[audio: http://www.foreverredwood.com/foreverredwoodblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/earthmatters_raulhernandez.mp3]
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Background Story
I was invited last fall to do a call-in radio show by my old dear friend Edwin Nieves. The radio station was KZYX in Philo, CA. www.kzyx.org Ph: 707-895-2324. The show is called Earth Matters. It was recorded Oct 28th, 2008.
Edwin and I met in the 1980’s when we worked in low income housing projects in Oakland, CA. He was a real estate broker connecting investors to old buildings needing work and a lot of energy to manage them. In the early years I was the property manager for a firm called Urban Renaissance. We were active during the 1989 World Series earthquake and wound up spending several years focusing on rebuilding and managing a 9 building city block project near downtown that was condemned by the earthquake. We rebuilt the buildings and added 120 housing units back to the area. Eventually I focused on putting together documentation packages for Urban Renaissance and other local entrepreneurs/social activists to help finance these projects via a successful low-income housing tax credit program. As the low-income housing tax credit programs expired and wound down, I began to spend more time in the woods on the forest restoration work and eventually moved to Annapolis, CA full time in 1995. Edwin would spend his spare time helping in the woods and helped me design and build the little cabin that is still my private sanctuary.
Edwin has been active in local environmental issues in Mendocino County since the early 1990’s. He has 2 brilliant daughters in graduate school now. We’ve had countless into-the-night conversations about forestry issues locally. One of these conversations this past summer led to an invitation to the show. Edwin has been one of the hosts of the Earth Matters show for many years and asked that I share the Old-Growth Again story with his listeners. It was a surprisingly thorough interview covering all the basics of our work. Edwin was very professional but he also managed to crack me up a few times. Its about 55 minutes long and the second half is call in questions from the audience. The questions were excellent.
If anyone wants to contact Edwin, he can be reached at [email protected].
