After almost four years of planning, a group of experienced and passionate environmentalists are ready to launch the Bay Area’s first full-color natural history magazine, BAY NATURE. Its premier issue debuts in January.

Publishing quarterly, BAY NATURE will explore the Bay Area’s rich natural history through evocative articles and eye-catching artwork & photographs. Each issue will examine animal life, plant life, geology, weather, parklands, and all other aspects of the natural world around us–as it is now and as it was before–through the writings, photography, poetry, and artwork of respected local writers and artists, including Paul McHugh, David Rains Wallace, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Robert Hass, Zenaida Mott, Galen Rowell and David Weintraub.

The idea for BAY NATURE came to David Loeb, the magazine’s Senior Editor, during a hike in China Camp State Park four years ago. "Looking out across the North Bay from under a canopy of live oaks and madrones, surrounded by the calls of songbirds, it struck me how much this scenery felt like home and yet how little I knew about this place. I thought, wouldn’t it be great if there were a magazine that could deepen our understanding of our natural surroundings?"

In addition to increasing Bay Area residents’ knowledge and appreciation of their environs, BAY NATURE will also highlight the precarious state of the region’s ecosystem. Although regarded as the cradle of the U.S. environmental movement–it currently supports more than 500 environmental and conservation groups–the Bay Area is now facing unprecedented pressures on its natural resources. Can we accommodate these pressures while still preserving the access and proximity to natural areas and breathtaking vistas that caused so many of us to move here in the first place? These are political questions, but their resolution depends on the region’s residents having a solid connection to the pulse of life that beats on the landscapes around us. BAY NATURE will help strengthen that connection.

Says Malcolm Margolin, Publisher of BAY NATURE, "Every time I climb a peak or even cross a bridge, I’m surprised by the astounding beauty of the Bay Area, as if I were seeing it for the first time. I want this magazine to convey that sense of surprise on every page and to work it deeply into our daily lives."