Sudden oak death is far from the only threat to California’s signature landscape. Vast numbers of healthy oaks are being cut down to make way for urban sprawl and corporate vineyards. If we value the habitat, watershed, and aesthetic values of oaks on our state’s rolling hillsides, we must protect them from needless destruction.

For example, blue oaks—an oak species not yet affected by Phytophthora ramorum—are not regenerating, for unknown reasons, and no statewide law protects them or other oaks. On December 11, 2001, the Placer County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the destruction of 10,000 blue oaks for a development; another 8,000 blue oaks received their death sentence in Placer County making way for another development earlier in the year. California Oak Foundation is working with the Sierra Club and other groups to address this issue in the courts.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) has not responded to requests from the California Oak Foundation and others that environmental review and permits be required prior to massive removal of native oaks—even though its director, Andrea Tuttle, has called the SOD epidemic “an ecological disaster in the making.”

In September 2000, the Oak Foundation and the Mountain Lion Foundation brought suit against the Board of Forestry and CDF in San Francisco Superior Court, challenging the legality of these state agencies’ decision not to conserve the oak woodlands in the state, despite their authority to do so. Judge David Garcia ruled that the Forest Practices Act gave the Board and CDF discretion to not regulate oaks. The ruling is being appealed.

More than 80 percent of the state’s oaks grow on private lands. California Oak Foundation has been focusing on technical assistance to private landowners to help them hold onto their lands in economically difficult times, and to improve stewardship of those lands. For more information call (510) 763-0282 or see www.californiaoaks.org.