SCDP Urges Protection of Piner Road Forty Acre Oak Woodland

WHEREAS mature trees store large amounts of carbon dioxide CO2 – a very harmful green house gas – and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explains that all countries need to vastly increase their ability to store carbon while substantially reducing emissions in our shared effort to stabilize the global climate; and 

WHEREAS mature trees and woodlands are vital to storing CO2 and therefore vital to the community’s well being, and oak woodlands are a keystone species and provide acorns which were historically and continue to be today a nutritious protein source still harvested by local tribes of the Pomo and Miwok communities, and because the County of Sonoma has still not updated its tree protection efforts, oak woodlands are still allowed to be cut down in large numbers; and 

WHEREAS there is currently a highly vulnerable 40-acre mature oak woodland on the market on West Piner Road (on the market for a reduced price) and which the Laguna de Santa Rosa agrees is iconic for its biodiversity and this woodland is completely unprotected from destruction under current County rules and converting this woodland would release large amounts of CO2 in the process while substantially reducing the County’s ability to store carbon one of its stated goals; 

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Sonoma County Democratic Party strongly urges our elected officials take all steps necessary to protect the highly vulnerable 40-acre oak woodland at 3111 Piner Road, Santa Rosa, California including the Board of Supervisors of Sonoma County who serves as the Directors of the Agriculture and Open Space District to take all steps necessary to protect this significant remnant oak woodland for the community perhaps for a nature park, a recharge area, and for carbon sequestration, either by way of purchase, by acquisition of a conservation easement, or by other means.

Submitted by Kimberly Burr