On December 15, 2016, the San Francisco Planning Commission approved the Environmental Impact Report for the Natural Areas Program and the Recreation and Parks Commission approved the management plan for the Natural Areas Program. The public hearing was over 6 hours long and is available for viewing HERE. Although we watched the hearing, we won’t try to summarize it here because readers can watch it if they wish. Rather we will comment on a few conspicuous observations about the hearing.
The most noteworthy feature of the hearing was that virtually all of the supporters of the EIR and the Natural Areas Program were allowed to speak first. Critics of the program were called on last. If you have spoken at such a hearing, you know that speakers submit a speaker’s card on which they indicate their support or opposition for the agenda item when they arrive. Typically, speakers are called in the order in which they arrive at the hearing. This usual procedure was apparently not followed in this case.
The main disadvantage of not being called upon in the order in which speakers arrive is that when a hearing is 6 hours long, many people with other responsibilities—such as work or family obligations—are forced to leave before their names are called. In the case of this hearing, I heard a number of names called of people whom I knew to be critics of NAP, who did not speak, presumably because they waited their turn but weren’t called in the order of their arrival.
Another conspicuous feature of this hearing was that the vast majority of speakers in favor of the EIR and the management plan either work directly for the program or are affiliated with it. Many supporting speakers were representatives of non-profits that conduct similar projects or they bring children into the parks to “educate” them about native plants. Their presence at the hearing was therefore a work responsibility which enabled them to spend an unlimited amount of time at the hearing.
This is an illustration of the biggest obstacle to the realization that nativism is a destructive agenda based on outdated scientific hypotheses for which there is no empirical evidence. In a word, “restoration” ecology is now a multi-million dollar industry in which many people are employed. Therefore, there is vested economic interest in continuing such efforts whether or not they are successful or beneficial.
Criticisms of the Natural Areas Program and its EIR
The speakers who opposed the approval of the management plan and its EIR were members of the general public who are neighbors of the so-called “natural areas.” They mentioned the destruction of trees (and the subsequent loss of sequestered carbon) and the use of herbicides as their primary objection to the plans. Another important issue was the restrictions on recreational access such as the closure of 10 miles of trails and the requirement that all access be confined to the trails that remain. These are issues with which our readers are familiar, so we won’t elaborate.
Comments based on personal experience with specific “natural areas” seemed most effective. One fellow said he had participated as a volunteer in several big plantings of native plants in a natural area. The plants died each time and presently few plants have survived several attempts to “restore” this so-called natural area. This experience had led this speaker to conclude that attempts to “restore” this park to native plants were futile.
A neighbor of Glen Canyon Park showed pictures of the impact on her neighborhood of the destruction of trees in the park several years ago. Her neighborhood has lost its windbreak and therefore dust from the bare ground is blowing into their homes. Their beautiful view of the trees has been replaced by bare ground.
The Natural Areas Program began 20 years ago and has been fully staffed and funded since its inception. Therefore, it should be judged by what it has accomplished. It has closed trails, destroyed trees, and built fences. It has repeatedly destroyed vegetation with herbicides and planted those areas with native plants. The native plants have died, in some cases several times in 20 years. In other words, it has little useful to show for 20 years of investment of effort and money. Since it has not been successful after 20 years, it seems insane to invest another 20 years of money and effort. Remember that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
Support for the Natural Areas Program
We hesitate to use the word “lie” to describe the justifications for the Natural Areas Program, but after listening to hours of testimony by its supporters, we will use that word to describe a few of their claims:
- The most effective lie is that all the trees they destroy will be replaced with native trees. In fact, no such commitment is made in the management plan, which says explicitly that the natural areas will be converted to grassland and dune scrub. This “replacement” fiction is mentioned in the EIR. However, the EIR makes no commitment to planting the replacement trees in the areas or even the same parks where the trees are destroyed. This important caveat to the commitment to replace the trees was not mentioned by any of the speakers in support of the plans, including NAP’s leadership. In the case of the 15,000 trees that will be destroyed at Sharp Park, calling those removals anything other than a clear-cut is a lie.
- Inaccurate descriptions of NAP’s use of herbicides also qualify as lies. The executive director claimed during the hearing that only 2.67 quarts of “active ingredient” were used in the natural areas in 2016. In fact, public records requests inform us that NAP used 1 gallon (4 quarts) of active ingredient from January 2016 to October 2016. The “active ingredient” is only a fraction of the amount of the formulated product. The “inert” ingredients in the formulated product are often considered hazardous. In other words, reporting only the volume of active ingredient underestimates the amount of herbicide being applied. The number of pesticide applications done by NAP is another way to evaluate the magnitude of pesticides used by NAP. From January 2016 to October 2016, pesticides were applied in the natural areas 111 times, which is 85% of all pesticide applications in park areas other than Harding Park (which is a golf course maintained to professional competition standards with contractual obligations regarding turf maintenance). A full report of NAP’s pesticide use is available HERE.
Courtesy San Francisco Forest Alliance - Claims that the forest in the natural areas will be “managed” for forest health are false. The management plan says explicitly that the trees will be removed for the purpose of expanding native plant gardens that require full sun. These areas will not be “thinned” as supporters claim. Rather they will be removed along the leading edge of the forest in order to create more unshaded ground for planting native plants. The health of the trees is not the criterion for their removal. These tree removals will not benefit the forest.
However, most of the statements made by supporters are not lies. Rather they are faithful repetitions of an ideology that most of them probably believe. Here are a few examples:
- Nativists believe that native animals require native plants. There is no empirical evidence to support that belief. All empirical studies find equal numbers of insects, birds, amphibians, etc., using non-native plants.
- Nativists claim that native pollinators require specific native plants. With few exceptions this belief is mistaken. The monarch butterfly, for example, is as willing and able to use one of the many non-native species of milkweed as it is a native species. Some butterflies require a specific genus of plant as its host, but a genus is typically composed of hundreds of species of which many are not native.
- Nativists believe that the immutable relationship between specific animals and specific plants has evolved over “thousands of years.” They are mistaken. Animals adapt much more quickly to changes in the environment. Many changes in plants and animals have been observed over a period of years, rather than a period of centuries, let alone millennia.
Many of the supporters of the NAP plans mentioned that native plants would somehow mitigate climate change. This is a mysterious notion that I cannot explain. If we are destroying tens of thousands of trees that store tons of carbon, how can we claim this will reduce climate change? The grassland that is the goal of these “restoration” projects will store a small fraction of the amount of carbon stored by the trees. Is this absurd claim a reflection of ignorance about carbon storage? Or is it a strategy intended to confuse the public? Whatever the motivation, the claim that native plants mitigate climate change is NOT true.
The nativists apparently do not understand that the ranges of native plants and animals have changed in response to changes in the climate and they will continue to change. They aren’t stopping climate change by planting native plants. In fact, climate change requires that the concept of “native” be redefined. That’s why their projects are unrealistic and futile because they are based on a climate that no longer exists.
The epilogue
The San Francisco Forest Alliance has announced its intention to appeal the certification of the Environmental Impact Report to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. This appeal will be heard sometime in 2017. You will be notified of the hearing if you will subscribe to the Forest Alliance website: http//sfforest.org.
Meanwhile, the Forest Alliance will ask the City of San Francisco to prohibit the use of the most toxic herbicides in the city’s parks. There will be two public hearings regarding the city’s pesticide policies and practices:
- Monday, December 19, 2016, 5 pm. This is a public hearing by San Francisco’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program. Details about that hearing are available HERE.
- Tuesday, January 24, 2017. The Commission on the Environment will consider the recommendations of the IPM Program at this hearing. The Forest Alliance will publish the details of that hearing when they are available.
Best Wishes for a BETTER 2017
The certification of the EIR and the approval of the NAP management plan is not the holiday gift that we were hoping for. In fact, the entire year of 2016 wasn’t much of a gift to those who believe government has an important and valuable job to do. We look forward to a better year in 2017 and we wish our readers all the best for the New Year.
Conservation Sense and Nonsense 
This is such a sad sad story about the stupidity that is so shocking among intelligent people.
But it also demonstrates the foibles of the Democratic party. You might think there is no connection.
The people who support this plan, likely consider themselves progressives. They are not the deplorables.
They are likely to be the people who are convinced that Putin threw the election to Trump, even though he certainly was unsuccessful in California. They are the also those who are likely to take our intelligence agencies, as speaking the gospel, forgetting the history of “weapons of mass destruction” which I believe is responsible for the tragic mess in the middle east.
The people who have been working so hard to bring common sense to this disgraceful project are also probably progressives, and its likely that they also voted for Hillary because the presumption is that Trump will be worse.
The only positive thing I can say is it looks like the use of pesticides, if they are being reported correctly has diminished. But with all the concerns about president electTrump and the environment’s degradation, why isn’t there more of an outcry. Why is the process being used to suppress those who are opposed to this folly. Is it because this bureacracy has become bloated and chooses the easier route to what they describe as conservation, ie
destruction and spraying. Or is it the effectiveness of the Sierra Club which has been prominent in this nativist plan. What they couldn’t achieve with people when they took –years ago– an anti immigrant stand they are now hoping to achieve with trees and plants.
It is so sad that they turn a totally deaf ear to the community!
Yet another reason to remove exotics: https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/family-of-black-bears-found-dead-common-shrub-played-role/77446/
“The plants contain a alkaloid compound called “taxine,” which is highly toxic to most animal and humans if ingested, according to the game commission.
“Taxine is found in all parts of the yew except the fleshy part of the aril, with seeds containing the highest concentrations of the toxin,” the Facebook post reads. “While yew are toxic year-round, toxin levels increasing during the winter months. Yew is cardiotoxic and impacts the heart’s ability to beat properly.”
English Yews are known to live for a very long time. For example, the Fortingall Yew is the oldest living tree in Great Britain. Located in the churchyard of the village of Fortingall in Perthshire, Scotland, experts estimate the tree is between 2,000 and 3,000 years old.”
All plants contain chemicals. Some of those chemicals are toxic to animals, including humans. Here is a list of hundreds of toxic plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants Some of those plants are native to California, such as columbine and oaks which contain tannins that are toxic to animals in large quantities.
Furthermore, the chemicals found in English yews may be toxic, but they also have medicinal properties: “Certain compounds found in the bark of yew trees were discovered by Wall and Wani in 1967 to have efficacy as anti-cancer agents. The precursors of the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel (taxol) was later shown to be synthesized easily from extracts of the leaves of European yew,[35] which is a much more renewable source than the bark of the Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) from which they were initially isolated. This ended a point of conflict in the early 1990s; many environmentalists, including Al Gore, had opposed the destructive harvesting of Pacific yew for paclitaxel cancer treatments…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata
In other words, the English yew that is said to have killed bears is closely related to the Pacific yew that is native to Northern California and is apparently rare in its native range. Therefore, the English yew in the same genus as the Pacific yew (Taxus) is a substitute source of a medicinal chemical that is treating deadly ovarian cancer AND is also enabling the conservation of the rare Pacific yew.
Nativists are only interested in the negative properties of non-native plants. In fact, non-native plants also have beneficial properties that are unacknowledged and unappreciated by nativists. Both native and non-native plants have much in common, including their chemical composition. They are as closely related to one another as humans are to one another, regardless of their ethnicity or other superficial differences.
Thank you for the brilliant response. Nativists’ distortion of truth and common sense is amazing. At this point, when we are in danger of losing our trees, it should be clear even to nativists that every tree is precious.
You’re right about how many plants can be toxic. Many plants knowingly protect themselves from being eaten by making themselves unpalatable or even toxic. So would nativists want them all, native included, eradicated? I’m still wondering why they don’t want to eradicate other non-natives, such as in the agricultural fields of California, the wine industry, and of course, themselves.
And thanks for reminding us of the evolutionary function of toxicity in plants. In fact, the Wikipedia article about toxic plants begins with that explanation. Many of the chemicals that plants contain protect them from being eaten. They improve the plant’s ability to compete and survive.
You never make any sense. English yew doesn’t need to be planted in California, for us to make use of it. And your acolytes claim that your arguments are “brilliant”?! Is rational thought going out of style?
I didn’t suggest that English yew should be planted in California. In response to your comment, I was pointing out the chemical similarity of non-native yews to native yews, the fact that many native plants are also toxic, the fact that the chemicals in yews are also beneficial, and the fact that the existence of non-native trees sometimes enables the preservation of native trees.
I realize that Million Trees does not make sense to you. That’s because your mind is locked into your own viewpoint to the exclusion of any other sources of information. I understand what you are saying, but you do not understand what I am saying. That doesn’t make me “brilliant.” That makes me open-minded.
I am no one’s “acolyte,” as anyone who knows me knows well. But I do believe in acknowledging and giving credit to someone who is rare and courageous in telling the unpopular truth. This blog is so important in providing the answers to myths that are destroying our local parks and countless animals. It’s not only extremely rational but beautifully done.
This is the site I recommend for those who want to know the truth about our wilderness parks, native and exotic trees and other plants, and how the wildlife interact with them. I am very wary and skeptical about what we are often told to be true that is actually lies, but this site is worth trusting and reading. If only everyone who is reading the lies would come here and learn the truth.
I am totally in agreement with Bev Jo. Million Trees is invaluable to anyone who loves real nature.
Actually, mjvande has provided no reason at all to remove exotics. As the bear biologist quoted in his linked article says, “. . . this may be a first . . . This unfortunate occurrence was extremely rare . . .” Black bears are not threatened by European yew.
mjvande has only one reason to remove exotics: his quasi-religious hatred of non-native plants and animals. All the rest is rationalization.