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Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters (BACH) $5,000
This volunteer-driven grassroots organization strives to provide a link between the rural groups on the North Coast and the populated San Francisco Bay Area in order to build a broad base of support for the preservation of the redwood ecosystem, particularly Headwaters Forest. BACH founded the Friends of Headwaters Forest Reserve and the Headwaters Wilderness Forever! Project to interface with managing agencies to ensure the best implementation of restoration and habitat protection in the Headwaters Forest Reserve. Cereus funds were granted to provide general support of BACH's efforts.
California Wilderness Legacy Project (CWLP) $2,120
Recreational use of our National Forests has increased dramatically in recent decades, with off-highway vehicles (OHV) being one of the fastest-growing forms of outdoor recreation. The Forest Service is in the process of determining which specific areas of our National Forests will be off-limits to OHVs because of the extensive damage they cause. CWLP was granted Cereus funding to assist in the inventory of OHV routes and damages in sensitive areas in northern California National Forests. The information will be provided to the Forest Service.
Eel River Salmon Restoration Project (ERSRP) $1,000
Last year the California Department of Fish and Game granted almost $20 million for fisheries enhancement, but spent less than $100,000 on education programs. ERSRP has sponsored their "Salmonids in the Classroom" education program for Humboldt County school children for more than a decade. This program requires the "taking" of one Chinook salmon female to provide eggs for students to raise in their classrooms, and then release into their native streams. These young salmon enjoy more than a 90% survival rate. The popular program will not operate during this school year because no funding was provided by Fish & Game, and ERSRP did not have agency permission to "take" the one necessary fish. The Cereus Fund granted ERSRP funding to pursue gaining the permission and permits necessary to continue the program in the 2006-07 school year.
Environmentally Sound Promotions (ESP) $1,500
General support was granted to allow ESP to continue its work of promoting and fundraising for environmental music production, and to support media efforts concerning current forest issues. This year's projects include production of a double CD entitled Songs About Judi Bari, and work with a film production company to create an HBO documentary investigating who bombed Judi.
Institute for Sustainable Forestry (ISF) $4,730
Cereus funds were granted to support ISF's Nick's Interns Project, named in memory of Nick Raphael, a local Forestry graduate who was tragically killed in a car accident. The goal of the project is to train and employ local teenagers in restoration forestry, sediment and erosion control, ecological forest practices, and fire ecology. This year's interns will be implementing forest and watershed restoration techniques and fire-safe practices in the Elk Ridge area.
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) $5,000
Working to preserve wilderness-quality public lands in the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion, KS Wild's California Conservation Program was granted general support this year. The group will perform comprehensive monitoring of the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests to protect clean water, wildlife habitat, and roadless areas from degradation. KS Wild has a solid history of confronting poor management of our public lands, effectively stopping harmful timber sales and stimulating public involvement in the planning process.
Mattole Restoration Council (MRC) $5,000
Pacific Lumber is mandated to complete a Watershed Analysis for their holdings in the Mattole River watershed. The last of the company's unprotected old-growth forest landis found here. Cereus Fund granted support to allow MRC to participate in the Analysis to maintain or increase protection for this forest and aquatic habitats. MRC will coordinate community involvement, participate in field data collection and analysis, and retain a geologist to perform independent peer review.
Mattole Salmon Group (MSG) $4,992
Cereus Fund granted support this year for the MSG's Chinook salmon rescue project that diverts juvenile salmon from summer-heated lethal estuary conditions into protected rearing tanks to be released when they are old enough and the river is cool enough for their survival. Up to 6,000 juvenile Mattole River Chinook will be protected in 2006. MSG turned to Cereus for assistance in the wake of state-wide funding cuts by the California Department of Fish and Game, which had previously funded the project.
North Coast Earth First! (NCEF!) $5,000
Humboldt County forest-protection activists continue to actively oppose Pacific Lumber's timber harvest plans in their remaining old-growth forests at the point of extraction. Cereus Fund is providing support for the group's media outreach efforts, which bring attention to the continued logging. Funding is also provided for telephone and legal support for jailed activists.
Restoration Leadership Project $5,000
Cereus Fund provides critically needed funding for this project that seeks to unify stakeholder groups to define and create projects addressing the environmental impacts of past and current land and resource use. Cereus Fund pays the costs of travel, conferences, and the creation and maintenance of photographic images, audio and videotapes, and transcripts of agency hearings. See Richard Gienger's front-page article in this issue of Branching Out, along with his regular "Digging In" column, for more insight into his Restoration Leadership Project.
Salmon Forever (SAFO) $5,000
Cereus Fund has continuously supported Salmon Forever's Sediment Laboratory and field monitoring stations since 1999. The Lab has been essential to the group's efforts to document sediment loads and chronic turbidity in Humboldt Bay watersheds, two of which are among the last five streams in California supporting viable populations of endangered Coho salmon. Chronic turbidity and sediment accumulation in these stream channels are directly correlated to local salmon declines and increasing flood damage. The data collected by Salmon Forever has been instrumental in exposing Pacific Lumber's own unreliable data, and in giving the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (WQ) ammunition to require increased protections for these watersheds. Salmon Forever's monitoring stations cost approximately $1,500 each year to operate, and WQ has declared their data to be "robust." In contrast, PL's costs exceed $50,000 per year for comparable stations, whose data WQ characterizes as "unreliable."
Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN) $5,000
SPAWN is a community-based organization located in the Lagunitas Creek watershed of west Marin working to address creek impacts and restore threatened Coho salmon and steelhead trout. Cereus Fund granted support for SPAWN to establish a learning center for public education efforts on their newly acquired 2-acre property that contains more than 200 redwood trees and a section of San Geronimo Creek. This site is located on the primary conduit between Samuel P. Taylor State Park and the Point Reyes National Seashore, where more than 2.5 million visitors travel each year.
Salmonid Restoration Federation (SRF) $2,000
Cereus Fund granted support for SRF's Advocacy Program to educate restorationists, develop campaigns, and build coalitions to effectively advocate for increased restoration dollars, protection of habitat, and recovery of imperiled salmonids. SRF recognizes that restoration alone will not save California's once-magnificent runs of wild salmon and steelhead. Critical elements for recovery include advocating for protection of instream flows, protection of wild stocks of salmon, and acquiring key habitat.