newsletter is packed with news about the successes in Friends of Gualala River’s (FoGR’s) work in the watershed this past year: from the progress of our lawsuits (yes, we have two separate suits against egregious logging plans!) and the fundraising efforts to support them, to the many education and outreach projects we’ve undertaken to increase …
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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