California Wild (part 2)

The evening hills around San Jose are brushed with blue and gold as I guide my rental car toward Silicon Valley. It's the second leg of my journey from Monterey to San Jose and I pause briefly at several stops along the way to make notes for my own "report card" on the State of the Wild in this state that I visit frequently. I was impressed with some of the efforts around Monterey (it's hard to restore public lands) -- but as the car travels northward, the picture gets more gloomy. There's less native vegetation and more housing and the closer I get to the San Francisco/San Jose area, the more dying plants I see. This isn't stress from drought, but rather the effects of pollution. On the trees that line the road, branches that are closest to the road are brown and dead. It's a strong statement for environmental activism.

As an area becomes more polluted, the number of different types of plants and animals shrinks. It wasn't a "survival of the fittest" native wildlife and plants, but rather a "survival of the strongest." Imports weren't doing that much better than natives.

Will Silicon Valley turn into one of the more polluted spots on earth? The environmental damage there probably won't reach the level that it is in eastern Europe -- but unless more aggressive campaigns are started soon, the damage will take decades to correct. There are some efforts to educate people, but they aren't as noticeable as they were in the country of Costa Rica (which we visited last year) where the government posted ads and signs in public places about the need for this charming country to be "clean and green."

And it may take a strong government effort (and zoning) to force changes. Most people there seem blind to the occasionally dying tree and more involved in the critical housing shortages there in Silicon Valley.

There are some very active organizations there in Silicon Valley that are promoting a "care for the environment" agenda.

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition - http://www.svtc.org/ (their maps of "hot spot" areas are pretty scary.)

Vegetation Management (Cannonball Express) Video Project http://www.canonbal.org/

Santa Clara Audubon society http://www.scvas.org/

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