Margaret Pennington
Redwood Chapter Chair

Time to Plan

For the past year or so I've been the self-appointed Redwood Chapter cheerleader (AKA "nag") for strategic planning. I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart when I walked into the Sonoma County Environmental Center about a week ago and encountered twelve or so Sierra Clubbers gathered around the conference table actively engaged in a campaign planning session.

Sierra Club supplies the toolkit ­nicknamed the Matrix. Our members supply the energy, brainpower and synergy to turn the plan into effective action. The topic of the day was the formulation of a campaign to protect natural landscapes from the onslaught of ever more conversions to unnatural vineyards. (See Native Forests Threatened by Vineyards.)

For me, this is Sierra Club working at its best - motivated members bringing a myriad of talents and skills together to address the thorniest of environmental challenges. Redwood Chapter is hoping to bring a National Club campaign-training workshop to our area sometime this spring. I hope you'll watch for the announcement and come get involved.

Currently, Redwood Chapter members are in the midst of building campaigns around four priority environmental issues. Along with protecting natural landscapes threatened by vineyard development, activists are forging plans to protect water resources, forests and wilderness. These are broad topics, and not surprisingly, given John Muir's famous words of wisdom ­"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe"­ we find lots of overlap between them.

Sweet Success

Our Chapter water campaign is just beginning to get its campaign planning legs under it, but some of the delay has been due to the fact that folks working in this area have been so busy on the front lines of protecting our north coast rivers and streams. You can read about one huge and happy water victory in this issue of the Needles (Water Win) - the successful fending off of the Albion/Gualala Rivers water grab. Sierra Clubber Julie Verran broke this story in the press and worked with Linda Perkins (Sierra Club and Albion River Watershed Association) and many others to help organize a diverse and extremely effective coalition that essentially sent Mr. Davidge and his water bags packing.

Unfortunately, Davidge didn't go very far and has now set his sights on water from Humboldt County's Mad River. Still, the undeniable lesson here is that we can succeed in protecting nature when we band together with our allies and marshal our collective skills and strengths. A toast to everyone who helped with this. Let's all give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back.

Keep It Wild

Our Redwood campaign in support of the California Wild Heritage Act is active at both ends of the Chapter. (See California Wild Heritage Act On The Move.) Monthly organizing meetings are happening at the Sonoma County Environmental Center. Lynn Ryan is coordinating efforts to gather support for California Wilderness from businesses and individuals in the Humboldt area. Large tracts of potential wilderness areas within our Redwood Chapter borders could receive permanent wilderness protection through passage of this legislation. Your help can make it happen.

Redwood Chapter's Forest Protection committee has just submitted a grant proposal to help launch a public education campaign to protect roadless areas, reform Forest Service management, phase out commercial logging, and promote restoration and sustainable employment opportunities on the Klamath, Shasta-Trinity, Six Rivers, and Mendocino national forests. We've got our fingers crossed that the funding will come through and the workshops and organizing meetings we've got planned will be coming to a neighborhood near you soon.

Open Invitation to Get Involved

I hope you've got the message that we're pretty busy these days and we'd love to have you join us. As always, another great way to work for environmental protection is to join Sierra Club's local, statewide and/or national activist networks. See page two of the Needles for directions on how to join. Or dash off a quick e-mail message to Melanie Matway: ad_astra7@hotmail.com, our webmaster extraordinaire, and she'll sign you up.

You can also check out Melanie's skill as a webmaster by logging onto our Redwood Chapter site at: www.redwood.sierraclub.org. There you can find out more about what we're up to, calculate your ecological footprint, vote for John Muir on the California Commemorative Coin, get some great ideas for green New Year's resolutions, and more.