Brent Plater

Brent Plater is the Lead Enforcement Attorney at the San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission. Before coming to BCDC, he was the founder and Executive Director of the Wild Equity Institute, a non-profit organization that unites grassroots conservation and environmental justice movements in campaigns that create a more equitable and sustainable world for all. He also served as a Lecturer within San Francisco State University’s Environmental Studies Department; as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Golden Gate University School of Law; and as the Bay Area Director of the Center for Biological Diversity. Mr. Plater has received several honors and awards for his work, including the 2008 Environmental Education Conservation Award from the John Muir Association; a 2008 Unsung Hero Award from San Francisco Tomorrow; and a 2009 “Best of San Francisco” award from the editors of SF Weekly. In 2010 he served as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, where he taught in the University’s Science and Management of Tropical Biodiversity program and drafted regulations to protect the twin island nation’s imperiled leatherback sea turtle population. In 2011 Mr. Plater served as a Toyota/Audubon TogetherGreen Fellow, and in 2012 he received SFSU’s Environmental Studies Faculty Award for outstanding teaching and support of student engagement in the community. Mr. Plater is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a first generation American of Chaldean (Iraqi) descent, and lives and works in San Francisco.

Park Equity in the GGNRA

Wild Equity recently claimed that the GGNRA's proposed rule for dog management will, if some modest but essential changes are made to the proposal, create a more equitable park experience for all. But  calling something 'equitable' begs the question: equitable for whom? I've been involved with dog management issues for over…

Defend Wildness Resolutely Everywhere: A Defense of Drake’s Estero Wilderness, In Response to Jason Mark

This article is intermittently childish (‘cows degrade wilderness, so oysters should be able to too!!’), ignorant (nearly all designated wildernesses begin as a ‘potential’ wilderness area) and myopic (if your vision for Alemany Farm was as short-sighted as it is for Drake’s Wilderness, we’d still be using the farm as…

From Hubris to Hope

San Franciscans don’t need Shakespeare to know benevolence, hubris, and tragedy: our very own Sharp Park has an epic story to tell. Located in Pacifica, Sharp Park was deeded to San Francisco by wealthy benefactors at the turn of the 20th century.   Unfortunately, Alister MacKenzie—a renowned landscape architect—spent fourteen months…

Feeling Xerces Blue

If San Franciscans voted for their totem animal, a little butterfly known as the Xerces Blue would almost certainly be on every ranked-choice ballot.  Found here and nowhere else on Earth, the butterfly’s fierce loyalty to these lands reflects our own love for the City, and it also mirrors San…