The Wild Equity Institute is excited about two events this Saturday, May 19. In the morning we’ll be offering a special trip to view the San Mateo Woolly Sunflower on normally inaccessible SFPUC watershed lands, and then in the afternoon we’ll be joining Save the Frogs for a tailgate celebration for endangered species at Sharp Park Golf Course’s parking lot! Join us for both—let us know if you’d like to carpool. Details below:

Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute and Tim Sullivan of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for a leisurely walk into the usually inaccessible Crystal Springs watershed to search for the endangered San Mateo woolly sunflower. Park in the small parking lot slightly east of the Crystal Springs Road and Tartan Trail Road intersection, in San Mateo, CA. RSVP required: please use this website to RSVP. Part of the Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year, a competitive event to help endangered species recover.

Join Us May 19, 4:30pm, Sharp Park Golf Course:
Tailgate & Drum for Frogs, Occupy Sharp Park!

On May 19, golf purists think they will “celebrate” the 80th year of the money-losing, endangered species-killing golf course at Sharp Park.

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We are excited to announce that Dr. Douglas Bevington has joined the Wild Equity Institute’s Board of Directors. He is replacing Stan Kaufman, who served on our Board since 2009 and developed wildequity.org.

Dr. Douglas Bevington

Dr. Bevington is the Forest Program Director for Environment Now, a grantmaking foundation in California. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he taught courses on social movement studies. He is the author of The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar Bear (Island Press, 2009), which explores how grassroots forest and wildlife protection groups have made a big impact on federal environmental policies in the U.S. over the past twenty years. He also serves on the board of directors of the Fund for Wild Nature, which helps provide resources to bold and effective grassroots groups: such as WEI!

Welcome Doug, we look forward to working with you as we build a healthy and sustainable global community for all!

The Wall Street Journal covered the Wild Equity Institute in a new article about the money-losing, endangered species-killing Sharp Park Golf Course.

Titled Big Wedge Over Sharp Park’s Future, the article describes how Sharp Park is run-down and in ill repair, and the opportunities to transform it into a better public park everyone can enjoy.

Check out the article yourself today, then add your comments here at wildequity.org or at the Wall Street Journal’s website.

Flyer courtesy of Save the Frogs! and Golfers Against Sharp Park ("GASP").
Download a copy of this flyer and give it to golfers you know and love.

Join Us May 19, 4:30pm, Sharp Park Golf Course:
Tailgate & Drum for Frogs, Occupy Sharp Park(ing lot)!

Golf purists have announced they’ll celebrate the endangered species-killing, money-losing Sharp Park Golf Course with a $150 golf tournament on May 19th.

That’s right: they intend to celebrate a golf course that robs resources from San Francisco’s neighborhood parks and has brought two endangered species to the brink of localized extinction.

If that’s the most absurd celebration you’ve ever heard of, you aren’t alone: and that’s why we want you to join Save the Frogs! on May 19 at 4:30 p.m. at Sharp Park Golf Course’s parking lot for a fun, free tailgate for endangered species. Save the Frogs! will have food and drink, drums to play, and outdoor education activities for you and your family to enjoy at the nearby Mori Point National Park: which will one day expand to include Sharp Park, creating a more accessible and sustainable public park that everyone can enjoy!

A San Francisco garter snake killed by golf course mowers; California red-legged frog egg mass killed by golf course wetland draining.

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The Wild Equity Institute and the Wilderness Arts & Literacy Collaborative ("WALC") at Downtown High School recently completed another successful Endangered Species Big Semester by helping students explore the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, learn how environmental justice victories in San Francisco are linked to a fossil fuel power plant construction boom in Antioch, and take action to help the Refuge’s endangered species recover.

WALC students remove invasive weeds at the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge.
Invasive weed growth is exacerbated by pollution from power plants that ring the Dunes.

Successful environmental justice campaigns in San Francisco led to the closure of two power plants in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill and Bayview-Hunters Point communities since 2006. In part to recoup the power lost when these power plants closed, the California Energy Commission approved five power plants, all ringing the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge. The concentration of power plants in this location threatens community health and three endangered species found at the Refuge. The Wild Equity Institute is bringing environmental justice advocates and grassroots conservation organizations together to challenge this massive power plant expansion.

On WALC’s third and final trip of the Endangered Species Big Semester, students connected our successful struggles for conservation and environmental justice in San Francisco with the new fossil fuel power plants in Antioch, observed endangered species threatened by this proposal, and then took action to help these species recover.

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Join the Center for Biological Diversity, San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club, Wild Equity Institute, Pacific Institute and others as we “connect the dots” between global warming, sea-level rise, and the impacts on communities, animals and plants in a dramatic, interactive human wave at San Francisco’s restored tidal marsh Crissy Field, in the Presidio under the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.

RSVP at 350.org. Get transit directions and precise location information here.

Wear blue and bring a pair of blue jeans, a blue T-shirt or blue sheet. The wave of blue we’ll create together will dramatically illustrate sea-level rise, as well as the more frequent and severe storms, storm surges and erosion that we can expect at places like Crissy Field — unless we can start slowing climate change now. We’ll even be filmed!

The event will also feature impact “dots” — “dot” being our word for an informative poster — which will represent impacts and solutions. The “impact dots” will share facts about climate impacts on people and other species here in the Bay, including threats posed by sea-level rise, erosion and ocean acidification. Our “action/solution dots” will identify actions that can help us avoid these impacts — cutting carbon in our atmosphere by stopping the Keystone XL pipeline and Arctic drilling plans, enforcing the Clean Air Act, and restoring Sharp Park.

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April 26, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

Brent Plater, Wild Equity Institute, (415) 572-6989
Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 669-7357
Arthur Feinstein, Sierra Club, (415) 680-0643

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What would your rather do: give your money to the government, or to the causes you care most about? With tax deadlines fast approaching, we suspect many of you might choose the latter!

Fortunately the Wild Equity Institute makes it easy for you to contribute to our work, and get a tax break while you are at it. All while building a better world for people and the plants and animals that accompany us on Earth!

Make a generous contribution to the Wild Equity Institute today and get a head-start on next year’s tax deductions. We promise we won’t spend a dime of your hard-earned money on foreign wars, corn syrup subsides, or bridges to nowhere—a promise you know the other guys can’t keep! There are many ways you can contribute:

Become a Member of the Wild Equity Institute.

• Become a member now with a credit card or a PayPal account:
• Download a membership form and mail it to: Wild Equity Institute PO Box 191695 San Francisco, CA 94119

Become a Monthly Donor.

The best way to sustain our organization is to become a monthly donor. Monthly donations allow us to spend less time fundraising and more time building a healthy and sustainable community for all.

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Stalwart Wild Equity Institute member Eric Mixon created this new infographic to cut through the hype and tell the true story of the money-losing, endangered species-killing Sharp Park Golf Course. Download a high-resolution copy and share it with everyone you know—and even those you don’t!