Earth Day demonstration against the Zoo’s latest proposal - Photo by Karen Smith
It is difficult to imagine the Oakland Zoo proposing anything more outrageous than their plan to build an environmentally destructive “conservation” exhibit on the richest and most sensitive lands in Knowland Park, but in their latest proposal the preposterous trumps the outrageous. The upshot of their bold move toward endgame is that not only would the public lose far more park land than initially approved, but all public access to the very best native plant habitat in the park would be legally barred forever.
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The Sierra Club has grown increasingly concerned about the California Trails exhibit that the Oakland Zoo proposes to build on the ridge line of Knowland Park. The City of Oakland approved the fifty-six-acre project in 2011 on a fifteen-year-old Mitigated Negative Declaration. Since then, however, the permitting agencies have provided significant pushback to the zoo’s claim that the project would have no significant environmental impacts. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) recommended that the project be built within the zoo’s existing footprint to avoid significant impacts to rare plant communities and to the threatened Alameda whipsnake. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), meanwhile, sent the zoo’s application back to the drawing board, noting that the project is at best conceptual.
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