Protect Our Environment - Napa Valley CanDo

Protecting our environment is the foundation for sustaining our planet, community and economy. Our environment supports and houses our ecosystems, allowing them to grow and thrive. If we fail to protect our environment, we will put the lives of humans, animals, plants and more at risk.

CanDo is all in favor of community health and growth! We want to help you take action by sharing resources for recycling, reusing, and composting; cleaning up litter; buying local; protecting wildlife; donating to conservation groups; and making your voice heard by our representatives.

Protect Wildlife

For our newest project, Stow It-Don’t Throw It, we have partnered with Napa County Resource Conservation District to help protect wildlife in and around the shores and in the waters of our wetlands, rivers and lakes. The project recruits youth groups to make and distribute personal-sized fishing line recycling cans to anglers and boaters. This reduces the amount of tangled fishing line left in the environment, thus helping save wild animals from injury and death.

This is a youth-driven nationwide project that’s coordinated in partnership with Mote Marine Laboratory and the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program in Florida. The CA Division of Boating and Waterways and the CA Coastal Commission websites provide instructions for making personal containers that anglers can use to store tangled fishing line until it can be properly disposed of.

CanDo wants to help interested young people in the Napa Valley join this effort.
Visit our webpage: Stow It-Don’t Throw It!

Clean Up Litter

Did you know litter is one of the largest forms of pollution? It harms wildlife, contaminates our streams, and can be a threat to human health. Litter from local streets gets into our storm drain system, is washed into our local waterways, and eventually is carried out to the San Francisco Bay and into the ocean.

Waterway Keepers started as a CanDo project back in 2012, but is now ably managed by our friends at the Napa County Resource Conservation District (NCRCD) and has been added to their impressive list of projects. NCRCD organizes at least two volunteer trash pickup days along our waterways each year, on Earth Day and Coastal Cleanup Day, and can do so for private groups as well.

Visit naparcd.org/cleanups
Email ashley@naparcd.org.

Recycling, Reusing and Composting

Tim Dewey-Mattia of Napa Recycling graciously answers your questions about recycling, composting, and the like. Visit “Ask Tim” to see the latest Q&As from our newsletter feature Compost Corner. Got a question for Tim? Send email to CompostCorner@nvcando.org

Buy Local

Every community needs a way to support local farmers and provide an inclusive place for the community to purchase farm-fresh, sustainably grown produce, specialty foods and artisan goods directly from the source. We are so fortunate to have the Napa Farmers Market that does precisely this! The Napa Farmers Market mission is to “educate the consumer, preserve the environment, address food insecurity and connect people to our community partners.”

Donate to Conservation Groups

There are many local nonprofit groups in Napa County and surrounding areas whose mission is the protect the environment. All of them depend on support from the community.

Napa County Resource Conservation District	Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District
Land Trust of Napa County	Napa Valley Vine Trail Coalition
Save Napa Valley Foundation	Friends of the Napa River
Calistoga Community Garden	Napa Vision 2050
Napa Green	Protect Rural Napa
Jack L Davies Napa Valley Agricultural Land Preservation Fund	Institute for Conservation Advocacy Research and Education
Sustainable St Helena – An Environmental Alliance	Napa Solano Audubon Society
Material Innovation Initiative	The School Garden Doctor
Sustainable Napa County	Our Children’s Earth Foundation

Contact Your Government Representatives

As individuals, many of us understand what we can do to protect our environment: save energy, use the car less, recycle more, make better consumption choices.

What can our governments do? Their contribution utilizes large-scale measures that are vital to ensuring a better future for all.

1. PROTECT AND RESTORE ECOSYSTEMS

Governments can protect ecosystems not only to protect natural environments, but ultimately in the fight against climate change.

2. SUPPORT SMALL AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS

Governments can make a difference by supporting small local producers who, unlike large factory farms, employ sustainable practices, care about land and wildlife restoration, benefit nearby communities, and make animals and crops more resilient to climate change.

3. PROMOTE GREEN ENERGY

Technological developments have allowed us to find cleaner, cheaper, more efficient alternatives. With proper long-term planning, governments can phase out old environment-aggravating energy sources and opt for sustainable, benevolent solutions.

4. COMBAT SHORT-LIVED CLIMATE POLLUTANTS

These include black carbon (soot), methane, ozone, and the hydrofluorocarbons found in refrigerants. Their effective control, through governmental policies and regulations, could accelerate the fight against climate change in the short term. In addition, because they cause serious air pollution, measures to mitigate them would directly benefit environmental health.

Visit our webpage: Contact Your Representatives