The Newspaper of the San Francisco Bay Chapter January -
February 2008 No net loss of trees for SF natural areas Plan
will regenerate neglected `tree farms' into native biodiversity
Even by the standards of San Francisco politics, the
misstatements about the Natural Areas Program are exorbitant.
Last October, when the San Francisco Recreation and Park
Commission unanimously approved the next environmental-review
phase of the Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan,
longstanding opponents charged that the plan will cause the
wholesale deforestation of the city's parks, turning San
Francisco's parks into "barren slopes like they were in 1850."
This assertion is utter nonsense, and it is crucial for
environmentalists to know exactly how and why it is false. The
fundamental truth is that under the plan, there will be no net
loss of trees in San Francisco. The plan calls for one-for-one
replacement with native trees when crowded, diseased, dying,
dangerous, invasive, and exotic trees have to be removed