Plant-Based Carbon Sequestration Opportunities for Sonoma County

Sierra Club Sonoma Group's Spring Environmental Forum:
Awakening, Transitioning & Sequestering, Oh My!

How Low Can We Go?! Series for Reducing our Eco-Footprint
Quarterly Series of Forums throughout one day with Fun, Connecting & Effectiveness

Come to one or all of the sessions – Join us anytime throughout the day!

9 AM – 9:45 AM: “The Art of Climate Recovery”
Family & Individual Art time focused on Climate Change (ages 1-115!) We provide the art supplies! FREE! Come express your creativity by adding to a Climate Recovery focused banner, or on separate paper & paperboard. Fun for all ages!

10 AM – 3 PM: Awakening The Dreamer, Changing The Dream Symposium
If you are tired of the gloom, doom and crisis you see in the news, come and learn about the "un-named movement" and the new possible future to live into. We guide you through an inquiry from "Where are we?" and "How did we get here?" to "What is possible for the future" and "What can I do?" Video presentation with interactive exercises, networking & discussions. Please bring a sack lunch or snack for yourself. Go to http://www.awakeningthedreamer.org for more info and please register. Our mission is to bring forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence
on planet Earth. Suggested donation $10, no one turned away due to lack of funds. Contact Laura Baker at 707 322-7778 or wileypunk [at] comcast.net with questions.

3 PM – 5:30 PM: Plant Based Carbon Sequestration Opportunities for Sonoma County
Panel Discussion on Carbon Sequestration through Ag, Open Space, Forests, Wetlands and Organics Diversion from Landfill. FREE! Also networking, strategizing, updates on local: Sustainability efforts, alternative transportation efforts, Youth Green Jobs, Solar Sonoma County, LITE Initiatives and steps individuals are taking to reduce their carbon footprints. Share experiences and challenges. Co-sponsored by the Sonoma County Conservation Council, http://www.envirocentersoco.org. It is not required for the forums, but please let us know if you are attending since seating is limited and so we can adjust snacks and chairs needed etc! Call 544-7651 or email Veronica Jacobi at VJacobi [at] sonic.net to RSVP and for information or to volunteer to help for an hour or two. If you cannot make it to any part of this forum series, email us your questions and interests or have a friend come to represent your ideas. Everyone is invited to these public forums! Sierra Club Sonoma Group's Spring Environmental Forum Cosponsored by the CAFF - The Community Alliance with Family Farmers, LITE Initiatives and the Sonoma County Conservation Council Plant Based Carbon Sequestration
Opportunities for Sonoma County with presentations by Jane Nielson, Howard Wilshire, Jeff Creque, Terry Harrison and Portia Sinnott

Free Panel Discussion on Carbon Sequestration
Focused on Ag, Forests, Wetlands and Organics Diversion from Landfill Jane Nielson and Howard Wilshire will address the carbon cycle and the role of land uses in GHG emissions. Jeff Creque will present the Marin Carbon Project as well as discuss the West Marin Co- Composting Project. Terry Harrison will touch on enhancing carbon sequestration on ag lands and vineyards, and what CAFF hopes to do in this area. Portia Sinnott will address waste managements impact on climate change and introduce zero waste and organics out landfill movement.

Presenter bios:
Jane Nielson and Howard Wilshire are co-authors, with Richard Hazlett, of the recently published book, The American West at Risk - Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery. Both are former U. S. Geological Survey research geologists. Jane is now President of the Sebastopol Water Information Group
(SWIG) and Howard is Chairman of the Board of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Jeff Creque ran a small very diverse Bio-dynamic-French Intensive farm and watershed restoration project in Bolinas from 1981 until 2004. A Ph.D. in Rangeland Ecology, he started the Bolinas-Stinson Beach greenwaste composting project and later the West Marin Compost Coalition. He served as the Marin Resource Conservation District Field Conservationist, worked as an agroecologist for McEvoy Ranch and as a Nutrient Management Consultant. A founder and Board Member of the Alliance for Local Sustainable Agriculture (Marin) and he also helped start the Marin Carbon Project. Terry Harrison is a retired professional engineer. He started several recycling projects in the 70s and 80s and worked on a waste to alcohol for fuel project. He and his wife Carolyn have farmed near Healdsburg since 1974, organically since 1982, and had Sonoma Antique Apple Nursery until it morphed into Trees of Antiquity in Paso Robles. He is past Vice President statewide of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers and currently President of the North Coast Chapter. He has served on the Boards of Farm Trails, CCOF and Dry Creek Valley Assn. and represents CAFF on the SCWC and was an organic inspector for CCOF Portia Sinnott is a self-employed waste management consultant and the executive director of LITE Initiatives, Ms. Sinnott has been on the Sonoma County Local Task Force for Solid Waste since 2000, serving as the Vice Chair as well as facilitator of the Zero Waste Subcommittee. An active member of the Bay Area Zero Waste Working Group and the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA), Portia has been organizing and giving presentations on zero waste since 2002; recent presentations include the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency, the Sierra Business Council and a CRRA Orange County workshop focused on Resource Recovery Parks and Foodscrap Composting.