It is no small thing to close a 135-year-old, 860-acre facility. The closure of Sonoma Developmental Center is a complex, multi-layered process with many stakeholders. Sonoma Ecology Center has taken a keen interest in this process. The majority of this land is...
One of the Valley’s favorite hiking trails, Sonoma Overlook Trail, is currently getting some important work done to protect it from soil erosion and other hazards. The Overlook Trail is a collaborative project of Sonoma Ecology Center and the City of Sonoma and...
Every spring, your local ecologists at Sonoma Ecology Center take on a persistent problem that threatens native species throughout Sonoma Valley and California: invasive weeds From French broom to yellow star-thistle, these non-natives displace California’s native...
We love Doug McConnell, and not just because he once visited us at Sonoma Garden Park. For decades McConnell has been the Bay Area’s tour guide, showing generations of viewers all the people and places – especially natural places – that make the Bay Area great. His...
Recently, our friends at Sonoma Land Trust announced acquisition of a 40-acre property near Hood Mountain Regional Park. The rugged and undeveloped canyon land, home to breeding steelhead and “the last stand of redwoods in the upper Santa Rosa Creek watershed,”...
It was the end of Earth Day, 1990, when a few local environmentalists gathered together to talk about the day and about Sonoma Valley’s future. This small group – Richard Dale among them – saw that our Valley could use some guidance in dealing with its environmental...
