Researchers use biotechnology to identify foods made from endangered species
The burgeoning global meat trade has taken its toll on the Kouilou region of the Congo. A stretch of unprotected rainforest supplies a clandestine gorilla meat market, and last fall, investigators revealed that Kouilou gorillas are poached at a rate of two per week.

“The population of gorilla that we located is in sharp decline, and will probably become extinct in a few years if we do not stop that trend,” says Pierre Fidenci, president of the San Francisco-based Endangered Species International, which conducted the investigation.

Stage 3 Guide
AMGEN heads into town. Meanwhile, local cyclist Shelley Olds Evans preps for the 2012 Olympics
When the AMGEN Tour of California, the biggest and most prestigious bike race in the United States, returns to Santa Cruz for Stage 3 on May 18, the city, the cycling community and its stars will enter the international spotlight. Santa Cruz can expect greater worldwide exposure this year because race organizer AEG will deliver increased media coverage of the eight-day, 800-plus mile road bike race that travels from Nevada City to Thousand Oaks, from May 16 to 23. This is the second year in a row that Santa Cruz was selected to take part in the Amgen Tour of California (TOC). One major change is that this year’s event was moved from February to May.

“I think it’s going to make a huge difference to have the race in sunny weather,” predicted Matt Twisselman, the chairman of TOC’s Local Organizing Committee and the one who spearheaded the years-long effort to put Santa Cruz on the TOC route. “We will have an even bigger turn-out.”

Behind the scenes banter, local filmmakers and some wildly inventive programming stand out as the Santa Cruz Film Festival enters brand new territory

Under a newly created Leadership Team of longtime board members and Festival veterans, the ninth annual Santa Cruz Film Festival begins Thursday, May 6, and runs through Sunday, May 15. Expect 133 fiction—and non-fiction features and shorts—from 33 countries (40 of them locally produced), which will unspool at three venues in Downtown Santa Cruz: the Del Mar Theatre, the Regal Riverfront Stadium Twin, and Community TV. The festival also offers a full slate of panels, workshops, parties, live music and gala receptions.

SCFF IX continues its longstanding commitment to green politics, partnering once again with the EarthVision Film Festival to present nine features and 18 short films dedicated to environmental activism. Other local, national, and international features are organized into thematic categories: World Cinema, Documentaries, and “Keep Santa Cruz Weird”—local films by local artists. Five documentaries and five fiction features are in competition for Jury prizes. SCFF IX will also see the inauguration of a new prize: the Morton Marcus Audience Award for Best Feature. Several film-related panels and workshops will also be offered free to the public.

The festival kicks off May 6, the day this issue publishes, at the Del Mar, with the music documentary Soundtrack For A Revolution, followed by a gala reception at the Museum of Art & History on Front Street. The festival concludes May 15 with a closing night gala and awards ceremony at the Del Mar and a screening of the locally made feature, Etienne, followed by a closing night party at the Cypress Lounge.

In our ongoing coverage of the Santa Cruz Film Festival, GT interviewed several locally affiliated filmmakers whose work will be showcased this year. Dive in … | Lisa Jensen
Festival passes are available for $175 (general admission), $150 (senior) and $100 (student). Tickets can also be purchased on a per-program basis, $7-$9 for regular programs, $18-$20 for the opening night, and $10-$12 for the closing night galas. For a complete lineup of films, events, schedules, and ticket info, visit the festival website at scfilmfest.org. Film Schedule & Tickets

An inside look at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s plans for a new Exploration Center and what it can mean for Santa Cruz
What does it mean to have a sanctuary lapping up on the shores of Santa Cruz? It’s a variety of things. No oil drilling, for one. Some regulations about things that can be legally taken out of the water, and more regulations about things that can’t be legally tossed into it.
But what the sanctuary designation is really about is spreading the word. It’s a fragile ocean out there, and it needs protection. Even in an environmental stronghold like Santa Cruz, that word sometimes doesn’t get out. Let’s face it. For most residents and visitors here, the sanctuary may not mean much—except for the satisfaction that you don’t have to stare out at oil platforms.
“Most people never have the opportunity to experience the ocean beyond the shoreline,” says Paul Michel, superintendent of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. “There’s a lot to discover and learn about Monterey Bay, and it’s important to bring these unique features to the public in an engaging way.”

Reducing meat consumption may just help solve the world’s environmental problems

“Eighty percent of Americans, in polls, say they are environmentalists … And yet, most of us have remained unaware of the one thing that we could be doing on an individual basis that would be most helpful in slowing the deterioration and shifting us toward a more ecologically sustainable way of life.” – Excerpt from “The Food Revolution” by John Robbins

To mark the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990, bestselling author John Robbins made his rounds on the talk show circuit, appearing on major shows of the day like Donahue and Geraldo. Robbins made waves by urging Americans to change dietary direction in his 1987 book “Diet For a New America,” which remains a big seller today. He would go on to become one of the world’s leading experts on the relationship between diet and the environment.

Bob Gillis carved out quite the niche for himself with his enterprising geodesic dome tents. Now, the tents are helping victims devastated by the Haiti earthquake.

Haiti. Burning Man. The North Face backpacking company. Each shares an unlikely connection: one Santa Cruz tent company and the inventor behind it. It’s hard to believe that cutting edge, durable tents now being distributed to many homeless Haitians were born out of a forest in Aptos.

When Bob Gillis sold his first patent for a small tent design to The North Face in 1975 for $500, he didn’t know it would forever revolutionize backpacking tents from being A-frames to the geodesic dome shapes seen around every campfire today. Nor could he have guessed that more than three decades later, after blooming because of a little festival known as Burning Man, his Santa Cruz company, Shelter Systems, would end up providing tent refuge for thousands of Haitians.

How three young Hawaiian princes first introduced surfing to Santa Cruz—and to the mainland of the Americas

By all accounts, the middle week of July in 1885 was a glorious one in Santa Cruz. Tourists from throughout the Central Valley were flocking to the bustling seaside community to escape the sweltering summer heat of the interior. The city’s hotels and boarding houses were bulging with visitors, and so, too, were the bourgeoning businesses along Santa Cruz’s fabled waterfront—the Dolphin, Neptune and Liddell bathhouses, and the beachside Free Museum.

The South Pacific Coast Railroad had been completed in 1880—linking Santa Cruz not only to the far reaches of the state, but to the entire country—and, suddenly, summertime tourism was emerging as an important piston in the city’s economic engine.

If you think back to your childhood, you may remember the wisdom found in the story of the Three Little Pigs. The story tells of three little pig brothers who decide to build houses. The first little pig builds his home out of straw, the second pig out of sticks and the third (and most intelligent) pig out of bricks. When the Big Bad Wolf comes a knocking, he huffs and he puffs and he blows down the first two flimsy houses. Straw and stick piglets are forced to run for cover in their more insightful brother’s brick abode lest they be devoured by the bacon-craving wolf. But technology has changed since this popular children’s tale of yore, and huffing puffing wolves hardly roam the streets of Santa Cruz County. In fact, now it is perfectly safe, acceptable and ecologically sound to build a home out of straw as local couple Kristin Jensen Sullivan and Mark Sullivan have successfully done.

One thing is clear: pirate radio is illegal.  We take a look back at 15 years of  nonviolent civil disobedience.
My first encounter with pirate radio was when I was 16.  I was visiting a kibbutz in Israel, and while we picked potatoes or assembled irrigation piping, we’d listen to rock ’n’ roll coming from what turned out to be a pirate radio station.  Between songs a deep voice would announce: “From somewhere in the Mediterranean this is The Voice of Peace.”  Like Radio Caroline off the British coast in the ‘60s and ’70s, these were renegades that broadcast without government approval, outside of capitalist culture.

Pirate radio stations—on land or at sea— have long been a part of social justice movements worldwide by promoting positive change and artistic creativity through an independent media.  In 1995 a group of activists in Santa Cruz continued the legacy by establishing Free Radio Santa Cruz at 89.3 on the FM dial.  Like The Voice of Peace, FRSC also broadcasts from unknown locations, though reporters and government agents have periodically found their way to the DIY station.  (Join FRSC in celebrating 15 years of unlicensed, commercial-free radio at 7 p.m. Saturday March 27 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center. A donation at the door is requested for an evening that will include speakers and live music.)