IN NOVEMBER 1997, commuters along Highway 101 near Los Alamos in northern Santa Barbara County were shocked to witness the massive bulldozing of oak trees. The land had been recently acquired by the Kendall- Jackson Winery. Nearly 850 oaks were felled, then dragged into ravines and ditches to await burning, while the hills where they had stood were flattened. It had taken 300 to 400 years for some of these oaks to grow. Some were mature at the time the Declaration of Independence was written. In only three days they were gone.

Citizens were hit with the realization that such destruction of their natural heritage was legal under County regulations and that no state law or regulation protected oaks in this state. Oaks were being destroyed not only in Santa Barbara County but also in San Luis Obispo, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Calaveras Counties as new industrial-scale vineyards revised cherished landscapes with no environmental review or oversight.

The California Oak Foundation had been appealing to the California Board of Forestry for statewide protection laws for ten years. The Board had responded by asking counties to take steps to protect oak woodland resources, and 38 of the 48 counties where oaks grow had adopted voluntary measures. When it took its plea to the Resources Agency, the Foundation was informed that oak-related land use issues should be taken up at the local level.

The challenge to protect California's natural resources has spread as hillsides and valleys are made neat and tidy for the rapidly expanding wine industry. Family cattle ranchers, hard hit by falling beef prices, have been selling their land to entrepreneurs intent on maximizing the high profits currently available from grapes. As a result, pastoral landscapes are being violently reshaped.

Wrong Target? KENDALL-JACKSON Vineyards have been victimized by "misinformed local individuals who needed a villain," says public relations director Jenny Williamson. The owners, Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke, did cut 843 oaks on 540 acres of their 1,310-acre Los Alamos Valley property, but they have permanently preserved 770 acres, with 843 oaks, as natural habitat. They are committed to planting 8,000 more seedlings, under the direction of Wayne Jensen, county director of the University of California Cooperative Extension. The new vineyard will have three wildlife corridors, 300 feet to a mile wide. Many other wine growers have cleared fields entirely before putting in vines, Williamson said. "One small vineyard took out 80 oaks on 20 acres. But nobody saw that. This uproar happened because we cut 25 oaks near the highway."

Fine wine has been produced for generations in Santa Barbara, Sonoma, and Mendocino Counties, in keeping with a tradition of natural resource stewardship. Growers have tended to keep oaks even within the vineyards, recognizing their value in holding soil and providing food and shelter for birds like goshawks, which prey on the birds that dine on grapes.

The style of many newcomers is vastly different. Instead of shaping their vineyards to the land, they reshape the land. Many rely on mechanization, computerized irrigation systems, and chemical pest control.

In Santa Barbara County, acreage in vines doubled from 9,000 to 18,000 during 1996 and 1997 and nearly 2,000 oaks were destroyed. But it took the Kendall-Jackson action, in plain view from the heavily traveled highway, to mobilize citizens. Local people formed the Alliance to Conserve Oak Resources Now (ACORN) and pressed the County Board of Supervisors to adopt guidelines governing removal of old oaks and to promote oak reforestation. The Board failed to act, so members of ACORN wrote their own oak protection measure and placed it on the November 1998 ballot.

These generous trees, which predominate on more than 10 million of the state's 100 million acres, have symbolized a sense of place for generations of Californians. They are identified through our verbal, written, and photographic history as part of this state's natural order of things. Over recorded time, they have provided food, shelter, and nesting sites for wildlife we profess to value. They have served as a final filter system for water that makes its way from many sources to the ocean; and they sequester carbon dioxide from the air we breathe. Almost anyone who grew up in California has a story of a special swing, tree fort, summer camp, or school trip experience involving an old oak tree.

All those benefits, all those memories are at stake in Santa Barbara County and the other 47 of California's 58 counties where oak trees grow, because these stately trees stand without any statewide protection in the areas favored for both urban development and large-scale conversions of grazing lands to viticulture.

Not an either/or Situation ROBERT ISAACSON, who grew up on a cattle ranch in Santa Barbara County, sees the conversion of grazing lands to vineyards as"exciting and positive." It could stave off urbanization by allowing ranchers to diversify and become more economically stable, he wrote in an article published in the Santa Barbara News-Press July 8. By putting high-value grapes on unprofitable grazing land, or by leasing such land to vineyard operators, cattle ranchers might manage to stay in business. But oak woodlands should be protected from vineyard developers who treat them as "no more than weeds," he wrote. Voluntary guidelines won't do the job. In his opinion, most citizens in the County "prefer a solution that embraces not only world-class vineyards of which we can all be justly proud, but also a healthy, aesthetically pleasing oak-studded landscape."

Since the mid-1940s, more than 1.2 million acres of oak woodland have been converted to urban and agricultural uses. An estimated 14,000 acres are lost each year to urban, primarily residential, development, according to Bruce W. Hagen of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Only the names of new shopping centers and single-home tracts hint at what they have displaced: Oakmont, Oakcrest, Oakridge. What oak woodland habitat remains is becoming more and more fragmented, and therefore less and less useful to wildlife.

Some Californians perceive the spread of vineyards as a force no less destructive to oak woodlands. The issue isn't farming; it's giant wine operators mining natural resources at the expense of our common natural heritage. In Santa Barbara County, vineyard operators now own most of the lowland habitat favored by the valley oak. In San Luis Obispo and Monterey Counties, where water is a scarce resource, they are irrigating lands that used to be dry-farmed.

Meanwhile, smart developers wait in the wings. When wine prices take a dive, land that has already been converted to vineyards, without any California Environmental Quality Act review, is set for growing buildings. The hard work has been done: the natural vegetation cleared, the land recontoured, deep-ripped, fumigated, staked, and irrigated.

ACORN succeeded in gathering 19,781 signatures in 42 days to place its initiative on the November 3 ballot as Measure K-98. The measure requires landowners to obtain permits to remove oaks that are 15 inches in diameter two feet above the ground, but allows exemptions for up to 48 oaks over five years to accomodate traditional agricultural practices.

When vineyard operators and their allies complained that this law would drive agriculture out of the county, the Board of Supervisors agreed to place a competing measure on the ballot. Measure O protects only much bigger and older oaks, having at least a 15-inch diameter four feet above the ground. Measure O allows landowners to simply plant 10 acorns for every oak they remove, but unlike Measure K-98 it provides no monitoring. Oak advocates call Measure O "the poison oak measure," because it would negate the ACORN initiative with a "poison pill" provision that says Measure O will prevail if both pass.

At press time, a heated campaign was under way in Santa Barbara. Meanwhile, in counties to the north, landscapes continued to be reshaped, and protest had begun to stir. In September, Sonoma County grape growers and conservation advocates agreed to accept an ordinance that prohibits vineyards on the steepest hillsides (with slopes of 50 percent or more), requires landowners seeking to develop on slopes of 15-50 percent to submit an erosion control plan to the county agricultural commissioner for approval, and provides a 50-foot setback from streams and rivers. Severe fines and penalties are proposed for noncompliance. The proposed ordinance, which must be approved by the Board of Supervisors, does not include protection for oak woodlands or scenic ridgetops, but it's a step forward.

The Oak Foundation is establishing a system of third-party certification, by which wine buyers can be assured that they are not unwittingly supporting environmentally destructive practices. The Foundation is also working with partners to spearhead action toward listing the valley oak as a threatened species.

Because 85 percent of the state's oaks grow on private lands, their protection will ultimately depend on landowner cooperation. The good news is that many land-owners are now working with the Oak Foundation and other conservation organizations toward effective stewardship of wildlife habitat and maintenance of watershed values, in addition to agricultural benefits on private lands.

Land use decisions in California ultimately boil down to a 3-2 vote by elected boards of supervisors in each county. Californians need to participate in the search for answers to the challenges facing us. The quality of life for all living things within our borders is at stake. 

Janet Cobb is executive officer of the California Oak Foundation, a statewide membership organization based in Oakland.

Greg Helms, community affairs coordinator for the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara and a member of ACORN, contributed to this article.