Traveling the Electric Highway: Part III

Traveling the Electric Highway: Part III

Sonoma Ecology Center Executive Director Richard Dale and his family are enjoying a road trip to British Columbia – and they’re making the drive in their all-electric Chevrolet Bolt EV. What follows is part three of Richard’s chronicle of the highs and lows of taking...

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Traveling the Electric Highway: Part II

Traveling the Electric Highway: Part II

Sonoma Ecology Center Executive Director Richard Dale and his family are enjoying a road trip to British Columbia – and they’re making the drive in their all-electric Chevrolet Bolt EV. What follows is part two of Richard’s chronicle of the highs and lows of taking...

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A Summer to Remember at Sugarloaf

A Summer to Remember at Sugarloaf

July is a time for hiking, camping and enjoying the great outdoors – all things that Sugarloaf Ridge State Park was made for. On July 4, park leaders put the summer season into full gear with our Fourth of July Fireworks Hike, a perennial favorite for locals of all...

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Traveling the Electric Highway: from Sonoma to BC in an EV

Traveling the Electric Highway: from Sonoma to BC in an EV

Sonoma Ecology Center Executive Director Richard Dale and his family are enjoying a road trip to British Columbia – and they’re making the drive in their all-electric Chevrolet Bolt EV. What follows is Richard’s chronicle of the highs and lows of taking the so-called...

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SDC’s Future Is Sonoma Valley’s Future

SDC’s Future Is Sonoma Valley’s Future

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...

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Sonoma Overlook Trail Gets a Makeover

Sonoma Overlook Trail Gets a Makeover

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 is...

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The Right Path for Sonoma Valley

The Right Path for Sonoma Valley

As the grass turns brown and the days get warmer, some may be glancing nervously at the hills with a thought to last fall’s wildfires. The question asked many times since those fires, which burned nearly a quarter of a million acres including 28 percent of Sonoma...

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Three Ways You Can Help Fight Invasive Weeds

Three Ways You Can Help Fight Invasive Weeds

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...

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Sustainable Sonoma Honored with $10K Impact100 Grant

Sustainable Sonoma Honored with $10K Impact100 Grant

One of Sonoma Ecology Center’s proudest achievements over the past few years is spearheading Sustainable Sonoma, which innovates the way local business and health organizations, nonprofits, labor groups, government agencies and other stakeholders work together in...

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Spring Gleaming

Spring Gleaming

Poppies are popping and lupines are leaping at the Nathanson Creek Preserve Flood Plain, located on East MacArthur Street near Broadway. This Sonoma Ecology Center project demonstrates how California cities can create multiple benefits along waterways, like terraces...

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Sustainable Sonoma Adds New Listening Session

Sustainable Sonoma Adds New Listening Session

In its quest for a new and collaborative way of tackling Sonoma Valley’s biggest problems, Sustainable Sonoma is continuing its listening tour of interest groups throughout the Valley, with the next listening session scheduled for the evening of June 1 at the Sonoma...

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Doug McConnell Turns Camera on Valley’s Post-Fire Landscape

Doug McConnell Turns Camera on Valley’s Post-Fire Landscape

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...

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SEC’s John Roney Honored by State for Heroism

SEC’s John Roney Honored by State for Heroism

We’re very proud to announce that John Roney, park manager at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and a Sonoma Ecology Center employee, was honored with a California State Senate resolution at the Capitol on May 7 by state senators Mike McGuire and Bill Dodd for his heroic...

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Valley Forum: Toward a Sustainable Future

Valley Forum: Toward a Sustainable Future

The warmth of spring is finally reaching out across Sonoma, bringing with it impossibly green fields and bursts of color as wildflowers show up in quantities we haven’t seen in years. It’s a stark counterpoint to the bleak landscapes of last winter after the fires, a...

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Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor Continues to Expand

Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor Continues to Expand

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,”...

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Earth Week 2018 a Celebration of Spring

Earth Week 2018 a Celebration of Spring

Spring is all about renewal, a theme near and dear to the hearts of Sonoma Valley residents these days as they recover from last October’s wildfires. Maybe that’s why they’ve been so appreciative of our fire recovery work of recent months, and why our Fire Recovery...

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Sign Up Now for Summer (and Spring) Camps

Sign Up Now for Summer (and Spring) Camps

Sonoma Ecology Center educators are proud to announce our upcoming Summer Science Camps, replete with the outdoor adventure, scientific enrichment and fun themes that Sonoma Valley families have come to expect. This summer, in addition to the backpacking camps, creek...

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Next Post-Fire Peril: Erosion

Next Post-Fire Peril: Erosion

October’s wildfires burned almost 30 percent of Sonoma Valley. While occasional fire is largely beneficial to land in its natural state, these huge uncontrolled fires threatened Sonoma Valley’s watershed with toxic ash and debris – an issue we’ve been tackling – as...

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Christy Vreeland’s Legacy Lives On

Christy Vreeland’s Legacy Lives On

March 8 is International Women’s Day, which reminds us of the incredible women of Sonoma Valley who have done so much to protect and preserve this beautiful place. One such woman is Christy Vreeland, a onetime volunteer at Sonoma Ecology Center who, in the mid 1990s,...

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Community, Volunteers Make Protecting Watershed Possible

Community, Volunteers Make Protecting Watershed Possible

Late last year, as locals were picking up the pieces following historic wildfires, we at Sonoma Ecology Center put our heads together to figure out how best to leverage our strengths – which include community outreach, mobilizing volunteers, and an unparalleled...

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