WWW: Worldwide wine glut, failing sales, wine tariffs, change in drinking habits, failed marketing model, toxic chemicals dependent, high water using (in megadrought), environmental destruction, destroyed watersheds, loss of habitat, nothing stops this climate accelerating, health destroying industry.  No action from supervisors who depend on them for campaign donations. ENOUGH! And where is the Crop Report so we can see the over 1,000 acres + of new plantings in 2019, that was due in June?  

Action Alert:
More oak woodlands cleared for vineyards

By Shoshana Hebshi
Communications Coordinator, Redwood Chapter

You might think that since nearly everywhere you look there are vineyards, that Sonoma County has reached a point of peak production. To the conservationist, yes. To the winery owners, however, if there’s nearby open space, even if it’s important wildlife habitat, watershed or carbon-sequestering oak woodlands, it’s safe for bulldozing and putting in. If Napa County provides a cautionary tale to Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties, it’s time for leaders to reject new vineyards that destroy open space.

 

We’ve written about this issue in the past, and have sounded the alarm. But the threat continues. Profit over sustainability, greed over what’s best for all, continues to plague Sonoma County.

Currently, Ken Wilson Winery purchased more than 1,900 acres of land east of Cloverdale and is partly in the process of being converted to vineyards. Other land-clearing projects to make way for vineyards include one in the Laguna de Santa Rosa watershed.

As destruction mounts, activists are imploring the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to issue a time out on new vineyard development, with special attention placed on the removal of trees during a climate crisis.

“Previously the County has had moratorium on industrial hemp applications for about a year and previous to that they had a temporary time out while an ordinance regulating the dragging down of trees on slopes for vineyards was accomplished,” said activist Kimberly Burr. “Unfortunately, that ordinance only stopped the industry from destroying these hillside woodlands for a few years and now they get around the rule, and have had the engineer who reviewed these proposals fired.”

Time is of the essence, Burr urges, asking people to implore the Board of Supervisors to put a temporary hold on new vineyards.

Contact Burr for more info or sample language to use in a letter to the supervisors: kimlarry2@comcast.net

Find your district supervisor contact info and meeting information here.