Green Foothills

More than 57% of CA voters support investments in clean drinking water, flood protection, wildfire prevention, clean energy, and protecting lands from climate risks. Thank you to for their efforts to put a on the November ballot!

If you're reading this post and you support a California climate bond measure to support the state's investments in climate resilience, please share this and contact your state legislators to ask them to support the bond. The CA legislature will vote Wednesday morning 7/3 to decide whether to put the bond on the ballot!

Good news for water quality in Santa Clara County! The County Board of Supervisors has voted to require mining operations to maintain a 50-foot protective buffer away from groundwater. We’re celebrating this important step by the County to protect its water supply from the potentially harmful impacts of mining. 🎉💦

And we’re proud that the initial idea for this ordinance came from a Green Foothills Leadership Program capstone project! Kudos to Green Foothills Leadership Program alumni Rhoda Fry, Kian Nikzad, and Manjeet Singh Bhamra. 👏👏

Read more on our blog:

Protecting Our Groundwater From Mining Contamination - Green Foothills Santa Clara County has enacted a new ordinance requiring mining operations to maintain a 50-foot protective buffer from groundwater.

San Benito County voters have a chance to help protect rural, agricultural, and rangelands by voting for a new ballot measure this November. If it passes, the ballot measure will require voter approval before wilderness, farms or ranches are rezoned for development.

This measure would encourage developers to build within existing urban areas of the county, rather than sprawling across the countryside.

Read more on our blog:
https://www.greenfoothills.org/ballot-measure-seeks-empower-sb-voters

And if you'd like to help with the "YES" campaign, please let us know!

📷: Ken Lund, flickr

Ballot Measure Seeks to Empower San Benito Voters - Green Foothills In November 2024, a ballot measure will give San Benito County voters a chance to change the way land use decisions are made in the county.

Coyotes are native to California and can be found throughout the state. They thrive in a wide variety of habitats, from deserts to mountains and from wildlands to urban areas. This one was spotted at Edgewood Park near Redwood City.

These members of the dog family like to eat small animals, fruit, and insects, but they can survive on whatever food is available and have been known to dig through garbage cans. (Never feed a coyote! When coyotes lose their fear of humans, it puts people and pets at risk.)

Coyotes usually mate for life and raise one litter of pups each year. Both parents raise their offspring together, and nonbreeding yearlings often stay with adult parents to help care for younger siblings.

Their name comes from the ancient Aztec word "coyotl," which means "barking dog."

📷: Jerel Crawford

Happy Summer Solstice! Today is the longest day of the year ... how will you be spending it?

The summer solstice occurs when our side of the world -- the Northern Hemisphere -- is at its furthest tilt toward the sun, typically sometime between June 20-22. This year it happens on June 20 at 1:50 p.m. Meanwhile, Earth's Southern Hemisphere is experiencing the winter solstice, its shortest day of the year. What an extraordinarily amazing planet we live on!

📷: Paige Sawyer, sunset at Rockaway Beach in Pacifica

San Benito County is a relatively new area of focus for Green Foothills that is a natural outgrowth of our work to protect wildlife corridors and stop sprawl in southern Santa Clara County. As land for development in Santa Clara County becomes scarce, developers are turning their attention to lands further south, in many cases putting local nature and wildlife in jeopardy.

Our Upper Pajaro Watershed program, focusing on San Benito County and southern Santa Clara County (stretching from Morgan Hill southward), is intended to address threats to open space in this beautiful region that is still mostly rural and agricultural.

To the dads who ROCK our world: Have a happy Father's Day this weekend!

Green Foothills - Local. Vocal. Effective. Since 1962, we have protected the open space, farmlands, and natural resources of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties for the benefit of all through advocacy, education, and grassroots action.

California Condors are an important part of California’s natural heritage. This one is flying over Pinnacles National Park in San Benito County, just a short drive south of Silicon Valley. They are the largest land birds in North America, with wingspans of 9.5 feet!

Condors are scavengers - they strictly eat dead things, and have been seen feeding on everything from ground squirrels to beached whales. They need a big territory that provides adequate food and shelter. Ideal condor habitat consists of wide expanses of undeveloped land, large trees for roosting, and rocky cliffs or tree cavities for nesting.

Condors have come back from the brink of extinction but they are still one of the rarest and most imperiled birds in the world. Two of the biggest threats to condors are habitat lost to human development, and lead poisoning from eating animals that have been shot. (That's why hunters in California have been required to use non-lead ammunition since 2019, to protect condors and other scavengers who might accidentally consume it.)

Condors are very social animals, and can form strong bonds with each other. Playful and curious, they love to pretend-fight, preen each other, and cluster together to inspect anything new in their area.

If you want to see them in the wild, Pinnacles National Park is a great place to visit. Bring binoculars!

📷: Jim Bain, flickr

Butano State Park has an impressive range of ecosystems -- coast redwood, coastal scrub, evergreen forest -- and while it's mostly forested, there are also open areas like the hillside shown here. Located near Pescadero, Butano is a great all-season park. It's near the Pacific Ocean so it usually doesn't get extremely hot in the summer. Of course always remember to bring plenty of water. 🥛💦

Before 1769, what is now Butano State Park lay within the territory of the Quiroste tribe—the Indigenous inhabitants who had lived there for thousands of years. The Quiroste hunted game, harvested plant foods, dined on a great variety of seafoods and sold coastal resources to their inland neighbors using shell beads as money. In autumn, the people burned large tracts of meadowlands to manage the foods they ate—especially hazelnuts and acorns. The fires improved plants that fed the deer, pronghorn, and tule elk they hunted. Today, the Quiroste's once-managed landscape has reverted to wilderness.

In the late 1700s, European settlers took over the area, and in the 1800s and early 1900s the area was used for logging. The state of California, assisted by conservation groups, began to acquire the land in the 1950s, and the state park was created in 1957.

📷: Summer Che

It's a lucky day when you spot a Vermilion Flycatcher in Santa Clara County! These eye-catching little birds are common in Mexico and Central America but it's relatively rare to find them this far north. This one was sitting on a branch in Joseph D. Grant County Park.

Vermilion Flycatchers like to sit on exposed perches within about 10 feet of the ground, especially in insect-rich places such as the edges of wetlands or along stream corridors. The males have a brilliant red color, and the females are gray-brown. As their name suggests, they like to eat flies and other insects. Like other members of the flycatcher family, Vermilion Flycatchers are prone to wander and can occasionally be found way outside their normal range, sometimes as far afield as Canada.

📷: Mark LeClair

The surveys are in! 73% of East San Jose residents listed "new parks and open space" as a top priority for development on the old Pleasant Hills Golf Course site.

At 115 acres (about the size of 90 football fields), Pleasant Hills is the biggest contiguous new development site that San Jose has seen in decades. Because the golf course is currently undeveloped green space, this is a rare opportunity for San Jose to create significant amounts of new publicly accessible urban parks, natural habitat, and open space that can improve climate resilience, biodiversity, and recreational opportunities for the entire city.

Green Foothills joined with 15 other nonprofit organizations to submit a joint letter to the City Council with a list of guiding principles for development on this site. These included abundant housing (including affordable housing), jobs and community gathering space, a mix of transportation options, climate-resilient design, and significant amounts of publicly accessible parkland and green space. The groups that signed this letter have diverse missions and include housing, transportation, environmental, and community-based organizations, but we are all aligned on this vision.

As this process moves forward, we will continue to work to ensure that the vision of the community and of our nonprofit partners is fulfilled, so that the Pleasant Hills Golf Course site can bring multiple benefits to the entire community.

Read more on our blog: https://www.greenfoothills.org/advocating-for-green-space-in-essj

Advocating for Green Space in East San Jose - Green Foothills What is the desired vision for new development on the Pleasant Hills Golf Course site in East San Jose? According to a city survey, creation of new parks and open space is by far the top priority for the nearby community. Green Foothills is working with the city and the community to ensure that this...

Kudos to Half Moon Bay! Its Planning Commission has approved 40 units of affordable housing for farmworkers in the city's downtown. We've been advocating in support of this project, since many local farmworkers lack safe and affordable places to live. This work is part of our commitment to supporting local agriculture.

Learn more on our blog:

Half Moon Bay Planning Commission Approves Senior Farmworker Housing - Green Foothills The Half Moon Bay Planning Commission has approved an innovative 40-unit affordable housing project for senior farmworkers.

June 1 was National Trails Day! Celebrate with a hike! This trail at Windy Hill Open Space Preserve in Portola Valley curves around a breezy grass-covered hilltop. On a clear day you can see breathtaking 360-degree views of San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

We're lucky to have so many great hiking trails in our area. This didn't happen by accident. Trails and nature preserves exist because people like you joined Green Foothills in speaking up to tell our local leaders that parks, open space, and trails are important. 📣 Follow us and subscribe to our email list to learn about opportunities to speak up for local nature. https://www.greenfoothills.org/subscribe/

There are some who bring a light so great to the world that even after they have gone, the light remains.

📷: Jamal Edwards, Laguna Seca, North Coyote Valley Conservation Area

Wildflowers blooming at Ralph D. Percival Memorial Vista Point, a viewing spot just off I-280 near Redwood City. From this breezy, grassy hill you'll have a panoramic view of the Crystal Springs Reservoir and the northern Santa Cruz Mountains.

The blossoms in this photo are Harvest Brodiaea, also called Elegant Cluster-lily. It's one of the later blooming wildflowers, often seen in May.

📷: Trisha Lyn Fawver

Today is International Biodiversity Day! 🌱🌍 A day to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues.🍃🦊🦉Biodiversity loss is happening at an alarming rate.
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Nature is humanity’s lifeline. Our health, food, economies, and well-being depend on nature. Yet nature is in crisis. One million of the world’s estimated 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.
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As a community with a voice (and the power for change) we must protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of ecosystems, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss.⠀
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Now is the time to appreciate the vital role of the health of our planet and to take immediate action to conserve nature.👫 🌲 💚🌱 We are part of nature, not separate from it.💚🌱

📷: Mark Grzan, endangered Bay Checkerspot butterfly with tidy tips wildflowers at Coyote Ridge Open Space Preserve

I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a bee.

Happy ! With apologies to Joyce Kilmer.

Today is Endangered Species Day, an annual day to learn about endangered and threatened species and what we can do to help them.

Endangered species are plants and animals that are in danger of becoming extinct, while threatened species are at risk of becoming endangered. The Endangered Species Act is the federal law that protects these vulnerable populations. By supporting conservation and recovery programs, we can work to rebuild endangered and threatened populations of plants and animals to healthy levels.

The Snowy Plover, shown here, can be found on San Mateo County beaches such as Dunes Beach and Half Moon Bay State Beach. Once numbering in the thousands, fewer than 1,500 breeding plovers remain in California. It is listed as a Species of Special Concern by the state.

Green Foothills works to protect local habitats in San Mateo, Santa Clara, and San Benito Counties so that wildlife can thrive.

Mori Point in Pacifica in early May, with spectacular carpets of wildflowers perched dramatically above rocky ocean cliffs. There should still be flowers there now if you want to check them out!

To get there, walk along the Mori Point Trail, a 1.8-mile, out-and-back path that will take you straight to the main viewpoint. The trail is flat for most of the way, but there's a steep uphill climb at the end.

Fremont Older Preserve in Cupertino features a variety of trails for hikers, bikers, and horseback riders. On-leash dogs are allowed on all trails. You may want to wear sunscreen and a hat because there isn't much shade at this sunny (and gorgeous!) preserve. In the spring you'll most likely see wildflowers such as these California poppies.

A highlight of the preserve is Hunter's Point, a 900-foot hilltop that offers beautiful sweeping views of the Santa Clara Valley. The hilltop is located about a mile from the Prospect Road parking lot.

It's almost Mothers Day! Did you know redwoods have "mother trees"? When you see a circle of redwoods like this, many of the trees are probably siblings, all children of a common mother tree that used to stand in the middle of the ring.

These rings are called fairy rings, and they're usually found around the stump of a logged old-growth tree. After being cut down, a new generation of trees sprout from the roots of the fallen redwood. This is one of the ways redwoods regenerate, giving them the tremendous advantage of already having a full root system compared to species that reproduce through seed.

The fairy ring in this photo is the George Peterson Memorial Grove in Sanborn County Park in Saratoga, California.

It was a beautiful evening if a bit windy and cold on the Half Moon Bay Coastal Trail last Thursday. We took two groups out on the trail, one for adults ages 65+ and one for Spanish speakers of all ages.

We walked 1.5 miles with our docents and a healer who told us about the area's history, described some of the plants and animals we saw on the way, and led us in a calming, healing meditation. This was part of our popular (and free!) Healing in Nature outings series. You can learn more about it on our website https://greenfoothills.org/healing-in-nature.

Thank you to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors for providing funding from Measure K to support this program. Measure K is a half-cent countywide sales tax that provides local funds for local needs, to ensure San Mateo County quality of life.

Green represents the environment, but did you know it's also the official color for Mental Health Awareness Month? Green means renewal, hope, and vitality. That's why is encouraging everyone to wear green in May to support mental health awareness.

Mental health and the environment are closely connected!

😍 Spending time in nature is associated with reduced anxiety and improved mood, as well as lower blood pressure and enhanced immune system.

😍 When people live near parks and trails, they exercise more often and report lower rates of depression, anxiety, and stress.

😍 Neighborhoods with flourishing park systems enjoy a greater sense of community and lower crime rates.

😧There's evidence of a link between certain air pollutants and mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.

😧Lead, a heavy metal, is toxic to your nervous system. Even very low levels of lead concentration in blood are associated with decreased intelligence, behavioral difficulties, and learning problems in children.

Sources: UN Environment Programme, San Mateo County Park RX, American Psychological Association

Spring wildflowers at Henry W. Coe State Park near Morgan Hill. This is the largest state park in northern California, consisting of 87,000 acres of scenic hills and mountain ridges in the Diablo Mountain Range. The park welcomes backpackers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, day-hikers, and anyone seeking to enjoy a quiet natural setting.

After a rainy winter, wildflowers start blooming in February, and by April the color is rampant. The landscape is rich with blue lupine and orange-yellow California poppies, bright yellow gold fields and delicate baby blue eyes. Mariposa lilies, larkspur, wild hyacinth and Ithuriel’s spear show themselves in late April and May. The variety and richness of the flowers attract visitors from miles around.

📷: Steve McHenry

May is ! Did you know wetlands and marshes act like natural sponges that absorb rising water during storms?

The wetlands and tidal marshes that ring the San Francisco Bay help protect local communities from flooding. This is increasingly important, as sea levels are expected to rise significantly over the next few decades, with flooding becoming more of a concern.

Wetlands also provide critical habitat for wildlife, help improve water quality, and sequester carbon.

Historically, San Francisco Bay was lined with salt water marshes and tidal mudflats. But over time, 90% of these wetlands have been lost, mostly through being filled in for development or diked off for salt production.

Green Foothills is a dedicated advocate for protecting and restoring Bay wetlands. Learn about some of our recent work in this blog post:
https://www.greenfoothills.org/proposal-artificial-lagoon-threatens-bay-wildlife

📷: Scot Griffin

Proposal for Giant Artificial Lagoon Threatens Bay Water and Wildlife - Green Foothills A local agency has proposed creating a giant artificial lagoon that threatens San Francisco Bay with deadly algae blooms and destruction of wetlands.

Black-necked Stilt chick doing the happy dance at Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge near Alviso.

Maybe it's practicing for when it grows up? Adults of this species do a famously beautiful courtship dance, in which the courting couple dances side-by-side, the male dances around the female splashing the water with his bill, and then they walk away with their bills entwined.

📷: Susan LeClair

An American bullfrog peeks out of the water at Henry W. Coe State Park near Morgan Hill.

The American bullfrog wasn't originally a California species, but after being brought in by humans it has thrived here, with a population now estimated in the millions. Unfortunately they are devouring and displacing California native species such as the California red-legged frog and the foothill yellow-legged frog.

American bullfrogs are large frogs with wide heads, stout bodies, and long hind legs with fully webbed hind feet. Adult bullfrogs can weigh over two pounds. They have smooth skin that is green to brown in color on their backs, often with dark spots or mottling, and white to grey to yellow in color on their bellies. They have big appetites and will eat anything they can fit into their mouths, including invertebrates, birds, bats, rodents, frogs, newts, lizards, snakes, and turtles.

📷: muzza_buck, flickr

Santa Clara County has received more than 10,000 comment letters from the public asking it to protect Juristac!

Juristac is an important wildlife corridor that is threatened with destruction by a proposed sand-and-gravel mine.

The area is sacred to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, who are working to protect it.

99.99% of comments sent to the county (more than 10,000 comments!) are against the proposed mine. Fewer than 10 comments, or 0.1% of all comments received, supported the project.

Learn more:
https://www.greenfoothills.org/more-than-10000-comments-submitted-to-the-county-express-concerns-about-proposed-mine-at-juristac

📷: Spring wildflowers at Juristac, courtesy of Amah Mutsun Tribal Band

Juristac Comment Letters Overwhelmingly Oppose Open-Pit Mine More than 10,000 letters were submitted to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors during the public comment period.

Happy ! Did you know that YOU have the power to make a difference in protecting our environment? 💪🌱

It's true! Your voice matters, and your actions can have a real impact on shaping policies and decisions that affect our natural resources. Elected officials keep track of what the public thinks, and they act based on that information. This means that YOUR input can help drive positive change. 👍

At Green Foothills, we empower and engage local communities to protect the environment. We are local, vocal, and effective. Together, we are making a real difference for our communities and the planet. 🌍💚

Want to make your voice heard and create a more sustainable world for generations to come? Follow us and sign up for our email newsletter at https://www.greenfoothills.org/subscribe. We’ll let you know when there’s an opportunity or threat to our local environment in San Mateo, Santa Clara, or San Benito Counties, and we’ll provide ways to contact elected officials to tell them to do the right thing. 📨 📣

📷: Jeff Regan, Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve

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