Category: Uncategorized

Housing may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Save The Bay, but how we plan and build housing in the Bay Area is critically important to how we protect and restore the Bay and prepare our region for the growing impacts of climate change. The San Francisco Bay has long attracted people looking to enjoy its beautiful setting and economic opportunities. Unfortunately, the way that our communities have developed has been inconsistent, inequitable, and unsustainable largely due to exclusionary zoning practices that have contributed to the current housing crises. The effects of these …

Read More

In California, winter rains bring spring flowers. Our state boasts one of the largest numbers of endemic plant species in the world: of the over 3500 species of plants found in our region, over 60% of them are found here and here alone, leading to spectacular “super-blooms” of native wildflowers in the spring when conditions are right (like the massive super-blooms in the California that occurred in 2017 after the abnormally wet 2016-2017 rainy season). But, it’s official: this past winter was one of the driest on record, with most of the Bay Area in a moderate to severe drought as …

Read More

Take a walk along the Bay Trail and it’s easy to marvel at the beauty of the San Francisco Bay. But it’s also obvious how human development has shaped the area. Where there was once a flourishing expanse of tidal wetlands and mudflats, the Bay shoreline today is dominated by neighborhoods, infrastructure (highways, water treatment plants, and airports), and industry (ports, warehouses, and refineries). When climate change raises sea levels in coming years, many of these areas will be threatened with devastating flooding. Restored wetlands are crucial to protecting shoreline communities and infrastructure from being inundated by sea level rise …

Read More

 This Earth Day play Bay Bingo with Save The Bay! Download our Bay Bingo card, grab a mask, and get outside on the Bay Trail or somewhere that resonates with you. Honor the Earth, explore our local environment, and celebrate San Francisco Bay with this fun, interactive game. Share your adventure by tagging Save The Bay @savesfbay #BayBingo. If you are on the Bay Trail, tag them too @SFBayTrail #sfbaytrail. Brought to you by our friends at

Read More

This year marks sixty years of saving the Bay. We will celebrate, honor and share stories from our history throughout the year. We invite you to join us and share your own stories of your own connection to the Bay on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter #MyBayStory. This story was written in our co-founder Sylvia McLaughlin’s words from a series of interviews with her. Originally published on September 9, 2013. Kay, Esther, and I sat in Kay’s living room in the Berkeley Hills, nervous, yet hopeful. We heard a car pulling into the driveway and I said to my friends, “Here …

Read More

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its appeal of our lawsuit victory restoring Clean Water Act protections to the Redwood City Salt Ponds. The move came a week after 57 Bay Area elected officials and organizations asked the Biden Administration to withdraw the Trump EPA’s appeal of a federal court order upholding those legal protections. “We’re thrilled that the Biden Administration is agreeing to uphold the law and restore protections for San Francisco Bay wetlands. Climate change makes this even more urgent,” said Save The Bay Executive Director David Lewis. “It’s an early indication of what a difference the …

Read More

In October 2020, Save The Bay, three co-plaintiffs, and Attorney General Becerra won our lawsuit ​and restored protections to the Redwood City Salt Ponds under the Clean Water Act. President Trump’s EPA appealed the ruling, but with a new Administration entering the White House we hope to see this action reversed. This week, Congresswoman Jackie Speier wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), and seven other members of the Bay Area Congressional delegation, asking the agency to drop that lawsuit appeal. 47 local Bay Area elected officials and organizations also asked …

Read More

Urban greening plays a critical role in how we protect communities from climate change. Unfortunately, the long-predicted impacts of climate change are no longer just predictions. Over the past few years, climate change has already cause increased urban heat and worsened air quality, which impacts human health. And soon cities around the Bay will experience more frequent flooding caused by sea-level rise and erratic weather patterns. Preventing the worst of these impacts on our communities requires us to think differently about how our cities are designed and one of the best ways to make cities more resilient in the face …

Read More

One of our Instagram followers asked, “How do we choose our transition zone restoration sites?” This is a relatively simple question with a bit of history. The short answer is that we go where we have partner relationships and funding, but as we’ve been active in advocacy and habitat restoration work for many decades, our work has evolved. Save The Bay is lucky to have longstanding relationships with partner organizations like the East Bay Regional Park District and City of Palo Alto, where we’ve maintained native plant nurseries and restoration sites since the early 2000s. These sites are accessible, beautiful, …

Read More

The Bel Marin Keys Unit V Project in the San Francisco Bay Estuary has reached an exciting restoration milestone: over 10,000 native perennial plants have been outplanted this winter. This benchmark was made possible by the combined efforts of Save The Bay, Novato Baylands Stewards, AmeriCorps, the Conservation Corps North Bay, and dedicated volunteers. These 10,000 plants, including creeping wild rye, salt grass, and baltic rush, will contribute to restoring this vital wetland. The Bel Marin Keys site, under the California Coastal Conservancy and partnering with the Novato Baylands Stewards, includes over 44 acres of seasonal wetlands and alkali wet …

Read More