New research published in the journal Global Change Biology raises alarming questions about the efficacy of forest carbon programs registered in California’s cap-and-trade program. Utilizing satellite imagery, particularly of forests in Northwest California, researchers have compared the carbon sequestered by forests versus what is claimed and have emerged with a concerning conclusion: forests registered in the offset program are overcounting the carbon that they are paid to protect.

Researcher Shane Coffield joins Gang Green to discuss his findings and the implications of his research on California’s carbon emission reduction strategy.

Echoing a familiar pattern here in Eureka, a longstanding homeless encampment located in a greenbelt area behind the Humboldt County Office of Education is scheduled to be cleared out Saturday morning, leaving residents wondering where they’ll go next. 

Today the Eureka Police Department told the Outpost they planned to assist HCOE — the property owners of the site in question — in “removing trespassers” from the heavily wooded area located near the corner of Sixth Street and West Avenue. Other organizations, such as the PacOut Green Team and The People of New Directions, have taken to social media to promote their cleanup efforts or to seek further community assistance in removing trash from the site. Two giant dumpsters could be seen near the greenbelt Friday, dropped off in advance of the weekend operation.

“We are calling out EVERYONE for this cleanup!” PacOut Green Team posted on its social media channels to promote their cleanup this weekend. “This will be an amazing community collaboration and we WILL get that area cleaned out.”

Above: A post by John Shelter of The People of New Directions chronicling his teams efforts at the site 

But what of the people displaced by the operation? Homeless advocates the Outpost spoke with estimate that between 50 to 70 people currently regularly dwell in area. When the Outpost visited the site Friday, one resident we spoke to, a woman in her 40s, told us she’d been staying there in a tent for about four months. Mounting medical conditions, strained relationships and persistent depression have made securing better housing difficult for her and the thought of having to relocate on top of it all seemed unbearable. When asked where she might head if she was forced to leave the area soon she did not have an answer. 

“That’s the question I keep asking myself. I don’t know,” she said.

For their part, EPD told us they’d made numerous trips to the area over the past several weeks offering resources and mental health services but that residents were not eager to accept assistance from them. 

The Outpost plans to attend tomorrow’s operation and follow up on this story.

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A little more than two months after a very young ringtail  who had been separated from its mother was brought to the Humboldt Wildlife Care Center for help, the organization recently announced that the adorable little critter was released back into the wild.

“She basically fell into someone’s chimney,” Monte Merrick, director of the Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, told the Outpost on Friday afternoon. Merrick said that the critter was brought into the center in July by a Hoopa family that discovered her in their home. “She was probably about eight weeks old when we got her.” 

The center made the baby ringtail a cozy home inside and immediately started her on a milk-replacer. A couple of weeks into her stay, the ringtail was weaned onto a solid food diet, consisting of egg, fruit, vegetables, insects, rodents and birds. Around that time, the center also moved the ringtail to an outdoor house, so that she could acclimate to the outdoors and begin hunting. 

The ringtail (Bassariscus astutus) is also commonly called ring-tailed cat or miners cat, but is not actually a cat. Ringtails are in the same family as racoons and are also omnivores. But unlike racoons, ringtails love to hunt and employ unique methods for catching their prey.  “They can do extremely rapid vertical descents,” Merrick told the Outpost. So it was important for the center to build the ringtail a house with lots of vertical space for her to practice. 

Once the ringtail had grown to a good enough size, her caretakers began to plan for her release. But because of the extreme heatwave affecting most of California, they decided to wait for a break in temperatures so that the ringtail would have an easier time acclimating. Last week, when the temperatures were finally cooler, the ringtail was released into the woods in her birthplace of Hoopa. 

“This ringtail needed us,” Merrick wrote on the HWCC website. “All of our patients do. This necessity, and the sorrow of this necessity, is also with us daily. And this necessity is what makes our position so precarious.” 

If you would like to help the Humboldt Wildlife Care Center with its critter-helping work, you can donate here. 

Scroll down for more photos of the ringtail’s release. 

Sequoia Park Zoo release: 

The Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation (SPZF) is excited to welcome David Reed as the new Executive Director of the Foundation. Reed brings 26 years of fundraising and non-profit management experience to the Zoo Foundation. SPZF President Michale Dearden states, “David Reed’s knowledge, expertise and community connections will be put to good use, bringing people who love the Sequoia Park Zoo together with projects that support the animals, conservation and future improvements to the Zoo. David joins a dedicated staff at the Foundation, a strong team working every day to further the missions of both the Sequoia Park Zoo & Foundation.”

Reed says, “my time with Redwood Parks Conservancy and KHSU, securing funds for capital campaigns and projects like the Grove of Titans in Jedediah Smith State Park and supporting the return of California Condors to the redwoods, ties directly into the future here at Sequoia Park Zoo.” He continues, “the Foundation has been a partner in every large project here since 2004, and in that time, SPZF has raised more than $13-million to make projects like the Redwood Sky Walk, Watershed Heroes, and Bear/Coyote habitat possible. I’m honored to lead the Foundation as we help realize the vision of the Zoo master plan.”

David Reed grew up in Eureka and remembers Sequoia Park Zoo being a big part of his childhood. Today, he says he sees a new Sequoia Park Zoo in his own kids’ eyes, remarking, “my wife and I started taking our girls here in strollers. Now they come to learn about animals, conservation, our impact on the Earth and just to have fun. I want that for everyone.”

ABOUT THE SEQUOIA PARK ZOO FOUNDATION

The Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation is a 501(c)(3) established in 2004 and is the philanthropic, nonprofit partner that supports the Sequoia Park Zoo. The Foundation has raised more than $13 million since its inception. The Foundation has been successful in securing funding for many capital projects at the Zoo, including the construction of new animal habitats, ongoing maintenance, exhibit renovations and building facilities to support animals, education, guest services and conservation efforts. The Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation promotes and stimulates interest in the Sequoia Park Zoo, and supports the Zoo’s development and programs through fundraising, promotions and other initiatives designed to enhance the Zoo experience. For more information, visit sequoiaparkzoo.net.

ABOUT THE SEQUOIA PARK ZOO

Established in 1907 and accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, Sequoia Park Zoo is an intimate, 6-acre facility situated in the heart of Northern California’s Coastal Redwood region. The Zoo welcomes approximately one hundred thousand visitors each year, features over 50 species of animals, and is home to the Redwood Sky Walk. The Redwood Sky Walk is an immersive experience that takes guests across a series of suspended bridges and platforms up to 100 feet above the redwood forest floor. and gives a rare view of an old- and second-growth Coast Redwood grove. The Sequoia Park Zoo inspires conservation of the natural world by instilling wonder, respect, and passion for wildlife. The Sequoia Park Zoo is owned and operated by the City of Eureka, California. Learn more at sequoiaparkzoo.net.

Local youth will again lead a climate march and rally at the Arcata Plaza today, joining Fridays for Future — a global climate strike inspired by the actions of young Swedish activist Greta Thunburg. 

Jamie Blatter, volunteer organizer for 350 Humboldt, a local movement dedicated to supporting climate action for the North Coast, told the Outpost that the event will feature speakers from Cal Poly Humboldt and the Northcoast Preparatory Academy. 

One of the main focuses of this rally will be “speaking about justice and why it needs to be at the center of climate conversations,” Blatter said in a phone interview Friday. “The climate crisis has disproportionate impacts on Indigenous people and people of color.” 

As a form of climate justice, Fridays for Future demands climate reparations for the communities most impacted by climate change. From the Fridays for Future website :

This should not be in the form of loans, but a follow through on the demands from Indigenous, black, anti-patriarchal and diverse marginalized communities to get their lands back, giving resources to the most affected communities by the climate crisis for adaptation, loss and damages – a redistribution (and in most cases, collectivization) of wealth, technology, information, care work, and political power both from the north to the south, and from top to bottom.

In addition to social justice, Blatter said that the local rally will also focus on how climate change impacts our mental health. As the climate crisis becomes more dire, many people are regularly experiencing anxiety about the effects of climate change. This is becoming a more widely recognized issue, sometimes referred to as eco-anxiety, climate-anxiety or climate-grief. 

Blatter feels that, especially since feeling the isolation that came with the pandemic, it is more important than ever to discuss our feelings and fears related to climate change. 

“We need to build community, to let people know that they’re not alone in having these feelings,” Blatter said. 

Though talking about our feelings is important, Blatter added, it is also important to pressure our elected officials to take concrete action to combat climate change. The main purpose of the rally is to show our policy makers that we want action and that they need to keep climate at the center of all discussions when planning any type of development. 

Blatter encouraged everyone to attend today’s rally on the Arcata Plaza, starting at 5 p.m. 

“The time is now,” Blatter said. “Climate isn’t just one issue. It effects everything we care about.”  

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Press release from the Yurok Tribe:

Today, Yurok Chairman Joseph L. James, Vice Chairman Frankie Myers and Yurok Chief Operating Officer Taralyn Ipina joined California Governor Gavin Newsom and Assemblymember James C Ramos for the signing of the historic Feather Alert bill (AB1314).

“I would like to thank California Governor Gavin Newsom and Assembly Member James C. Ramos for creating a mechanism to quickly get the word out when indigenous people go missing or are at risk,” said Joseph L. James, the Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “We supported the Feather Alert bill because it will help reduce the disproportionate rate of MMIP cases in California. The next generation of indigenous Californians should not have to live in world where they have to worry about family members going missing or worse. With the emergency notification in place, we will take action to address the remaining root causes of this complex crisis.”

The legislation authorizes the California Department of Highway Patrol to issue a Feather Alert at the request of law enforcement when an indigenous person is reported missing under “unexplained or suspicious circumstances.” The CHP can also assist the investigating agency by distributing “a be-on-the-lookout alert, an electronic flyer, or changeable message signs,” according to the bill.

There is an especially urgent need for the emergency notification system in California, which has the fifth highest number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) cases in the US.

Acknowledged in the legislation, most California tribes have little to no access to conventional media, not to mention extremely limited resources to spread the word about missing persons cases. Within California, a large majority of cases occur in Northern California. 

In December of 2021, the Yurok Tribal Council declared an MMIP emergency. The declaration accelerated the expansion of the Tribe’s MMIP Program, which was created to confront the many facets of the crisis. The Yurok Tribal Court-administered program hired a team of academic researchers and other subject matter experts to study the issue and produce three in-depth reports focused on the various aspects of the MMIP crisis.

This year, the program published its third and final report. The detailed document contains a customizable roadmap that tribes can use to respond to new and existing MMIP cases. The Tribal Court also established the Office of the Tribal Prosecutor to aid in investigations and prosecutions. A policy analyst was onboarded to resolve the longstanding systemic barriers that prevent tribes from fully addressing the crisis.

The Tribe is also working with a diverse group of California tribal leaders as well state and federal legislators to bring an end to the MMIP epidemic.

On July 12, 2022, Yurok Chairman James convened a tribal briefing to lay the groundwork for a unified response to the MMIP crisis in the state. More than two dozen tribal leaders, representing tribes in all parts of California, joined the strategic discussion, which included a call to action. 

On Tuesday, October 4, the Yurok Tribe will host the first-ever statewide policy summit on MMIP. The 1st Annual Northern California Tribal Summit on MMIP will bring together tribal leaders, law enforcement officials and MMIP survivors as well as state and federal lawmakers, academic researchers and victim advocates to identify solutions to stop the crisis.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

Ruiz Carriedo | HCSO

On Sept. 22, 2022, at about 1:41 p.m., an adult female contacted the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Communications Center to report a domestic violence incident that had occurred at a residence on the 2300 block of Plunkett Road in Bayside.

The victim told deputies that she had been assaulted and held against her will by 41-year-old Emiliano Ruiz Carriedo, with whom she was in a dating relationship. The victim was able to escape the residence and contact law enforcement. She was transported to a local hospital with moderate injuries.

Meanwhile, deputies received information that Carriedo was possibly barricaded inside the Plunkett Road residence. HCSO SWAT and the Humboldt County Crisis Negotiation Team were dispatched to respond. As the teams were being mobilized, Carriedo surrendered to deputies on scene without incident.

Carriedo was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of kidnapping (PC 207(a)), false imprisonment (PC 236), inflicting corporal injury on a spouse (PC 273.5(a)) and violation of probation (PC 1203.2(a)(2)).

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.