To: Tom Bates, Mayor, Susan Wengraf, Jesse Arrequin, Gordon Wozniak, Linda Maio, Laurie Capitelli, Darryl Moore, Max Anderson, and Kriss Worthington
Berkeley must oppose deforestation of the hills
We the undersigned demand that the Berkeley City Council and Mayor Bates tell FEMA to NOT FUND the UC plan in its current form. While selective thinning and understory fuels removal makes a lot of sense to reduce fire risk, and would be good use of this FEMA money, radical landscape transformation that will destroy not only the precious ecosystem that exists in the hills, but will substantially harm the humans who live immediately below this area is completely unacceptable.
Instead of allowing the university to cut down and poison forests at great cost to human health and animal habitat, it's high time that Berkeley city leadership stand up to the university and demand what is best for the city and for all of its residents.
Why is this important?
UC has decided that rather than maintain its forests in the hills above the campus, it would prefer to simply remove all the tall trees. UC has received tentative approval for a FEMA grant of about $2 million that they intend to use to remove in excess of 50,000 mature trees, apply tens of thousands of gallons of herbicides over the next 13 years, and leave 2 feet of highly flammable wood chips on the ground. Not only will this plan destroy the animal habitat, it will remove essentially all the shade, will make the cleared areas as well as the UC campus and the city of Berkeley substantially warmer, will destabilize steep hillsides, will release enormous amounts of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere….and will significantly increase the risk of fires. Why does UC want to do this? To clear the land for development and to shift maintenance costs from the University to the federal government.
So, what's the Berkeley City Council doing about this? NOTHING!