|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
July 2009
California Oak Report
Natural Resources Begins Final GHG Rulemaking
On July 3, 2009 the Natural Resources Agency began the formal rulemaking process for final California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) amendments regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by issuing its Initial Statement of Reasons. Natural Resources CEQA amendments confirm the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) findings that analysis-mitigation of carbon biological emissions due to oak woodlands conversion and the California Air Resources Board Forest Protocols are integral to CEQA review. Below is Resources’ forestry reasoning, including a rebuttal to the bourgeois Napa County winegrape growers and their fellow carbon deadbeats that want to continue destroying large swaths of mature oak woodlands without any mitigation for very substantial CO2 emissions.
Appendix G. Initial Study Checklist - Forest Resources
"The proposed amendments would add several questions addressing forest resources in the section on Agricultural Resources. Forestry questions are appropriately addressed in the Appendix G checklist for several reasons. First, forests and forest resources are directly linked to both GHG emissions and efforts to reduce those emissions. For example, conversion of forests to non-forest uses may result in direct emissions of GHG emissions. Such conversion would also remove existing carbon stock (i.e., carbon stored in vegetation), as well as a significant carbon sink (i.e., rather than emitting GHGs, forests remove GHGs from the atmosphere). Thus, such conversions are an indication of potential GHG emissions. Changes in forest land or timberland zoning may also ultimately lead to conversions, which could result in GHG emissions, aesthetic impacts, impacts to biological resources and water quality impacts, among others. Thus, these additions are reasonably necessary to ensure that lead agencies consider the full range of potential impacts in their initial studies. In the same way that an EIR must address conversion of prime agricultural land or wetlands as part of a project (addressing the whole of the action requires analyzing land clearance in advance of project development), so should it analyze forest removal.
During OPR’s public involvement process, some commenters suggested that conversion of forest or timber lands to agricultural uses should not be addressed in the Initial Study checklist. (Letter from California Farm Bureau Federation to OPR, February 2, 2009; Letter from County of Napa, Conservation, Development and Planning Department to OPR, January 26, 2009.) As explained above, the purpose of the Proposed Amendments is to implement the Legislative directive to develop Guidelines on the analysis and mitigation of GHG emissions. Although some agricultural uses also provide carbon sequestration values, most agricultural uses do not provide as much sequestration as forest resources. Therefore, such a project could result in a net increase in GHG emissions, among other potential impacts. Thus, such potential impacts are appropriately addressed in the Initial Study checklist.
Consistent with section 15126.4(a), a lead agency must support its choice of, and its determination of the effectiveness of, any reduction measures with substantial evidence. Substantial evidence in the record must demonstrate that any mitigation program or measure is reasonably likely to result in actual emissions reductions. As a practical matter, where a mitigation program or measure is consistent with protocols adopted or approved by an agency with regulatory authority to develop such a program, a lead agency will more easily be able to demonstrate that off-site mitigation will actually result in emissions reductions. Examples of such protocols include the forestry protocols described above. Where a mitigation proposal cannot be verified with an existing protocol, a greater evidentiary showing may be required."
Bay Nature Institute Magazine Features Oaks
Bay Nature is a full-color quarterly magazine that explores the landscapes and wildlife of the Bay Area, highlighting the people and organizations that are working to understand them, protect them and educate others about them. This subscription supported publication is an excellent addition to a conservationist’s personal library or as a gift.
The July-September issue contains two oak articles, the enlightening cover story Call of the Galls - The Lively Universe of an Ancient Oak by Ron Russo, author of Field Guide to Plant Galls of California and Other Western States, and Hard Time to Be an Oak by Daniel McGlynn, an environmental science writer working on a book about forest health in the West.
Hard Time to Be an Oak
by Daniel McGlynn
About one-eighth of California's land area is covered in oak woodlands. That adds up to 13 million acres of diverse habitat, ranging from hot, dry blue oak savanna to foggy, dense stands of coast live oaks.
Despite that vast acreage, it's hard to be an oak in California. Threats to oak survival include the effects of fire management, increased pressure from booming rodent and deer populations, disease, drought, competition from exotic plants, and the largest threat of all, development.
In its Oaks 2040 report, the California Oak Foundation projects that 1 million acres of oak woodland will succumb to development over the next 30 years and 750,000 more acres will be threatened. That's on top of 1 million acres of oak woodland already lost to development since 1950. Blue oak woodlands east of the Coast Range are particularly at risk in the face of accelerating suburban conversion of Central Valley and Sierra foothill ranch land.
Doug McCreary, who heads the UC Cooperative Extension's Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program, explains that the problem is more complicated than the number of oaks lost. Oaks are wind pollinated, and their "pollen doesn't travel all that far," says McCreary. So even trees left standing, if they are in fragmented habitat, may not be able to reproduce.
In recent years California's oaks have won some legal protection. The Oak Woodlands Conservation Act of 2000 provides funding to buy conservation easements in oak woodland areas, and a 2004 law requires that proposals to develop oak woodland include mitigation under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Janet Cobb, who directs the Oak Foundation, says that while there are now laws on the books that require mitigation, little enforcement actually occurs. "CEQA never stopped a project. It gives consideration but little else," Cobb says. "They're still bulldozing."
There's some hope, says Cobb, that California's new climate change legislation might add legal weight to oak woodlands' role as a carbon sink. Young oaks don't begin to sequester carbon significantly until they are at least 20 years old, and even older for blue oaks. That means mature intact stands of oaks can't simply be replaced by new plantings elsewhere, so we can add mitigating climate change to the already lengthy list of reasons to preserve our state's oak woodlands.
Merchandise
A Field Guide to Plant Galls of California And Other Western States by Ron Russo, published by U.C. Press. Identifies more than 300 species of galls. Information on host selection, growth and development, predator and parasite defense, and uses. $24.95/$22.46 mbrs., plus local sales tax, shipping and handling.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[Home] [Current_Issues] [Conservation] [Oak_Tree_Care] [How_To_Help] [Links] [Reference] [Newsletter] [Merchandise]
1212 Broadway, #842 Oakland, CA 94612 Tel. 510-763-0282
Fax: 510-208-4435 oakstaff@californiaoaks.org
|
|
