Berkeley - University Plans to Cut Native Oak Grove

UC Berkeley is pursuing a plan to tear out a grove of native Coast Live Oaks to construct a new competitive athletic training facility. The threatened grove sits adjacent to Memorial Stadium on the edge of the UC campus. At least forty native oaks ranging in age from 75 to 300 years old would be destroyed under the plan, which may be approved by the UC Regents as early as mid November.

The city of Berkeley has a long-standing moratorium forbidding such destruction of mature Coast Live Oaks. But because the University is a state institution they have stated that they are not bound to obey local environmental laws. Meanwhile resistance to the plan is building, a group called Save the Oaks at the Stadium or SOS has launched an online email campaign from their website, http://www.saveoaks.com , and begun lobbying for the University to consider alternative plans.

The Sierra Club and activist Julia Butterfly Hill have joined in support of the fight to save the trees, which may be an early sign of a looming battle on the horizon between the University and the environmental activist community in Berkeley.