Summit Recording
Ecological Protection 2021
The fourth in our 2021 six-part community-built online education and collaboration series.
Welcome
Cheryl Davila, Chair CEMTF & Former Councilmember
Introducing the Day
Amos White, CEMTF Steering Committee
Keynote
9:15-9:30 AM Corrina Gould, Chair & Spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan/ Ohlone
Panels
9:30-10:10 AM Regenerative Agriculture - Using Local Policy to Rebuild the Soil and Sequester Carbon
Facilitator: Ruth Abbe
Speakers:
10:15-11:15 AM Forest and Land Management for Climate Protection
Facilitator: Elaine McCarty
Speakers:
11:20-11:45 AM Protecting Marine Ecosystems
Facilitator: Sylvia Gibson
Speakers:
Wrap Up
11:45 AM-NOON Ecological Protection Toolkit
Jack Lucero Fleck, CEMTF Steering and Planning & Logistic Committees
Closing remarks--Cheryl Davila
Speaker and Panelist Biographies
Cheryl Davila
CEMTF Founder & Chair
CEMTF Fundraising Committee
Former Councilmember
As a Council Member for the City of Berkeley, Cheryl was a champion for the climate. Under her leadership the Climate Emergency Declaration passed unanimously in June 2018 which was the sixth in the world. Now over 2006 governments around the world have since declared climate emergencies. Cheryl founded CEMTF in 2019. Did you know the prohibition of natural gas infrastructure in new buildings came out of the CEMTF? True.
Corrina Gould
Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone
Corrina Gould, a Chochenyo and a Karkin Ohlone woman, is a long-time activist who works to protect, preserve, and reclaim ancestral lands of the Ohlone peoples. The Ohlone people live in the area now occupied by the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and Gould's tribe, specifically, is located in the East Bay, in regions now occupied by Oakland, Berkeley, and beyond. She is co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.
Amos White
Vice Chair CEMTF
Founder & Chief Planting Officer 100K Trees
Committee Member California Urban Forestry Advisory Committee CalFIRE
Amos White is Founder and Chief Planting Officer with 100K Trees for Humanity. He chairs the Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee of CASA - the City of Alameda's environmental task force, where he co-authored the City of Alameda 2019 Climate Emergency Declaration Resolution.
Ruth Abbe
CEMTF Planning & Logistics Committee
Ruth Abbe is a grassroots leader with Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda (CASA). CASA was formed in 2008 to assist the City of Alameda in implementing its Local Action Plan for Climate Protection. CASA works closely with City staff, elected officials, the school district and other non-profits and advocates for policies and programs to make Alameda carbon neutral and to increase community sustainability and well-being.
Anthony Myint
Zero Foodprint
Anthony Myint is an American restaurateur, chef, activist, author and food consultant based in the Mission in San Francisco, California. He is a founder of Mission Chinese Food, "The Perennial", Mission Street Food, Mission Cantina, "Mission Burger", "Lt. Waffle", and "Commonwealth Restaurant". He is a leader in the movement to mobilize the restaurant industry toward healthy soil as a solution to the climate crisis. He is the 2019 winner of Basque Culinary World Prize for his non-profit work as Co-Founder of Zero Foodprint and Restore California a collaboration with the state government engaging consumers in the creation of a renewable food system through direct payments to farmers for their role in reversing global warming; the prize recognizes chefs for their contributions to gastronomy outside of the kitchen. Zero Foodprint was named 2020 Humanitarian of the Year by the James Beard Foundation.
Calla Rose Ostrander
Phoenix Rising Resources LLC
Calla Rose Ostrander is a Strategic Advisor to individuals and organizations dedicated to the well-being of people and planet. She specializes in climate change and agricultural policy, science communications and movement building. Since 2013 she has worked to support the advancement of carbon farming, compost production and climate beneficial material economies in California. In partnership with the Jena & Michael King Foundation, John Wick and the partner organizations of the Marin Carbon Project, Calla Rose has supported the successful scaling of regenerative agriculture through strategic organization, economic development, local and state policy, fundraising and communications.
Kevin Drew
City and County of San Francisco
Kevin Drew is a climate solutions organizer, Zero Waste leader and green jobs creator who inspires vision, builds morale and fosters teamwork. Kevin has over 30 years experience developing and implementing Zero Waste systems and solutions in San Francisco and California. This includes recycling, composting, reuse, deconstruction and carbon management for the city of San Francisco. Most recently Kevin has turned his attention to the return of City-collected organics to local farms and thus back to consumers as food and drink. This symbiotic return results in healthy soil, water, and food while fueling jobs, livelihoods, and enterprises for all those it touches.
Elaine McCarty
CEMTF Chair Legislative Committee
As the Chair of the Bay Area Climate Emergency Task Force, Elaine researches and prioritizes local and state legislation to assess their effectiveness in fighting climate change. In her role as Associate Director of Environmental Finance Center West, Elaine helps Tribes, organizations, and communities build capacity through training, education and technical assistance on environmental issues such as climate change, water and waste. She is also Co-Director of the Women’s Climate Centers International which strives to catalyze resilience in vulnerable communities in East Africa and is currently building its first women-led Center in Uganda. Elaine is a member of the United States Climate Action Network and Arm in Arm. Before committing her life’s work to Elaine continued:
environmental issues and climate change, Elaine worked in health care in numerous roles including as a clinical dietitian. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise from Dominican University of California and a B.S. in Nutrition and Dietetics from Southern Illinois University, summa cum laude.
Chad Hanson
John Muir Project
Chad Hanson is a research ecologist and the director of the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute, located in Big Bear City, California. Dr. Hanson has a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California at Davis, with a research focus on fire ecology in conifer forest ecosystems, and he is the author of the 2021 book, “Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate”. He has published dozens of scientific studies and articles in peer-reviewed journals pertaining to forest/fire ecology and climate change. Research by Dr. Hanson covers topics such as: natural post-fire forest regrowth and carbon sequestration; carbon flux in wildland fires; current forest fire patterns and trends; fire history; habitat selection of rare wildlife species associated with habitat created by high-intensity fire; and adverse impacts to wildlife caused by logging. He became involved in forest conservation work after hiking the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 1989 with his older brother, and seeing firsthand the devastation to forests caused by the commercial logging program on federal public lands in the U.S. The New York Times (August 6, 2017) described Dr. Hanson as being on “the cutting edge of ecological research” Dr. Hanson regularly authors opinion-editorial articles that are published in national newspapers, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.
Gary Hughes
Biofuel Watch
Gary Hughes works with the international organization Biofuelwatch on a portfolio of forest, climate and energy sector issues both domestically and internationally, with a special focus on California and Chile. He represents Biofuelwatch with the Stay-Grounded network for a Just Transition in the aviation industry; with the Global Forest Coalition, a network of more than 100 community and indigenous organizations in more than 60 countries around the world; and on the steering committee of the Hands Off Mother Earth (HOME) global campaign against geoengineering.
Maya Khosla
Biologist
Maya is a biologist and writer. She is currently working on a film about being fire-wise. Her books include All the Fires of Wind and Light, poetry from Sixteen Rivers Press (2020 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award), Keel Bone, poetry from Bear Star Press (Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize), and Web of Water: Life in Redwood Creek (Golden Gate Parks Conservancy). Sonoma County Conservation Council (SCCC) selected Maya as one of the 2020 Environmentalists of the Year. She served as the Poet Laureate of Sonoma County (2018-2020), organizing a series of filmed readings to bring Sonoma’s communities together after the 2017 fires. Her poems have been featured in documentary films and in many journals.
Sylvia Gibson
San Francisco Bay Hope Spot
Sylvia Gibson is a sustainability educator. She lives in Alameda where she serves on the steering committee of Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda. She focuses on projects that celebrate and welcome the water. She collaborated with colleagues at San Francisco State to nominate the San Francisco Bay to be designated as one of the first urban “Hope Spots.” Hope Spots are ecologically unique areas of the ocean designated for protection under a global conservation campaign overseen by Mission Blue.
Jack Lucero Fleck
CEMTF Steering, Planning & Logistics Committee
Jack Lucero Fleck is a longtime peace and justice activist now working with 350 Bay Area, where he was a co-founder in 2012. Jack retired after 25 years at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency where he served as the City’s top traffic engineer. He now works to fight climate change as an activist and author.
Elizabeth Taylor
DOER Marine
Liz Taylor is president of DOER Marine. Founded by deep ocean explorer, Dr. Sylvia Earle, in 1992 as “Deep Ocean Exploration and Research” a marine consulting firm, DOER Marine builds some of the world’s most advanced submarines and underwater remotely operated vehicles. Recognizing the role submarines and remotely operated vehicles can play in communicating science in a compelling way to people around the world, Liz has made it DOER Marine’s mission to make a difference by using its technology to educate the public on the benefits an intact ecosystem brings.
