Outside San Diego » The Environment

Help Outdoor Outreach- Win Cool Outdoor Gear

pspiller — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:04:02 +0000

On September 25-27 I will be attending a very neat, and very worthwhile charity event called the Joshua Tree Experience. This event raises money for Outdoor Outreach, whos mission states:

“Outdoor Outreach empowers at-risk and under privileged youth to make positive, lasting changes in their lives through comprehensive outdoor programming.”

In a nutshell, Outdoor Outreach provides the opportunity for kids to experience nature, and chance to make good choices and build self-esteem. Outdoor Outreach is helping to build the next generation of stewards for our wilderness areas. I am happy to provide my time, effort, and the limited funds I have available to this organization, but I also need your help. I need to raise money to attend the event, and to help this fine organization. To make this process of fund raising a little more interesting, I have a bunch of really cool gear to give away to the people who donate money to Outdoor Outreach via my fund raising page. Here is how it is going to work:

For every $ 10.00 you contribute via my fund raising page, I will put 1 ticket into the bucket to win the prizes I am giving away. So if you donate $40.00 you will have 4- tickets in the drawing, $50.00 will get you 5-tickets and so on.
I will randomly draw 1 ticket for each prize I have available, and contact that person for shipping information.
I will cut off the drawing on September 4th and conduct the drawing on September 5th.
I will announce the winners on September 5th here on Outsidesd.com and email the winners on September 5th
Not every will win, and the odds for winning will change depending on the number and amount of donations that come in.
You will increase your chance of winning by donating more money.

With these rules in mind, here are the awesome prizes I will be giving away to the lucky winners.

A gift certificate for a pair of Hi-Tec V-Lite Thunder HPI A great pair of light hikers with Ion -mask waterproofing. (send in the certificate with your size and they will send you a pair of shoes)
Etowah Outfitters Ultra-lite Mini Day Pack
Deuter Streamer 2.0 Liter Hydration bladder
Guyot Designs Tapguard
Restop 2 Wilderness Waste Containment bag
2- Outside San Diego Coffee Mugs
$25.00 Gift Certificate to Dick’s Last Resort

Good luck everyone, and know that your donation will go a long way in helping young people as well and helping protect our wild places for future generations.

Donate Here

MLPA Continues in Southern California

pspiller — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:13:23 +0000

As the process of restructuring fishing grounds in Southern California continue to plod their way through the bureaucratic jungle that is the Marine Life Protection Act, examples of how environmentalists and the fishing industry can work together to provide a sustainable ecosystem that works for everyone involved emerge. I have long believed (along with many) that the environmentalist, and fisherman have similar interests once you get past the emotion and unreasonable extremes on both sides. An environmentally aware and responsible fisherman is the best friend that the ocean can have.

A group called Ecotrust has been commissioned to map out the best fishing areas in Southern California to use as a tool to redraw and expand the boundaries of the Marine reserves. Eco trust is accomplishing this by enlisting the aid of fisherman to create a proprietary map of Southern California’s premier fishing spots to use as a tool to avoid decimating the sport. What makes this unique is the fisherman themselves are volunteering this information, and are trusting an organization with roots in the environmental movement to represent their best interests. This works because of the straight forward consistency Ecotrust has shown in the past. Ecotrust says it best in the FAQ on their website when they answer the question: Why Tell the Truth?

“Fishermen have every incentive to tell the truth. This project presents a unique opportunity to bring fishermen’s knowledge directly to bear on MPA planning in California. Any reporting that misrepresents the actual fishing grounds has the potential to do more harm than good, recreating the “garbage in, garbage out” problem. We have designed our methods to minimize this problem, and will work closely with fishermen and a group of regional stakeholders to validate and verify the information collected.”

It is heartening to see this process move in this direction. It initially seemed as the MLPA moved south the elements in each community that were spewing hate and lies where going to be the those that were heard in the general public. Most people without a stake in our oceans can and will be sympathetic to all involved as long as there is a reason involved. Lets keep it this way so that one day we can have healthy oceans which our children will enjoy abundant fishing.

Ecotrust

Sign on San Diego Article on the MLPA

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

pspiller — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:02:05 +0000

In doing some research regarding backpacking equipment, I have come to the conclusion that the companies that produce this type of gear seem to be light-years ahead of most other industries when it comes to sustainable business practices. These companies tout their initiatives to help keep our environment as healthy as possible. We as a community seem to demand this of our manufacturers, and it is working well! The question is how do we translate this into the products that we use every day; those products that make the most impact on our environment. I am tired of unraveling simple products from 3 and 4 layers of useless packaging. I am going my little part, and start compiling and posting a list of the best and worst companies that produce responsible products, and responsible packaging, but I need your help, let me know who you think are the best and the worst by replying to this post.

Here are some of the worst I have found:

Crystal Lite- lots of redundant packaging
Lunchables- How many layers of packaging do you need?

The best:

Costco- They no longer provide plastic bags for their shoppers
Henry’s Marketplace- What can be better than bulk products. (no packaging)

Lets get this list big, and help press all manufacturers to look at their practices.

Is Ireland Really Green?

pspiller — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:05:20 +0000

Saturday, The San Diego Union Tribune ran an interesting article regarding Irelands use (or lack of use) of Plastic shopping bags. Among the more interesting tidbits in the article are:

We have used 43 billion bags as of last Friday

Ireland passed a tax of $.33 a bag in 2002, and within weeks the use of plastic bags dropped by 94%

Read the rest in the article here

Here in the United States the Retailers are beginning to take on the task of eliminating disposable bags. Whole Foods Market, Ikea, Costco all have stopped offering disposable bags. It is now our turn as consumers to take the lead, and stop using them, and frequent those businesses that are encouraging use of reusable bags.

Here is another link to a short list of interesting facts about plastic bags. reusable bags

Negative Trace

pspiller — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:33:21 +0000

While browsing a post in a Backpacking forum, I can across a concept that hopefully we all practice, but now has a buzz-word. “Negative Trace”- the process of leaving our wilderness areas beteer and more natural than when we arrived. See it here

Designer Bags

pspiller — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:36:55 +0000

Uncooped, a great blog focusing in on the environment has a short article, and a link to patterns to make you own reusable plastic bags. What is great about these is they are made of recycled materials themselves. If we all make a commitment to stop using disposable plastic bags, we will make this world a better place, and have a lot more room under our kitchen sinks.

Check it out: here

Oil and Water

pspiller — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:44:03 +0000

I received my copy of Canoe & Kayak magazine on Friday, and was browsing through it, and came across a short article about an Oil spill in San Francisco Bay, and the frustration of the civic minded volunteers wanting to help manage this disaster, and being turned away at best, and arrested at worst for their attempts to help clean up the bay. Unfortunately, there is not an online copy of the article, but in googling the issue I did come up with several others. I am interested in finding out what really happened. What do the locals have to say about this? Is this another sign we need to take stewardship of our lands back, stop being complacent, and do what is right? Or did our government agencies do what was best for both the bay and the people of San Fransisco?

Let me know!

Curl up with a Good book

pspiller — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:07:52 +0000

Here are a few of my favorite outdoor books that I have read in the last year. I will post more as I think of them.