Introduction

When you say a word over and over again, it slowly loses its meaning until the word itself no longer seems to fit the schema it once represented--like a pair of shoes that you’ve since grown out of. “Sustainability” has become such a buzzword in contemporary discussion that we’ve forgotten what it really means, or what it means to apply it to something. Some abuse it as a label to justify the misuse of environmental resources. Others use it to refer to a compromise between the means of errant production and environmental consciousness. A few use it as a mantra that governs all daily activities.

In truth, sustainability is a chimera that fits all these definitions and more. It is based partly on one’s own environmental ethic. Thus it was inevitable that we would lose the meaning of sustainability--we never had it in the first place. For the sake of this project, however, we will be examining one particular problem where sustainable solutions are being developed and implemented. Hopefully through our research into this issue we will come one step closer to understanding how to apply “sustainability” to the world that we live in.

The dilemma in question is the act of forest-to-vineyard conversions within the Russian River Watershed (more specifically, within Sonoma County). This seemed to be an obvious area of study given that we attend a college mere miles away from California’s largest export (not to mention, many of the buildings on campus are named after wines). Much of our research came from online sources as we traced the history of Sonoma County’s wine industry to where it is today. We were able to locate a recent vineyard conversion proposal and investigate firsthand how different people respond to this issue, as well as ascertain how all sides defined “sustainability.”

The following pages contain our comprehensive description of the problem and an analysis of how it is being dealt with. Later on we reevaluate the problem and its solutions along an ethical framework, bringing in our own philosophical backgrounds to form a value judgment and measure it against our personal worldviews. Finally we include a closing reflection on what we learned from our research and the research process. For simplicity’s sake, most of our research involves vineyard conversions at the local or state level--rarely do we go beyond.