The Sonoma County non-profit Land Paths, founded a dozen years ago to help connect urban residents to the natural world around them, is finding that goal taking them in some unexpected new directions.

Landpaths' mission is "to foster a love of the land in Sonoma County," a broad goal that underlies their many day-to-day activities. The common thread among them, observes Executive Director Craig Anderson, is a shared appreciation for the natural world, and a willingness to listen.

 LandPaths offers both a busy list of hikes and other activities , and a wealth of volunteer opportunities such as creating new hiking trails (below).

They also have a lovely online photo gallery of scenes from Sonoma County's outdoors.

The 6^th annual "Real Heroes" of Sonoma and Mendocino Counties are being honored this week by the local Red Cross office. In this report we meet two of them.

His Bar Mitzvah is successfully completed, but Gabe Ferreck is not stopping his work on behalf of the displaced children of Darfur. Here he is pictured with the tabletop display he created for the  JWW Backback Project. In the audio clip below, Here he describes his next project for them, the Walk for Darfur.

How does a helicopter airlift rescue unfold? Pilot Paul Bradley (right)  gives a step-by-step account of the episode for which he was honored by the Red Cross this year.

Two of this year's other Red Cross Real Hero honorees are being recognized for actions that were truly a family affair.

 Through their Project Africa program, Food for Thought, the Sonoma County AIDS Food Bank, is now a sponsor of Hope Initiatives' soup kitchen and other projects in Namibia, including their new vegetable garden. 

It's not easy to measure progress in the medical effort to rein in HIV in Namibia, but Mark and Paula Nethedra  say some encouraging trends are beginning to emerge.

Click here to read about all of this year's Real Heroes.

The rise and surprisingly rapid fall of fly fishing on the Russian and other northern California rivers is told in a new documentary film, Rivers of a Lost Coast.

As a boy, Justin Coupe, co-director of Rivers of a Lost Coast, was taught fly fishing by his father, a lifelong angler.   So after finishing college, with an eye toward making a film about that subculture, he returned to the Russian and other northern California rivers to reacquaint himself with his subject. Doing so, he says, reaffirmed his determination to capture this slice of regional history while the first-person participants were still on hand to talk about it.

One of the unexpected stories within Rivers of A Lost Coast involves the long and bitter rivalry between two of the region's most accomplished fishermen, Bill Schaadt left) and Tom Linden.

 See the trailer for Rivers of a Lost Coast:

 

The Sonoma County Water Agency is taking a close look at the energy-producing potential of wave power off the Sonoma County coast.

The first step in the process of determining the potential for wave power energy off the Sonoma County coast is conducting a series of baseline studies of the possible locations for such facilities. That, explains Cordell Stillman, SCWA's Capital Projects Manager, is what these federal permits will enable.

The "sea snake" seen at left  is one type of wave power generator already installed and operating off the northern coast of Portugal. Several others are also in development, including the "aquabouy" shown below.

Preliminary estimates suggest that wave power off the Sonoma coast could generate as much as 200 megawatts of electricity. Stillman says that represents a sizable portion of the county's current energy consumption.

 You can post comments regarding the study permits for each of the three locations shown above at the website of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.