"She was a voice for nature and a voice for the river," said Rita Kampalath, L.A. County's chief sustainability officer and a longtime friend of Winter's. "She had such strength of her convictions, and she was so clear-eyed in the vision that she wanted to push forward. And I think that inspired a lot of people."
Landscape architect Kongjian Yu, who passed away on September 23rd, 2025, in a small plane crash in Brazil at the age of 62, became globally renowned for pioneering the 'sponge city' concept, a design framework that uses natural landscapes and nature-based solutions to catch, store, and purify urban water. As cities around the world struggle with flooding, water scarcity, and the consequences of rapid urbanization, the Chinese architect and his practice, Turenscape, spent three decades shaping an alternative.
As climate impacts intensify, California must act now to build climate resilience for tomorrow and for future generations. Coyote Valley, just south of San Jose, offers a model for how conservation and stewardship of nature can do that. Here, protected natural and working lands provide a buffer from catastrophic wildfires, floodplains recharge groundwater, wetlands soak up rains to prevent downstream flooding, farmlands grow our food and open space connects over one million acres of critical wildlife corridors.