From fire management to the toll road to land acquisitions, EHL helped educate the public on conservation issues.



The San Diego Union-Tribune published a letter from EHL Executive Director Dan Silver on November 8, 2008 that responded to a story on removing vegetation to reduce fire risk. “Recent study has discredited the theory that patchy 'mosaics' created by burning or otherwise removing vegetation will prevent large-scale wind-driven fires . . . And very importantly, local governments should stop placing more and more lives and property at risk by approving development in the wrong places.”

The San Diego County Planning Commission’s hearing on a deeply flawed vegetation management plan was covered by the Alpine Sun (“PC to discuss county vegetation management plan,” August 21, 2008). Dan Silver of the Endangered Habitats League told the Planning Commission that the lessons learned from the October 2007 fires emphasize structure safety. “We are not incorporating lessons from the 2007 fires,” he said. “The draft proposal will divert scarce dollars away from things that really do work.”

The Riverside Press Enterprise quoted Silver on a major purchase of coastal sage scrub habitat for the Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan (“$72 million buys open space for wildlife habitat in Southwest Riverside County,” Sept. 10, 2008). "It is a scientific, biological necessity that we preserve the land. That is being done and that is good news."

Prior to the hearing on the Foothill toll road in September, the Los Angeles Times covered rules set by the Dept. of Commerce that discouraged public input and participation (“Commerce Dept. rules for hearing trouble foes of San Onofre toll road,” August 26, 2008). Such guidelines for a public hearing are “highly unusual if not unprecedented,” said Dan Silver of the Endangered Habitats League in Los Angeles. “They represent a red-tape barrier against the very public input they claim they desire.”