Community Innovation News - Christine Sculati's blog » nature

For the benefit and enjoyment of the people

christine — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:57:42 +0000

At the age of three, I could hardly comprehend the vastness of the Grand Canyon. It did not look anything like my home in Michigan.

With my family I visited several national parks from the Great Smoky Mountains to Big Bend and Sequoia/Kings Canyon. Like many tourists, we snapped photos of the most iconic vistas, historic features or odd incongruous attractions – like the tunnel log in Sequoia National Park.

It wasn’t until years later, when I clumsily hoisted on an external frame overstuffed backpack and ventured off into the Yosemite National Park wilderness with a close friend, that I started to really appreciate wild places. As we hiked deeper into the woods and climbed in elevation, the low-pitched hoots of blue grouse frequently startled us. At the time, we had no idea what animal was making this mysterious call.

After that trip, I was starting to get it – the feeling of “transcendence” often referred to in Ken Burns’ new film “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.” Naturally, the hero in the first episodes is John Muir (voice of Lee Stetson), who reached Yosemite the first time by walking 300 miles from the Bay Area. The final three in the series will air on PBS stations across the country through Friday. If you missed the previous episodes, don’t despair. You can view them for a limited time on the PBS Web site or buy the DVDs.

Just as this epic series about the national parks airs this week, last week the newly formed National Parks Second Century Commission released an extensive report on the condition of our national parks and a vision for the next century. With that, the San Francisco Chronicle published a story about the growing concern over youth not having access to or an interest in nature.

Then, with all this attention on our national parks, on Monday the New York Times ran an editorial on Ken Burns’ new documentary, making the case that the “best idea needs to be protected and celebrated.”

I don’t know about you, but I am getting the sense that there is an urgency around engaging more Americans to experience wild places and connect to our shared national heritage.

Serving as a reminder of the democratic principles of parks, the words of President Theodore Roosevelt are carved in an archway entrance to Yellowstone National Park and read, “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

If you are in the Bay Area, KQED’s QUEST tells the story of the national park right here in our “backyards”.

QUEST on KQED Public Media.

GGNRA Big Year Closes January 10 with Celebration at Crissy Field Center

christine — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:19:49 +0000

Western snowy plover

Almost one year ago, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) launched a competition to save endangered species in San Francisco, the Peninsula and Marin. On Saturday, January 10, the year-long event called the “2008 GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year” will come to a close with an announcement of the grand prize award winner and free food and other gifts for wildlife enthusiasts at the Crissy Field Center.

The closing ceremony will feature give aways from Arizmendi Bakery, free 2009 nature almanacs from WildNature and free subscriptions to Bay Nature Magazine for 50 visitors. After the ceremony, bird experts will lead a short hike to search for the Western snowy plover, an endangered San Francisco shorebird.

GGNRA, a unit of the national park system, includes the world-renowned destinations of Alcatraz Island and Muir Woods and is the world’s largest urban national park with over 75,000 acres in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo counties. GGNRA has a unique geographical position covering a broad range of habitats for plants and wildlife including marine habitats, salt marshes, redwood forests, chaparral and coastal scrub habitats, and grasslands, just to name a few.

According to the National Park Service, the GGNRA contains more endangered species than any other National Park in continental North America: more than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks combined.

The 2008 GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year was a race against time to see and save each of the park’s 33 endangered species. During 2008, over 250 Endangered Species Big Year competitors raced to see each of the 33 endangered species found in the GGNRA, and then take 33 actions that help these species recover during the calendar year in 2008.

According to GGNRA, three competitors are vying for the grand prize: Liam O’Brien, former Broadway actor; Steve Price, branding expert who named products such as Blackberry, Pentium and Apple PowerBook; and David Seaborg, son of the Berkeley physicist for whom the element Seaborgium is named.

For more information, visit www.ggnrabigyear.org

“Corporate Philanthropy in Turbulent Times” program on November 14 in San Francisco

christine — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:17:40 +0000

Every year the Foundation Center in San Francisco hosts a forum on regional corporate philanthropy trends in the Bay Area. In light of the state of the economy and possible fundraising impacts on the social sector, this is a good time to hear from corporate giving officers.

Representatives from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Intel, and Cisco Foundation will present trends in corporate philanthropy and forecast their giving for next year and beyond. Some nonprofits are wondering if we will see impacts reminiscent of the economic fallout earlier in the decade, when giving portfolios shrank and competition for grants and charitable donations became fiercer.

Janet Camarena, the director of the San Francisco Foundation Center, will moderate the forum. She recently launched a new blog for the Center and has invited the community to post questions to the blog for consideration during the November 14, 2008 forum.

Co-sponsored by San Francisco Business Times and the Development Executives Roundtable (DER), this popular forum typically fills to capacity early.

Go to DER’s Web site to register.

The forum is free if you bring your own lunch, $12 for DER members and $10 for non-members.

UPDATE:
The Foundation Center’s video recording of this event is now available on their Web site.

Bay Nature launches new Web site

christine — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:37:16 +0000

Now in its eighth year of publication, Berkeley-based Bay Nature magazine recently announced the launch of a new content-rich Web site (baynature.org). While many nonprofits have good stories to tell, Bay Nature now has over 700.

The concept of Bay Nature magazine began as a conversation in 1997 between publisher David Loeb and Malcolm Margolin, author of the much-admired Ohlone Way and founder of Heyday Books in Berkeley. With seed funding from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and other local funders, the inaugural issue covered by a majestic great blue heron photograph hit local magazine racks in January 2001. Now, just over ten years after that initial conversation, the magazine is one of four programs that make up the nonprofit Bay Nature Institute.

Getting outside

christine — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:21:58 +0000

“Exercise is key to health, and studies have shown that people are much more likely to exercise if parks and opportunities for recreation are nearby,” writes the Trust for Public Land (TPL) in their latest issue of Land & People. For TPL and many other community-focused organizations, the interconnected issues of physical health, getting outdoors and connecting kids to the outdoors, are becoming paramount to their work. These issues are relevant for the land conservation-focused TPL, health organizations like Kaiser Permanente and funders like the Stewardship Council in California. TPL in fact received funding from Kaiser Permanente to build what they call “Fitness Zones” in Los Angeles, particularly in densely populated low income East Los Angeles neighborhoods where obesity is high.

Another organization focused on getting youth outside believes “[c]hildren are smarter, cooperative, happier and healthier when they have frequent and varied opportunities for free and unstructured play in the out-of-doors.” As such, the Children & Nature Network, chaired by Last Child in the Woods author Richard Louv, compiled two annotated bibliographies to research that will tell you just how much kids are not getting outdoors, the consequences and the most promising solutions.

2008 is the ‘Big Year’ for GGNRA’s imperiled wildlife and plants

christine — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:41:55 +0000

With the New Year, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area has officially launched a competition to save endangered species living in urban island habitats of San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin. The year-long event, called the “2008 GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year,” hopes to spur the awareness and actions needed to save the 33 endangered and threatened birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, fishes, and flowering plants found in GGNRA. The GGNRA contains more endangered species than Yosemite and any other National Park in continental North America.

GGNRA, a unit of the national park system, includes the world-renowned destinations of Alcatraz Island and Muir Woods and is the world’s largest urban national park with over 75,000 acres in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo counties. GGNRA has a unique geographical position covering a broad range of habitats for plants and wildlife including marine habitats, salt marshes, redwood forests, chaparral and coastal scrub habitats, and grasslands, just to name a few.

Today, leaders of the San Francisco Naturalist Society and others will be hosting a kick-off party for the Big Year at the San Francisco Zoo.

Numerous educational and hand-on events to help the imperiled wildlife and native plants of GGNRA will take place throughout 2008. For example, if you want to learn how to see and save the Northern Spotted Owl, you can go to that animal’s profile page and find out about upcoming events for spotting it in its natural environment while helping to restore its foraging habitat.

Go to www.ggnrabigyear.org for more information.

WildCare to release red-tailed hawks rehabilitated from oil spill

christine — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:40:40 +0000

Releasing Common Murres near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. (Photo: IBRRC)

Most of the wildlife victims of the deadly November 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill on San Francisco Bay have been waterbirds, but the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory also found two oiled red-tailed hawks. WildCare in San Rafael took in the birds that had landed on the beach to capture oil-covered waterfowl on the sand. Both birds survived the toxic effects of the oil and are now being released. WildCare is inviting the public to to watch them fly free at noon on December 12 in the Marin Headlands. For directions and details, RSVP on their Web site.

To date, WildCare has received over 580 birds oiled as a result of the Cosco Busan disaster on November 7, 2007. Oiled animals continue to arrive nearly every day. The San Rafael facility has taken in more than 20% of the oiled wildlife found after the spill. As of December 10, 2007, the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBBRC) in Cordelia reports 1,076 birds have arrived live, 632 have died or were euthanized, 389 have been cleaned and released, and 389 have been found dead.

Now, at a time when more birds are being found dead than alive, the successful rescue and release of surviving birds and widespread concern for wildlife survival can give Bay Area residents something to feel good about. For a video of a releasee at Tomales Bay, go to the IBBRC Web site.

In addition to WildCare and the IBBRC, Bay Nature magazine also lists informational resources, organizations, and volunteer opportunities related to the disaster.

A legacy of land stewardship and conservation by American philanthropic families

christine — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:20:12 +0000

The June 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine features an article by Tony Perrottet called “Jewel of the Tetons,” which describes the secretive mission of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to purchase private properties at the base of the Tetons with the intent of donating the land to the government for permanent protection.

Despite philanthropic intentions, the campaign to purchase over 35,000 acres was mired in 20 years of anti-park controversy, distrust, and debate. It was not until 1950 when Rockefeller successfully donated 33,562 acres to the National Park Service, enlarging the Grand Teton National Park and protecting important wildlife corridors and the mountain grandeur from unsightly commercial development. The family retained the final 3,300 acres, the JY Ranch, as a Rockefeller family retreat until John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s son Laurance began gifting it to the park over several years. On May 26, 2001, Laurance S. Rockefeller donated the remaining 1,106-acre land (also known as the Laurance Spelman Rockefeller Preserve). The park service expects the formal transfer to be complete by later this summer and open to the public in September 2007. With this gift, “the entire JY property becomes part of America’s conservation heritage and marks another milestone in the Rockefeller legacy of stewardship and philanthropy,” writes the park service.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Haases are another one of the nation’s most philanthropic families. Julian Guthrie published an excellent article called “The Haas Legacy – How one family’s generosity and commitment to civic life are transforming the Bay Area.”

The descendants of Levi Strauss (Elise Haas was a great niece of Levi Strauss) and branches of the Haas family operate five independent foundations. The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, established in 1953, has the largest annual giving and was key to the restoration of the former military airfield Crissy Field, along San Francisco’s north shore (completed in 2001). Recently, I visited the tidal marsh and was in awe of the native coastal dune plants flourishing there and the numerous waterfowl and other marsh birds. I remember when the silver dune lupine, sand verbena, and coastal sagewort were new plantings. It was hard to envision the reemergence of the native coastal dune community that once thrived here in the time of the Ohlone. The scene there now is a drastic transformation from the toxic wasteland it once was.

In April, the Haas Jr. Fund made another major philanthropic gift to the Presidio in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) to support the “Post to Park”conversion. This project involves the implementation of a comprehensive 24-mile pedestrian, hiking, and bicycle trail network at the Presidio and the revitalization of the Presidio’s Rob Hill Campground.

KQED show on Bay Area science cafe’s

christine — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 07:00:25 +0000

Purple sea urchin at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, photo by Christine Sculati

Recently, KQED in San Francisco aired a show on Bay Area science cafe’s as a part of the Quest series. The June 26 show featured Ask a Scientist events in San Francisco, hosted by Juliana Gallin. In places like San Francisco’s Axis Cafe, each month a local scientist speaks on a current topic, makes a presentation, and holds a Q&A. This month on July 10, Fred Wilt, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley will talk about sea urchins – the spiny marine animal with no eyes, nose, or centralized brain. The purple ones pictured above live in the tide pools of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve near Montara, California. Some species can live more than 200 years with little sign of aging.

Coffee and Pi: Bay Area Science Cafe’s – TV Story

‘Leave no child inside’

christine — Tue, 01 May 2007 01:54:07 +0000

After Richard Louv, chairman of the Children & Nature Network, published Last Child in the Woods in 2005, several organizations requested that he speak and write articles on the compelling topic of “Nature-Deficit Disorder,” which led to national media attention. I first heard Louv speak to a packed conference hall at the 2006 Bay Area Open Space Council conference in San Francisco. Since then, a movement to reconnect children to nature has been gaining momentum from environmentalists and youth development organizations to mental health care advocates.

In a recent article on the subject published in Orion magazine called Leave No Child Inside, Louv writes about the campaigns to reconnect children to nature, sometimes called “Leave No Child Inside,” forming across the country. “The activity has attracted a diverse assortment of people who might otherwise never work together,” writes Louv.

Before Louv’s book, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) conducted an evaluation in 2004 to measure the impacts of week-long residential outdoor education programs for at-risk sixth graders in California as called for by California Assembly Bill (AB) 1330, Chapter 663.

They found that children who attended outdoor school significantly raised their science scores by 27 percent, retained new science knowledge for six to ten weeks, showed gains in cooperation and conflict resolution and other positive social gains. More than half of the students in the study were English learners and first-timers to a nature setting.

Earth day in San Francisco

christine — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 19:17:20 +0000

Today from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Nature in the City, a project of the Earth Island Institute that promotes the stewardship and awareness of San Francisco’s natural heritage, is hosting an Earth Day event in San Francisco’s McLaren Park. The celebration is free. Events and activities include birding hikes, interactive artworks, habitat restoration projects, planting, puppetry, and storytelling.