If drinking wine improves biodiversity AND saves beavers sign me up! I’ll do my part nobly and I’m sure many friends will help. So often saving beavers is a chore but this, well, put me down for two shifts!

What Role Can Vineyards Play in Conserving California’s Biodiversity?

At Gamble Family Vineyards in Napa, California, the beavers are becoming a problem. “I’m speaking about it calmly right now,” Tom Gamble laughs. “On my worst days, I’m more like Bill Murray in ‘Caddyshack.’”

For years, Gamble Vineyards has worked to create a more biodiverse habitat on vineyard land, including establishing animal sanctuaries throughout the property and donating acreage to the Napa River Restoration project. Now the river’s growing beaver population is chewing the trees that Gamble has planted over the last 20 years.

“It’s interesting to see that we solved an issue, but it’s creating another issue,” says Gamble, the vineyard’s founder. Giving back habitat to native species is a matter of fine-tuning, of getting the ecosystem in balance—and this sometimes takes some effort. “But the biodiversity is worth it,” Gamble says.

Whooo hoo! I think he gets an invitation to the beaver summit.Come to think of it maybe all the wine growers do. We’ve talked to more than a few that have noticed first hand.

As on a vegetable farm, growing wine grapes in a way that increases biodiversity leads to a host of benefits. Bringing in good bugs keeps pests in check. Building healthy soil creates a teeming—and productive—microbiome that helps sequester carbon. Planting hedgerows around the vines preserves native species, gives birds a place to roost, and keeps vine diseases from spreading. And of course, there’s the intangible benefit of having a farm, and a life, that’s in balance. “I grow grapes to make wine to sustain a life that can be enjoyed outside and with nature—and the more nature I’ve got, the happier my life is,” Gamble says.

A growing number of California vineyard owners agree with Gamble that farming with a focus on biodiversity is worth the

time, effort, and financial investment. Winemakers around the state, including Gamble, Benzinger Family Winery, and Bonterra Organic Vineyards, have worked for decades to protect native species and regenerate the land. Others, like Pisoni Estate, are broadening their focus to include holistic habitat restoration.

Holistic habitat restoration! I’ll drink to that too! You can hardly hear anything in my house with all the toasting! I know its been a grueling time for the wine industry in California with all the fires, Anything at all we can do to help we will try!

Grapevines cover 635,000 acres in California—nearly double the size of the crop in the state in 1990. Given this scale, a commitment to growing grapes to boost biodiversity can produce a number of environmental benefits, as threats to the land—including urbanization, clearing, and climate change—intensify.

“In the event all of California’s wine grape acreage were to be farmed regeneratively, such a widespread shift would contribute toward the mitigation of climate change,” says Joseph Brinkley of Bonterra Organic Vineyards in the Northern California town of Ukiah, in Mendocino county. In addition, vineyards would face less virus pressure, thus reducing the need for pesticides and synthetic inputs. The need for water would decrease and the health of watersheds and ecosystems would improve.

The article does a great job in talking about how wineries aren’t always heroes with their water useage and redundant crops but how things could be changing as more and more vineyard plant sustainably and eco concious drinkers shop for better wine.

Wine drinkers are also increasingly willing to seek out and pay for eco-friendly wines. One study revealed that consumers show more willingness to pay for wine that is produced respecting biodiversity practices in the vineyard. Dr. Adina Merenlender, a conservation biologist who studies the role of vineyards in habitat restoration, cites wine lover “traditional respect for terroir” as a selling point for such products.

You know what else wine drinkers are famous for? Caring about beavers! Just wait and you’ll hear from us and our wallets! Something tells me you’re about to get an invitation to a very important California Beaver Summit. Just you wait and see.