Natural resources and environment reporter

Paul Rogers

Paul Rogers is the Bay Area News Group natural resources and environment reporter. He has covered a wide range of issues for The Mercury News and East Bay Times since 1989, including water, oceans, energy, logging, parks, endangered species, toxics and climate change. He also has worked as managing editor of the Science team at KQED, the PBS and NPR station in San Francisco, and has taught science writing at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

With Yosemite Falls in the background, visitors jump for a photo on April 24, 2024, at Yosemite National Park. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

Do you need a reservation to get into Yosemite this summer? The Trump administration isn’t saying

March 20, 2025 at 5:07 p.m.

Confusion reigns at iconic California park as visitors try to make vacation plans

A firefighter douses hot spots on homes destroyed along Pacific Coast Hwy in Malibu on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Los Angeles fires: Catastrophic weather conditions drive firestorms across Southern California

January 9, 2025 at 5:24 a.m.

Severe lack of rain, combined with wind gusts over 80 mph spread destructive flames

Rana Creek Ranch, a 14,100-acre property in Carmel Valley, is being sold by Apple co-founder Mike Markkula to The Wildlands Conservancy, an environmental land trust, for $35 million in a deal that closes July 30, 2023 to create a new public nature preserve. (The Wildlands Conservancy / Paul Melzer)

Apple co-founder to sell huge Carmel Valley ranch for $35 million to become public nature preserve

June 20, 2023 at 1:15 p.m.

Rana Creek Ranch is half the size of the city of San Francisco, with "the grandeur of many of California's state parks."

The water level at California’s second-largest reservoir, Lake Oroville in Butte County, shown here on Jan. 12, 2023, has risen dramatically due to a series of large storms. The lake level rose 130 feet between Dec. 26, 2022 and Jan. 26, 2023, increasing from 29% full to 63% full in one month. (Photo: Andrew Innerarity / California Department of Water Resources)

California drought eases as state increases water deliveries to cities, farms

January 27, 2023 at 5:19 a.m.

After three years of severe drought, water supplies are boosted and reservoirs are filling.

Randy Moore, head of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region in Vallejo, Calif., on June 28, 2021 was named chief of the U.S. Forest Service by President Biden. (Photo: US Forest Service)

Biden names new U.S. Forest Service chief, will oversee twice as much land as all national parks

June 29, 2021 at 1:45 p.m.

President Biden on Monday chose a Bay Area resident who has spent the past 14 years overseeing millions of acres of public land in California to be the new chief...

Nevada Fall in Yosemite National Park ...

“Selfie epidemic”: How Israeli teenager fell to his death in Yosemite

March 31, 2019 at 1:47 p.m.

Tomer Frankfurter, a promising young man visiting America from Israel, died while trying to get a stunning photograph near the edge of Nevada Fall in Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite rangers recover bodies of couple who died in fall from 3,500-foot cliff

October 26, 2018 at 9:34 p.m.

Two people who fell to their deaths from a scenic Yosemite National Park overlook this week have not yet been identified.

All Stories