News Archive 2011
A chronological listing of information added to this site.
[Where What's New
items go when they're no longer new.]
new 12/28/11
Is Premier Pacific Vineyards Dead?
"The Gualala River has already been battered by years of industrial logging and, more recently, intensive wine-grape cultivation. The destruction of so much redwood forest [by PPV's Preservation Ranch] would damage the watershed further, on a massive scale."
December, 2011, Anderson Valley Advertiser
new 12/28/11
Biggest forest-to-vineyard conversion in California's history
An interview with investigative reporter Will Parrish on KPFA's "Morning Mix."
December, 2011, KPFA Radio
new 12/22/11
Codorníu's statement & our response
Following a tidal wave of negative publicity (over 125,000 signatures on petitions opposing their project), Codorníu issues a statement defending their project, and Friends of the Gualala River responds.
new 12/16/11
For a donation is $25 or more, we'll send you
update 12/16/11
new 12/05/11
new 12/03/11
new 10/12/11
new 10/12/11
new 9/21/11
new 9/14/11
new 9/5/11
new 9/5/11
new 8/29/11
new 8/28/11
new 8/26/11
new 8/25/11
update 8/24/11
update 8/24/11
new 7/31/11
new 7/31/11
new 7/31/11
revised 6/22/11
new 6/17/11
new 6/11/11
new 6/11/11
Sunday, June 12 at 9:30 a.m.
Parrish will discuss the affects of corporate vineyards on
the local ecology and economy.
The interview will be rebroadcast on Wednesday, June 15 at 6:00 p.m.
See
Will Parrish's full series of articles on the North Coast wine industry
in the Anderson Valley Advertiser.
new 5/29/11
updated 5/29/11
new 5/29/11
new 5/5/11
new 5/2/11
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Information on
new 5/2/11
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
new 3/16/11
new 2/25/11
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Featuring a talk by Mendocino
update 2/25/11
new 2/20/11
new 2/20/11
new 1/30/11
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Friends of the Gualala River is on a roll!
We hit the media jackpot in 2011 (see Gualala River in the News, below),
but we need your help more than ever.
Please see yourself as a member of our team, all of us united in resolve to hold on to the promise of recovery for these abused but recovering forests and waters.
one of our Chainsaw Wine bumper stickers:
"Pídele a Codorníu que no destruya los bosques para producir sus vinos"
[Google translation:]
Ask Codorníu not to destroy forests to produce their wines
Spanish organization Actuable has collected over 29,000 signatures on a petition to
ask Codorníu [based in Spain] not to destroy redwood forest in Sonoma County to produce their wines.
Read and sign the petition!
Fall of the Redwood Empire
"Clearcutting for vineyards is nothing new in wine country. Can it be stopped?"
November, 2011, North Bay Bohemian
Pídele a Codorníu que no destruya los bosques para producir sus vinos
Spanish organization Actuable has started a petition to
"Ask Codorníu [based in Spain] not to destroy forests to produce their wines."
CalPERS move puts Preservation Ranch on hold?
The California Public Employees Retirement System is severing its investment ties with a Napa-based vineyard management firm pushing one of Sonoma County's largest and most controversial land-use projects.
Artesa Vineyards & Winery
Artesa's Facebook page has a description of their vineyard "conversion" project in Annapolis, but it doesn't match what they say in their draft Environmental Impact Report.
Gualala River Watershed Council
People sometimes confuse Friends of the Gualala River (FoGR) and Gualala River Watershed Council (GRWC)
- two very different organizations. Here's a comparison. Who do you support?
Gualala River Forest Conservation Easement
The Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) approved funding a conservation easement for a 14,000 acre parcel in the Gualala River watershed at its meeting on September 13.
Fermented Fallacies
Debunking the myths of Preservation Ranch forestland vineyard development.
May we suggest a Pinot with that redwood forest?
"How much is a good Pinot worth?
...That Pinot, ladies and gentlemen, is going to run you around 1600-plus acres of freshly mowed-down Redwood forest. That must be some wine."
September, 2011, Huffington Post
Gualala River Forest Conservation Easement
The Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) will consider funding a conservation easement for a 14,000 acre parcel in the Gualala River watershed at its meeting on September 13.
Send a message to the WCB.
Petition opposing destruction of redwood forests
Please encourage our elected officials to help us stop Codorniu's Artesa Napa Winery and Premier Pacific Vineyards from destroying coastal redwood forest and Native American heritage for financial gain.
Read and sign the petition!
Water Use by Vineyards Is Challenged
The dense forests of redwood, oak and Douglas fir that once covered much of Sonoma County have for many decades been giving way to pastures, orchards, subdivisions - and vineyards.
August, 2011, NY Times
Redwoods versus red wine
The redwood tree and the wine grapevine are both iconic in Northern California. Two wineries are petitioning the state to let them clear redwoods and Douglas firs to make room for new Pinot Noir vineyards. Environmentalists want the trees protected.
August, 2011, LA Times
Wave energy project off the Gualala coast?
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
has canceled permits issued to the Sonoma County Water Agency
for investigation of wave energy projects off the Sonoma Coast,
including one offshore of Gualala and the Sea Ranch.
Gualala River Forest Conservation Easement
The Wildlife Conservation Board will consider funding a conservation easement for a 14,000 acre parcel in the Gualala River watershed at its meeting on September 13.
Forest lands eyed for vineyards
"These vineyards are biological deserts. It's worse than a clear cut. This is permanent conversion from a natural landscape and it has its consequences."
July, 2011, Santa Rosa Press Democrat
People Who Belong To The Land
One of the greatest instances of harm ever wrought on the Kashia's ancestral land is on the verge of occurring. A pair of huge wine corporations have proposed two large forest-to-vineyard conversions in the heart of the people's ancestral homeland.
July, 2011, Anderson Valley Advertiser
Global warming threatens North Coast vineyards
"Global warming could leave half of Napa Valley's famed vineyards unsuitable to grow premium grapes by 2040, according to the latest study to raise questions about the impact of climate change on California's wine industry."
July, 2011, Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Retaining wall above the estuary?
Destroying coastal bluff, native vegetation and the Gualala Bluff Trail
for a project that hasn't even been reviewed makes no sense, and violates California law.
Coastal Commission hearing on the proposed retaining wall project has been
postponed.
The Mendonoma Coast's Second Spanish Invasion
Spanish wine corporation Grupo Codorníu is accustomed to doing things in a big way. It is reputed to own a greater expanse of vineyard acreage than any wine company in Spain, which in turn has more land under grapevine cultivation than any nation in the world.
June, 2011, Anderson Valley Advertiser
Gualala vineyard conversions get national attention
June, 2011:
"Plan to cut forest for vineyards faces opposition",
an article by the Associated Press, appears in newspapers across the country, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Sacramento Bee, etc., as well as Salon, Huffington Post, Forbes and many others.
Interview with Will Parrish on KTDE
Wednesday, June 15 at 6:00 p.m.
Investigative reporter Will Parrish will be Fred Adler's guest
on Coastal Interviews on KTDE 100.5 FM, Gualala, on
Sunday, June 12 at 9:30 a.m.
Tribe buys coastal forest in Humboldt County
"The Tribe has long sought the return of ancestral land to create a salmon sanctuary and restore tribal cultural management practices, which benefit fish, wildlife and the ecosystem as a whole," Yurok Tribal Chairman Thomas O'Rourke said.
Gualala River Steelhead Studies
"Preserving any sizeable steelhead population in the river into future decades will require preserving and protecting summertime stream flows from reductions caused by a myriad of developmental activities, including grape vineyards."
- Ten Years: Ten Revelations
Stop-work order on Pocket Canyon timber conversion
Sonoma County code enforcement officials inspect a 10-acre timberland conversion project near Pocket Canyon, just east of Guerneville, owned by winemaker Paul Hobbs.
May, 2011, Press Democrat
Coalition asks Spanish corporation to withdraw proposal to clear-cut coastal redwood forest for vineyards
Friends of the Gualala River has joined with 18 national, California, and regional environmental organizations in asking the international wine corporation, Codorniu of Barcelona, Spain, to withdraw its controversial proposal to destroy nearly 150 acres of coastal redwood forest by clear-cutting and converting the area for new vineyards to produce premier wine grapes.
"Preservation" Ranch
Gualala Municipal Advisory Council
(GMAC) meeting
6:30 p.m.
Gualala Community Center
47950 Center St., Gualala, CA
"Preservation" Ranch
will be presented to the Council by
Chris Poehlmann and Peter Baye of Friends of the Gualala River
and by representatives of "Preservation" Ranch.
Meeting starts at 6:30 p.m.; this presentation is item #8 on the agenda.
Blessing of the Gualala River
4:00 p.m.
Gualala Arts Center
46501 Gualala Road, Gualala, CA
Eight Tibetan Buddhist monks
from the Gaden Shartse Monastery in southern India will return to our coastal communities in May.
On Wednesday, May 18 at 4:00 p.m., Friends of the Gualala River will join the monks on a walk to the river for a short ceremony to bless the river's watershed. Please join us!
Artesa ("Fairfax") vineyard conversion
CAL FIRE has released a
Partially Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report, to address
inadequacies in the Cultural Resources and Climate Change sections of the DEIR.
Deadline for public comments is April 27, 2011.
Transition Town Movement
7:00 p.m.
Gualala Arts Center
Transition Town Movement
leader Charles Cresson Wood.
The purpose of the event is to explore the Transition Town Movement - how it has expanded in neighboring communities, around the US, and around the world - in light of starting such an effort on our Mendonoma coast.
More info . . .
Gualala River Forest Conservation Easement
The Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) decided to delay a decision on funding a conservation easement for a 14,000 acre parcel in the Gualala River watershed in order to give the public more time to review the appraisal.
Your rights to access & enjoyment of CA streams & rivers
The beds and banks of California streamcourses below mean high water are subject to the California State Lands Commission's policies on public trust. Public trust uses include, among others, ports, marinas, docks and wharves, buoys, hunting, commercial and sport fishing, bathing, swimming, and boating.
"Psst... Groundwater and Surface Water Do Mix"
An article published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters describes a new and simple way of measuring groundwater's contribution to small streams on the surface.
- NYTimes, February, 2011
"The Wrath of Grapes"
How a Goldman Sachs executive is helping to kill Mark West Creek - and what the county isn't doing about it.
January 2011, North Bay Bohemian
1/27/11 new
The North Coast Wine Industry:
Draining Our Rivers Dry
7:00 p.m.
Gualala Arts Center
Investigative reporter Will Parrish
will discuss his controversial recent series for the
Anderson Valley Advertiser on the ecological toll of California's wine
industry, with a special emphasis on rapacious vineyard development in the
Gualala River watershed.
Back to
What's New?
Older news items, see:
News Archive 2012
News Archive 2011 [this page]
News Archive 2010
News Archive 2009
News Archive 2008
News Archive 2007
News Archive 2006
News Archive 2005
News Archive 2004
News Archive 2003
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