Conservation Sense and Nonsense

Lessons learned from fires in the North Bay

Recent wildfires in the North Bay were devastating. 44 people were killed by the fires and over 8,000 structures were destroyed, including homes and businesses. We don’t want to portray that fire as anything other than a tragedy. However, for those with a sincere interest in fire safety, there are many lessons to be learned from that fire. If people will open their eyes and their minds to the reality of those fires, there are opportunities to reduce fire hazards revealed by those fires.

What burned?

Watching videos of the fires is the best way to answer the question, “What burned?” Here are two videos of the fires that we found on the internet by doing a search for “videos of wildfires in Napa and Sonoma counties.” If you weren’t watching the news during the fires, you might start by looking at these videos. There are many more videos on the internet of those fires.

Here’s what we can see in these videos:

The fire front moved rapidly through native conifers and oaks as well as through grassland and chaparral. After watching hours of these videos, we did not see any eucalyptus trees on fire.
Many homes burned without igniting the trees and vegetation around them. If the photo was taken while the home was still burning, the vegetation is rarely engaged in the fires. If the photo was taken after the home burned, much of the vegetation is burned as well. In other words, the vegetation was ignited by the burning homes, not vice versa.
In videos of actively burning homes, the air is filled with burning embers. The source of those embers cannot be determined from the videos.

Nothing in these videos suggests that native vegetation is less flammable than non-native vegetation. Nothing in these videos suggests that the vegetation is more flammable than the structures that burned.

CalFire has identified the specific locations where four of the fires originated. Two are in groves of oak trees and two are in grassland and chaparral. Photos of those specific locations are available HERE.

UPDATE: On November 16, 2017, the Bay Area Open Space Council held a symposium about the fires in the North Bay that was billed as a “Community discussion on the impacts of the recent wildfires.” Bay Nature magazine moderated a panel of experts representing CalFire and 8 managers of public and private open space reserves.

The Director of Conservation for the Bay Area Open Space Council showed a slide of the vegetation types that burned in the fires. With the exception of vineyards, only 2% of the burned vegetation was “urban.” All other vegetation was native grassland, chaparral, and native trees.

Vegetation that burned in the North Bay files of October 2017. Source: Bay Area Open Space Council

The speaker from CalFire said that we must learn to live with fire. He suggested that the way to accomplish that goal is with better land use planning, using fire and ember resistant building materials, creating defensible space, and improving the health of our forests.

The slides of the presenters and an audio recording of their presentations is available HERE.

What role did the weather play in the fire?

All sources of information about the fire reported that strong winds were the biggest factor in the rapid advance of the fire. The wind was associated with very high temperatures and it came from the east. This type of wind is called a Diablo Wind in Northern California. In Southern California it is called Santa Ana Winds. In the Mediterranean, it is called Mistral Winds.

In coastal Mediterranean climates such as California and the Mediterranean regions of France and Spain, the wind ordinarily comes off of the ocean. Because the ocean is cooler than the land, the wind is usually a source of moisture and cooler temperatures. During periods of high summer temperatures, the wind sometimes shifts direction and starts to blow off the hot interior, drying the vegetation and increasing temperatures.

Such winds were also the main cause of the wildfire in the Oakland/Berkeley hills in 1991. Jan Null was the lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in the Bay Area in 1991. He recently said of the 1991 fire: “At the time a fire starts, the really relevant conditions are the wind speeds, the temperature and the humidity. Again, the humidity goes to the dryness of the fuel. The temperatures also go to the dryness of the fuels and the wind speeds go to what the spread of the fire is. If we’d had that same Oakland Hills fire without any wind, we wouldn’t be talking about it now.”

Most wildfires in California are caused by strong, dry, hot winds. Everything burns in a wind-driven fire. Both native and non-native vegetation burns in a wind-driven fire. Homes in the path of a wind-driven fire are more likely to burn than the vegetation that surrounds the homes because the vegetation contains more moisture.

Why are wildfires becoming more frequent and more intense?

Wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense all over the world because of climate change. Temperatures are higher, drought is more frequent, strong winds are more frequent.

Wildfires in the west have become more severe because of increased temperatures and lower humidity at night. When it doesn’t cool off at night, the trees don’t have an opportunity to regain the moisture they have lost during the high daytime temperatures. In the past, firefighters could count on wildfires to die down at night. Now they can’t count on colder nights to make the fires less severe. (2) Since the fires in the North Bay started in the middle of the night and did the most damage that first night, this observation about warmer nights is particularly relevant to those fires.

Deforestation is the second greatest source of the greenhouse gases causing climate change. Every healthy tree we destroy releases its stored carbon as it decomposes. Every tree that dies of drought releases its carbon as it decomposes. Every tree that burns in a wildfire releases its carbon as it burns.

What role did power lines play in the fire?

The investigation of the recent wildfires in the North Bay is not complete, but early indications suggest that power lines probably ignited some of the fires. Some power poles fell over in the strong winds, causing the power lines to break and spark ignitions. Some trees were blown into the power lines, causing them to break or spark.

California State law requires that trees be pruned at least 4 feet from the power lines. Although PG&E says they are inspecting thousands of miles of power lines to identify potential interference with trees, these inspections are apparently not adequate. After the fires started, PG&E claimed they had removed 236,000 “dead and dying” trees and “destroyed or pruned” 1.2 million healthy trees in 2016. These destroyed trees contribute to climate change.

California State law also requires that power poles are capable of withstanding winds of a certain velocity. However, power poles fell over during the recent fires when wind speeds were below that standard set by State law.

Apparently PG&E’s efforts to inspect and maintain power lines were inadequate and State laws intended to ensure the safety of power lines are not being enforced.

Did Sudden Oak Death contribute to the fire?

Sudden Oak Death (SOD) killed 5 million oak trees in California from 1994 to 2016, when that number was reported by a study. The study also said that the SOD epidemic could not be stopped and would eventually kill all oaks in California. More recent estimates are that 5 to 10 million oaks have been killed by SOD. (2)

SOD is caused by a pathogen that is spread by rain and wind. We had a great deal of rain in 2016 and 2017, which has greatly increased the spread of SOD. In the past, SOD has been mostly confined to wildlands. Now it is found in many urban areas, including San Francisco and the East Bay. In the most recent SOD survey done in spring 2017, new infections were found on the UC Berkeley campus, the UC arboretum, and the San Francisco Presidio. (2)

The scientist at UC Berkeley who conducts the annual survey of SOD infections reports that “A dramatic increase this year in the number of oaks, manzanita and native plants infected by the tree-killing disease known as sudden oak death likely helped spread the massive fires that raged through the North Bay…” (3)

Dead trees are more flammable than living trees because living trees contain more moisture. In addition to more than 5 million dead oak trees in California, 102 million native conifer trees in the Sierra Nevada foothills were killed by drought, warming temperatures and native beetle infestations during the drought years. All of these trees are native to California. This is another indication that native trees are not less flammable than living non-native trees.

The ranges of native plants and animals are changing because of climate change. They must move to find the climate conditions to which they are adapted. Native plant “restorations” that attempt to reintroduce plants where they existed 250 years ago, prior to the arrival of Europeans, do not take into consideration that the plants may no longer be adapted to those locations. That’s why many “restorations” are not successful.

If you haven’t seen the Sutro Forest, you should do so soon. The plans are to destroy about 50% of the trees and most of the understory.

Native plant advocates have their heads in the sand about Sudden Oak Death. The recently published Environmental Impact Report for San Francisco’s Sutro Forest announced UCSF’s intention to destroy about 50% of the non-native trees on Mount Sutro and replace some of them with native trees, including oaks and bays. Bays are the vector of the pathogen causing SOD. The EIR said NOTHING about Sudden Oak Death, nor did it acknowledge the existence of the disease in Golden Gate Park and the arboretum, less than a mile away from Mount Sutro. What’s the point of destroying healthy trees and replacing them with trees that are likely to die in the near future?

Where to go from here?

We are not powerless against bad decisions of public utilities and the forces of nature. There are things we can do to address these causes of wildfires in California:

We must address the causes of climate change. We must stop destroying healthy trees and we must plant more trees. We must choose species of trees that have a future in the changed climate. The trees must be adapted to current and anticipated climate conditions. We must quit destroying trees simply because they are not native. Non-native trees are not more flammable than native trees and many are better adapted to current climate conditions.
We must regulate our public utilities and demand that regulations be enforced. The Public Utilities Commission initiated an effort to improve the safety of power lines in 2007, after destructive wildfires. The utility companies have been actively dragging their feet to prevent new regulations because they would increase costs, despite the fact that they would improve safety.
Improved regulation of utilities should minimize the need to destroy healthy trees, by undergrounding power lines in the most high-risk areas, improving insulation of the wires, replacing wooden power poles with metal and/or concrete poles, installing sensors that identify breaks in the power lines, etc.

Demonizing non-native trees is preventing us from addressing the causes of climate change and the closely related issue of increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires. Let’s open our eyes and our minds to the reality of wildfires in California and develop the policies that will reduce fire hazards.

(1) “The Detwiler Fire is active at night, and a scientist says that’s relatively new,” Fresno Bee, July 22, 2017

(2) “Disease killing oaks spreads,” East Bay Times, October 24, 2017

(3) “Disease in trees pointed at in fires,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 20, 2017

Butterfly Bush: An example of the escalating war on non-native plants

The war on so-called “invasive species” continues to escalate. One of the indicators of this escalation is the recently revised California Invasive Plant Council’s (Cal-IPC) inventory of “invasive” plants. Nearly 100 plant species were added, a 50% increase in the inventory.

Scabiosa is one of 87 plants recently added to the inventory of “invasive” plants in California, despite the fact that is isn’t invasive in California. Scabiosa is very useful to bees because it blooms prolifically for much of the year.

More alarming is that most of the additions to the list are not considered “invasive” in California. Rather, a new category of “potentially” invasive plants was created, based on their behavior elsewhere. Many of the plants in the new category are considered invasive in Hawaii, a place with a distinctly different climate than California. Hawaii is a tropical climate, hotter than much of California and wetter and more humid than everywhere in California.

The big increase in the number of plant species now designated as “invasive” in California is a concern partly because of the herbicides that are usually used to eradicate them. Not only do we lose that plant species in our landscape when it is added to the hit list, we can also expect to see an increase in the use of the herbicides that are used to kill it.

Increased use of herbicides

Native plant advocates are aggressively defending the use of herbicides. Policies and practices are being developed to accommodate increased use of herbicides on our public lands.

East Bay Municipal Utilities District (EBMUD) is evaluating its Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM), including practices and policies regarding pesticide use. The first draft of EBMUD’s revised IPM program was made available to the public in July 2017. The draft adds several new goals to the IPM program: “habitat protection and restoration,” reducing populations of “invasive plant species,” and “use of alternative vegetation such as native plants.” EBMUD is the supplier of our drinking water in the East Bay and the quality of the water they supply should be the top—if not the only—priority. If destroying non-native plants requires greater use of herbicides, that goal contradicts EBMUD’s obligation to providing safe drinking water.

Garlon sprayed on the trail in a San Francisco park. San Francisco Forest Alliance

San Francisco’s IPM program has also changed some policies to accommodate use of herbicides in parks on plants the Natural Resource Division of the parks department considers “invasive.” The parks department restricts all park access to the established trails in the 33 “natural areas” where non-native plants are eradicated and replaced by native plants. The new IPM policy permits the spraying of herbicides without posting pesticide application notices in places that are “publicly inaccessible.” In other words, pesticide application notices are no longer required in the “natural areas” unless herbicides are sprayed on the trails. One way to reduce the public’s opposition to pesticides is to hide their use and this policy seems designed to do that.

Update: The San Francisco Forest Alliance (SFFA) has informed me that Chris Geiger, head of San Francisco’s IPM program, has given assurances that the IPM program will no longer offer City departments a blanket exemption to apply herbicides without posting in areas the department considers “publicly inaccessible”. Previous to this, each land manager was empowered to make their own decisions as to which areas they considered “publicly inaccessible”. The IPM group did not provide oversight of the decisions or keep records of which areas were exempted. Now specific exemptions will be issued and recorded on the IPM exemptions webpage. Chris Geiger reports RPD will not be requesting any posting exemptions. SFFA is still waiting for formal written documentation of this change.

San Francisco’s IPM Program is also demonstrating its commitment to native plants and the eradication of non-native plants by sponsoring a webinar on October 5^th, 2017, featuring Doug Tallamy: “The Plant-Pollinator Connection: Why Pollinators Need Native Plants.” Tallamy is the academic entomologist who has devoted his career to the promotion of native plants based on his claim that insects at the base of the food web are dependent upon native plants. He has said in many publications that non-native plants will cause the collapse of our ecosystems. Many of the statements he makes in support of his dire theory are not accurate.

This post will focus on the intersection of these symptoms of the escalating war on “invasive” plants: the expansion of California’s inventory of “invasive” plants and the closely associated claim that non-native plants must be eradicated because they compete with the native plants required by wildlife. We use buddleia, commonly known as butterfly bush, as an example.

Butterfly Bush (Buddleia): friend or enemy of butterflies?

Monarch nectaring on butterfly bush. butterflybush.com

Buddleia is one of 87 plant species recently added to Cal-IPC’s inventory of “invasive” plant because it is considered invasive outside of California. Buddleia is called butterfly bush because it produces large quantities of nectar that attract swarms of butterflies. Since buddleia is very appealing to butterflies, it is popular with gardeners who like to see butterflies in their gardens.

Since buddleia is obviously useful to butterflies and Doug Tallamy claims to be concerned about the welfare of our pollinators, why is he telling gardeners to quit planting buddleia? His advice is based on the fact that buddleia is considered invasive in some places and his belief that it will eventually be invasive everywhere. In fact, that’s his belief about all non-native plants: they may not be invasive now, but he predicts that eventually they all will be invasive.

Secondly, Tallamy argues that although buddleia provides food for butterflies, it is not a host plant for butterflies. The host plant is where butterflies lay their eggs and where the caterpillar feeds when the eggs hatch. The choice of host plant species is much smaller than the number of food plant species available to butterflies, but it is not as small as Tallamy thinks it is. Tallamy does not seem to realize that many plants are chemically similar, which enables butterflies to make a transition from a native plant to a chemically similar non-native plant. Here in California, many butterfly species have made that transition and a few butterfly species are dependent upon abundant non-native plants that are available year-around because their original native host plant is dormant much of the year.

Buddleia “starves” butterflies?

This is Tallamy’s apocalyptic prediction about the fate of butterflies if gardeners continue to plant buddleia:

“It’s no exaggeration to say that when you choose which plants to include in your garden, even the beautiful, seemingly harmless butterfly bush, you’re deciding if members of your community’s local food web will be nourished or unintentionally starved. And to get to that mind frame, which is a way of thinking that truly benefits nature, including its butterflies, you’re going to have to come to a harsh realization: You need to stop planting the butterfly bush—forever.” (1)

Ironically, this harsh verdict on buddleia was published by a blog entitled, “Organic Life.” Is Organic Life unaware of the fact that the most widely used method of eradicating non-native plants is spraying herbicides? The consequence of adding more plant species to the long list of “bad plants,” is more pesticide use. That’s not very “organic.”

What amoral, selfish gardener would plant buddleia in their garden after such a severe scolding? First, let’s stop and think about the logic of the claim that buddleia will disrupt the “food web” and starve butterflies. Since buddleia is an excellent source of nectar and swarms of butterflies are observed nectaring on buddleia, how could we be “starving” them? Professor Art Shapiro (UC Davis), our local butterfly expert, said when asked about this article, “The ‘disrupting food webs’ argument is ludicrous. It’s equivalent to saying that if you eat popcorn rather than apples, you’re contributing to unemployment in the apple-picking industry.”

Is buddleia a host plant for butterflies?

Now let’s consider the argument that we should not plant buddleia in our gardens because although it feeds butterflies, it isn’t their host plant where they lay their eggs. The problem with that argument is that it isn’t true!!

Checkerspot laying eggs on buddleia, near Santa Barbara. Photo by Marc Kummel

In 1940, Charles M. Dammers reported that the Variable Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona) “can use” buddleia as a substitute for its usual native host in southern California desert-mountain areas, based on a laboratory study of the larval stages of its caterpillar on buddleia. In 2001, chemical analysis of buddleia found that it is chemically similar to the native host of the checkerspot, which confirmed the potential for such a substitution.

The first actual observation of checkerspot butterflies breeding spontaneously and successfully on buddleia was in Mariposa County, California in the Sierra Nevada foothills. “Mariposa” is Spanish for butterfly. Mariposa County was named by an early Spanish explorer who saw many butterflies near Chowchilla.

Checkerspot bred successfully on buddleia in 2005 and in subsequent years. This colony of checkerspot on buddleia was reported in 2009: “We conclude that buddleia davidii [and other species of buddleia] represents yet another exotic plant adopted as a larval host by a native California butterfly and that other members of the genus may also be used as the opportunity arises.” (2)

Variable checkerspot. Photo by Roger Hall

More recently, a gardener in Mendocino County also reported the use of buddleia as the host plant of checkerspot:

“By now I am questioning how it was that butterfly larvae were using my butterfly bush as a host plant, completely against everything I’d ever heard. How was this possible? I emailed Art Shapiro, a very well-known butterfly expert and author, sending him a pic. He wrote back to confirm they were butterfly larvae, but added, ‘These are not mourning cloak butterflies. They are checkerspots. And the only time I’m aware this has happened [like, ever, except one in a lab in 1940…] is in Mariposa County.’” (3)

Bad rap for non-native plants

When the native plant movement began some 30 years ago, native plant advocates promoted their agenda with a straight-forward claim that they are superior to non-native plants. The public was initially resistant to that argument because non-native plants have been around for a long time and people have become fond of them.

Native plant advocates began to fabricate stories about the evils of non-native plants to convince the public that eradicating them was necessary because they are harmful to wildlife and they damage the environment. The Million Trees blog was created to address those claims.

But Doug Tallamy’s active participation in the crusade against non-native plants is a special case because he is an academic entomologist, credentials that make him more influential with the public. For that reason, Million Trees has critiqued several of his publications. We publish this critique of Tallamy’s opinion of buddleia for several reasons:

Buddleia is very useful to butterflies. The loss of buddleia in our gardens would be a loss to butterflies.
San Francisco’s IPM program is using Doug Tallamy’s mistaken theories to promote the use of herbicides to eradicate non-native plants in San Francisco.
Buddleia is one of 87 plants that have been classified as “invasive” by the California Invasive Plant Council despite the fact that it is NOT invasive in California. The expansion of the list of “invasive” plants in California to include plants that are NOT invasive in California, will increase the use of herbicides and will eliminate plants that are performing valuable ecological functions.

https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/never-plant-butterfly-bush (N.B. The butterfly in the photo in this article is European Small Tortoiseshell, found in Britain and in Europe. The caterpillar in the photo is the monarch caterpillar on its host plant, milkweed. Buddleia is food for both of these butterfly species.)
Arthur M. Shapiro and Katie Hertfelder, “Use of Buddleia as Host Plant by Euphydryas chalcedona in the Sierra Nevada foothills, California,” News of the Lepidopterists’ Society, Spring 2009
http://plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com/never-pull-up-and-discard-what-you-cannot-identify/

The consequences of dune “restoration” in coastal California

It is my pleasure to publish a guest post about dune “restorations” in Humboldt County that began about 30 years ago. Like most “restorations,” these projects are primarily destroying non-native plants. More often than not, they don’t plant native plants to replace the plants they destroy, although the stated goal is to “restore” native plants.

Uri Driscoll tells us why the non-native plants were planted over 100 years ago and the consequences of removing them. According to Mr. Driscoll’s Facebook page, he has lived in Arcata, Humboldt County since 1983. He has had a life-long interest in outdoor recreation, horses, organic farming, and conservation. He is a member of Arcata’s Open Space and Agriculture Committee.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you might think these projects are not relevant to us. In fact, they have everything to do with us because there are many similar projects here and the issues with those projects are similar.

Bird’s eye view of San Francisco in 1868. US Library of Congress

The San Francisco peninsula was about one-third barren sand dunes when Europeans first arrived at the end of the 18^th century. About 30 years ago, native plant advocates decided they wanted whatever open space that still remains on the peninsula to be returned to pre-settlement conditions, including sand dunes where they existed in the past.

These are the sand dunes in San Francisco where Golden Gate Park was built by creating a windbreak by planting trees. The windbreak stabilized the sand dunes and made it possible to plant and sustain vegetation behind the protection of the windbreak. San Francisco Public Library, historical photo collection.

Pacheco & 32nd Ave, San Francisco, 1943. San Francisco Public Library, historical photo collection

As residential neighborhoods in San Francisco were developed, iceplant and European beach grass were planted on the sand dunes to hold the sand in place. Native dune plants are not capable of stabilizing sand for long, before strong winds move the sand beneath them. In fact, the long term survival of native dune plants is dependent upon these disturbances.

Trees were planted on the windward side of residential areas to protect them against the wind. Sand on the leeward side of the trees was stabilized by the windbreak. One of the first dune “restorations” in San Francisco proposed to destroy about 4,000 trees in the Presidio in order to restore an endangered dune plant, Lessingia germanorum. The purpose of destroying the trees was to enable the sand to move again, ensuring the long-term survival of a native dune plant that exists only on the San Francisco peninsula.

Iceplant has been removed from several sand hills in residential neighborhoods, dumping sand on the properties at the base of the hills. The Great Highway, which separates Ocean Beach from the residential Sunset District is often closed because of drifting sand after removal of beach grass.

In fact, everyone living on the coast of California should have an interest in the preservation of our sand dunes because they are our first line of defense against rising sea levels and the intense storms associated with climate change. If non-native plants and trees are needed to maintain the stability of our sand dunes, so be it. Competing agendas must take a back seat to the safety of our coastal communities.

Million Trees

Stable Dunes or Native Plants?

The North and South Spits of Humboldt County are the physical barrier between Humboldt Bay and the Pacific Ocean. After the introduction of European beach grass (Ammophila arenaria) in the early 1900’s there has been a substantial stabilizing effect on the dunes as they grew wider and taller. Prior to the establishment of the grass our dunes consisted of wide expanses of unvegetated, open, moving sand. This is in sharp contrast to the variety of plant cover we have today.

In the 1980s public land managers began removing European beach grass with the goal of restoring native vegetation. This is the story of the consequences of their projects.

Foredunes (the sand ridges parallel to and closest to the shore) with open, actively moving sands have a very high potential for accelerated erosion. The foredunes of the North Spit and South Spit are still extremely vulnerable to accelerated erosion caused by disturbances to the vegetation. A beach and dunes management plan and Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was developed in 1993 to address such issues.

Of greater concern, waves have washed over the foredunes on both spits where waves have breached the foredune where vegetative cover had been removed. Repeated overwash events would significantly and immediately impact the only access road to the South Spit and the municipal water main and water treatment facilities on the North Spit.

These dunes could again be set in motion by removal of the protective cover of native and non-native vegetation. Indeed, the intention to remobilize dunes was identified in the Conditional Use Permit application Bureau of Land Management (BLM) submitted for vegetation removal at Table Bluff County Park, a portion of the South Spit. However, those intentions are contrary to the local Humboldt Bay Beach and Dune Management Plan and accompanying EIR.

The danger is that the South Spit’s dune topography is characterized as typically low and narrow. With erosion and subsequent lowering of the foredune that occurs following vegetation removal, the right combination of concurrent high-magnitude seismic subsidence and wave attack could cause collapse of the land barrier between the Ocean and Humboldt Bay. With anticipated sea level rise we would see this risk multiply.

The problem is that the previous and on-going work to remove European beach grass from the North and South Spits (in the effort to restore natural conditions and processes) has not and does not provide for the immediate re-establishment of other comparable vegetative cover to trap moving sand and prevent accelerated dune erosion. By not including this mandated mitigation measure, there is a real, legitimate potential for significant, cumulative environmental impact.

Why was European beach grass introduced?

The important thing to understand is that this specific type of beach grass (Ammophila arenaria) was introduced in Humboldt County in the early 1900’s. It was done in order to stabilize dunes to protect growing communities and infrastructure. It had the additional benefit of creating extensive coastal wetlands and wildlife habitat. By collecting sand from the beach the grass builds protective and multiple parallel ridges and accompanying deflation planes. These depressions behind the ridges act as sheltered nurseries for new plant and animal life. This process can take several decades but is reversed rapidly after the grass is removed. Such an effect has happened not only in Humboldt County but also in Point Reyes where valuable wetlands and organic pastures have been smothered by destabilized sand.

Why was European beach grass removed?

When the efforts to remove the non-native, albeit naturalized grasses began in the early 1990’s invasive biology was in its infant stages. Not much was known about the impacts from the eradication efforts of dominant species. But to some it was important to return coastal areas to the pre-beach grass era so native plants would not be out-competed.

Every movement needs a poster child. About this same time a cute little shore bird named the western snowy plover became just that. Even though it is registered as a threatened species on the west coast, other parts of the country and Mexico have significant and stable populations. We were told by local biologist Ron LaValley that the non-native grass needed to be removed to recover the local plover’s population. This claim contradicted his original report showing plover eggs nestled in the non-native grass. He was later convicted and sent to jail for falsifying data and embezzling a million dollars from similar projects involving the spotted owl.

Recognizing that manual eradication was very expensive and time consuming, California State Parks decided to bulldoze 40+ acres of Little River State Beach to provide plover breeding areas. Unfortunately, as Humboldt State Professor Mark Colwell noted in his 2008 report “importantly, eggs often fail to hatch in restored areas.” This is largely because ravens and crows find it easy to locate the nests in open sand areas.

The Lanphere-Christenson Dunes Refuge director Eric Nelson determined during a 2016 Climate Ready project that the foredunes were being excessively eroded by the 25 California Conservation Corp (CCC) workers who were digging out beach grass. His decision to spray glyphosate and imazapyr instead of hand removal was carried out despite public opposition. It remains unclear whether, despite acknowledging excessive erosion from manual eradication efforts, the refuge will return to using that method again.

The public takes notice of the consequences

Some of us who live near these project areas and use them for recreation started noticing native tree mortality and changes to the landforms caused by removing the stabilizing grasses. We started doing some initial research. We began looking into coastal development permits, beach and dunes management plans and monitoring reports. Our findings revealed the project areas that actually had permits also had mitigation requirements. Those included immediate replanting and strict monitoring to make sure topography and landforms were not altered. When we inquired about the monitoring and replanting programs we found those to be significantly deficient and in some cases non-existent.

Taking action

Our next step was to approach the various regulatory agencies. US Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the State Water Board should be interested in the freshwater wetland infill we were witnessing. The Harbor District and the municipal water district have a major interest in securing the two 42-inch industrial water mains protected by the same beach grass that was being removed. The Manila Community Service District maintains a waste water treatment facility on the dunes. We thought the California Coastal Commission would certainly want to know that these unauthorized alterations to coastal landforms were taking place. We felt sure the County planning department that issued some of the permits would take enforcement action.

The town of Manila’s water treatment facility

We brought photo and research documents from Oregon and Washington (2 and 3), made presentations and had meetings, site visits and sent email communications to no avail.

We stepped back and took a look at the board of directors for the non-profit called Friends of the Dunes (FOD) that has been promoting the grass removal from the very beginning. They had grown from a small, broken down 400 square foot building with a net worth of about $20,000 in 2004 to 60 + acres of ocean front property with a 3000 square foot building and a net worth of over $3.4 million in 2014. The board of directors at the time consisted of employees of most of the agencies listed above. We understood then why we were running into so many road blocks.

Our community is well known for environmental activism. So why the hesitation of local environmental organizations like the North Coast Environmental Center (NEC), Environmental Protection Information Center, and Bay Keeper to call out such impacts caused by bulldozers, herbicide spraying and wetland infilling? We can only presume that the banner of “restoration” has been used as a blindfold.

Some significant successes….more to do

We have had worthy successes. Through our efforts the California Coastal Commission has asked the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for a new determination to address the impacts related to the Ocean Day activities involving 1000 school children digging grasses from the dunes. So far, the BLM does not think it needs to provide that. BLM puts on the event but the Coastal Commission bankrolls it. We do not know yet what the Commission’s response will be to that refusal.

The town of Manila has stopped grass removal activities in its management area and has supported the planting of native pine trees (Pinus contorta, contorta) in the dunes, which we did last February. The County planning department is engaged and acknowledges that there has been no contract with the California Conservation Corp or BLM for prior grass removal at the County Park and will not allow any more vegetation removal until a Memorandum of Understanding is developed.

The Coastal Commission has committed to reviewing the authorization allowances for BLM’s grass removal over the rest of the South Spit. The existing Plan states a two-acre area would be subjected to grass removal strictly for monitoring purposes not the mile long area subjected to eradication to date. BLM contends that authorization extends over the whole 800-acre Spit but have not been able to provide supporting documents.

The North Coast Environmental Center and even the Friends of the Dunes (FOD) took a position against spraying herbicides on the dunes.

Former board members of the FOD that are regulatory agency officials have resigned their director positions.

Communities around the country are hosting events to plant beach grasses like the ones that have been removed here. Recognition of the incredible value of stabilized dunes is becoming more wide spread. The “non-native” label is becoming more questioned.

Setting new goals and looking ahead

For us on the North Coast of California we need a much more cost effective and precautionary approach than tearing out plants that have beneficial attributes. We need to allow the beach grass to do its job of stabilizing and protecting our dunes. As we allow it to do that, the beach grass “declines in vigor” (4). When that happens, other plant and animal species utilize those protections from the harsh winds and tides of the Pacific and establish heathy vibrant wildlife habitat. Our local and migratory wildlife depend on it. And so do we.

Uri Driscoll, Arcata, California

We commend the people of Humboldt County for paying attention to the damage that is being done to their public land and we congratulate them on the progress they have made to prevent further damage. We are impressed with the methodical approach they have taken to convincing public land managers to reconsider the goals of the project and the methods being used to accomplish them.

We wish them the best of luck with their efforts. We are grateful to Uri Driscoll for taking the time and trouble to share this story with our readers.

Million Trees

(1) South Spit Interim Management Plan 2002.

(2) Evaluating Coastal Protection Services Associated with Restoration Management of an Endangered Shorebird in Oregon, U.S.A. Lindsey Carrol

(3) Sally Hacker, Oregon State University http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/106/20150017

(4) The Nature Conservancy Element Stewardship Abstract For AMMOPHILA ARENARIA, Andrea Pickart

The role of nostalgia in our landscape preferences

Michael McCarthy is a British environmental journalist whose love of nature originates with personal loss. When he was only 7 years old, his mother had a mental breakdown that forced her to abandon him and his brother. This traumatic experience caused irreparable psychological damage to his brother, but not to him because he withdrew from the family and found refuge in nature.

Fortunately, he lived close enough to wild land, where he could spend endless hours wandering on his own, watching birds, insects and animals. He found peace there and because it was 1954, he also found an abundance of creatures. The title of his book, The Moth Snowstorm, is a metaphor for the abundance of nature when he was a child:

“There were lots of many things, then. Suburban gardens were thronged with thrushes. Hares galumphed across every pasture. Mayflies hatched on springtime rivers in dazzling swarms. And larks filled the air and poppies filled the fields, and if the butterflies gilled the summer days, the moths filled the summer nights, and sometimes the moths were in such numbers that they would pack a car’s headlight with beams like snowflakes in a blizzard, there would be a veritable snowstorm of moths, and in the end of your journey you would have to wash your windscreen, you have to sponge away the astounding richness of life. It was to this world, the world of the moth snowstorm, that I pledged my youthful allegiance.” (1)

Mr. McCarthy laments the loss of the natural abundance of his childhood and he places most of the blame for that loss on the explosion of agriculture in post-WW II Britain. One of the lessons of the war was that there is greater national security in food independence. Government policies began to subsidize agriculture to such an extent that it became profitable to cultivate every square inch of the British countryside, producing an agricultural surplus of which much is wasted. The hedgerows of the past that had provided habitat for wildlife were plowed under.

In addition to the loss of habitat, the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by the growing agricultural enterprise was a culprit: “Agricultural poisons [were also to blame]. Poisons for this, poisons for that. Kill off the insects. Kill off the snails. Kill off the wild flowers. Kill off anything that isn’t your money-making crop with herbicides, pesticides fungicides, molluscidides.” (1)

Initially this chemical warfare was waged with DDT. It took many years for the world to understand that DDT was killing birds and decades more for most countries to be willing to stop using DDT and other organochlorine pesticides. It was a short-lived victory because, “They were replaced with new generations of pesticides which generally did not kill birds directly…Certainly, however, they all killed insects, and they did not just kill ‘target’ insects, they killed almost all insects, just as herbicides usually killed almost all herbs…” (1)

Defending nature

The damage done to nature in the past 100 years is well known. The environmental advocacy of the past 50 years to stop—if not reverse—that damage is equally well known. Mr. McCarthy briefly summarizes recent strategies to defend the environment and dismisses them as ineffective:

The sustainability movement was based on the theory that human development will not damage nature if it is “sustainable.” The word “sustainable” quickly became a buzzword with little meaning beyond its value as a public relations cover to justify whatever development, timber, mining projects are desired by humans. Every project is now advertised as being “sustainable.”
More recently, environmentalists have tried to defend nature by quantifying its economic value to human society. This was a “fight-fire-with-fire” strategy and it has not proved to be more effective than affixing the word “sustainable” onto every intrusion into wild lands. As we calculate the economic value of pollination by insects we hope to save, scientists are probably “designing” agricultural crops that are pollinated by wind.

Mr. McCarthy believes those strategies failed because they “engage the intellect [without] engaging the imagination.” He believes that the only effective defense of nature is based on the “joy and wonder” that nature brings to humans. He shares his personal experiences in nature that have made him a devoted advocate for its preservation.

Nostalgia for the nature of our childhood

Mr. McCarthy describes his first encounters with specific landscapes and species of birds, butterflies, and plants and the joy and wonder they brought to him. Most of those encounters were in Britain, where he grew up, and so most are landscapes and species with which I am unfamiliar. It was therefore, difficult to empathize with Mr. McCarthy’s emotional attachment to them.

And so I reflected on my own early experiences in nature and how they shaped my own aesthetic and horticultural preferences. I was raised in a densely populated, suburban, working class community in Southern California by a single mother. We did not own a car until I was a teenager and so our trips into wild nature were rare and memorable. There were a few treasured trips to Catalina Island and one unforgettable trip to Yosemite in a Studebaker coupe packed with 4 children and 2 single moms.

Charlotte Armstrong rose. 1001 Landscaping Ideas. com

As much as I enjoyed those trips, most of my childhood experience with nature was in my own small backyard, which was populated by a few fruit trees and flowering shrubs. One of my most rewarding experiences in the garden was successfully growing a Charlotte Armstrong rose from cuttings given to me by a teacher when I was about 11 years old. In retrospect, I now know that nothing in our garden was “native” although at the time I had no reason to know that they weren’t.

As different as my childhood experience in nature was from Mr. McCarthy’s, it was no less meaningful to me. My childhood was as chaotic as Mr. McCarthy’s after the unexplained disappearance of my father when I was 2. I built my ideal home in the dirt in my backyard and played out peaceful scenarios with my small plastic dolls under the canopy of the avocado tree. The neighbor’s lantana bushes attracted swarms of skippers. We puffed out our cheeks and put as many skippers in our mouths as we could, for the pure pleasure of watching them flutter out of our mouths, seemingly unharmed. (I wouldn’t do that today, but I don’t begrudge my childhood self that pleasure.) I bristle when I hear claims that lantana is “invasive” and must be eradicated as well as the claim that non-native plants are not useful to wildlife. I know otherwise.

Unless they are limbed up, the canopy of avacado trees grow nearly to the ground, creating a private “green room” under the canopy.

There are as many personal experiences in nature as there are people and they obviously vary widely depending upon location, lifestyle and a multitude of other variables. Predictably, there are therefore a multitude of opinions about “ideal” nature.

Must nature be exclusively “native” or is a cosmopolitan mix of plants and animals equally valuable? This is just one of many debates that rage within the community of people who all consider themselves environmentalists. In our own gardens we can indulge our personal preferences, but the differences of opinion become a source of conflict when public open space is at stake.

Acknowledging the ways in which nostalgia influences our preferences should help us to resolve those conflicts. Chris Thomas is a British academic scientist who addresses this question in his new book, Inheritors of the Earth in which he calls out “conservationists for holding viewpoints that seem more driven by nostalgia than by logical thinking about the biological future of our planet.” (2) He believes that conservation efforts inappropriately focus on trying to defend the losers in nature’s great competition for survival, rather than backing the winners that are probably the species that are the future of our biological communities.

If we can acknowledge that our preferences are based on the past, rather than the future of nature, it is more difficult to justify the use of pesticides to destroy the future. As Mr. McCarthy tells us, pesticides are one of the primary reasons why the abundance of nature is rapidly disappearing. Using pesticides to kill existing landscapes is contributing to the loss of nature, not enhancing it.

Please give some thought to how your personal experiences have helped to shape your preferences in nature. We hope that your reflections will help you to respect the preferences of others.

Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm, New York Review of Books, 2015
https://blog.nhbs.com/author-interviews/interview/inheritors-earth-interview-chris-d-thomas/

InfoWar: UC Berkeley bombards us with propaganda against trees

First we must recapitulate the long history of UC Berkeley’s destruction of non-native trees on its property.

UC Berkeley (UCB) started destroying non-native trees on its property in the East Bay hills in 2000 and continued destroying trees until 2005, when it applied for FEMA grant funding to complete the destruction of all non-native trees. UCB published detailed reports of its first phase of tree destruction, which reported the destruction of about 18,000 trees on 150 acres on Panoramic Hill, Claremont Canyon, Frowning Ridge, Chaparral Hill, and Lower Strawberry Canyon.

UCB completed the first phase without completing an Environmental Impact Report, which is what enabled it to avoid informing the public in advance of the destruction. When UCB applied for FEMA funding it expected to be able to continue those projects without completing an environmental impact report. UCB’s FEMA grant application proposed to destroy 54,000 trees on 284 acres in Strawberry and Claremont canyons and Frowning Ridge. But the public was now alerted to UCB’s intentions and objected to the project being done without environmental review. After completing the Environmental Impact Statement required by federal law, the FEMA grant to UCB was cancelled after a successful legal challenge of the project.

UCB tried to implement its plans with its own funding without completing an Environmental Impact Report, as required by California State law. Again, they lost a legal challenge that prohibits it from implementing its plans without an EIR.

UCB’s most recent demonstration of its continued commitment to destroying all non-native trees on its property was a legal complaint filed in June 2017, which demands that FEMA reinstate the grants that were cancelled about one year ago. At the same time, UCB has launched a new public relations effort to convince the public to support its projects. In this post we will take a closer look at UCB’s recent round of propaganda.

New “informational” signs in Strawberry Canyon

We learned of new “informational” signs along the fire trail in Strawberry Canyon in July 2017, but we don’t know precisely when they were installed. Those who often visit Strawberry Canyon tell us the signs are recent. This sign about “biodiversity” is an example of the message UCB is sending to the public.

Many of the statements on this sign are inaccurate:

Monarch butterflies roosting in eucalyptus tree.

The sign claims that native plants “provide food and habitat for native wildlife” but that non-native plants “provide food and habitat for other non-native species.” Neither of these statements is accurate. If a native plant provides food and habitat for native wildlife, it also provides both to non-native wildlife. Conversely, if a non-native plant provides food and habitat for non-native wildlife, it also provides both to native wildlife. The notion that wildlife makes such distinctions is ridiculous. Wildlife does not know or care what humans consider native or non-native. If the plant is edible, it is food. If the plant provides cover, it is useful habitat.
The sign also claims that the roots of native plants are deep, but the roots of non-native plants are shallow. These are equally ridiculous statements. The depth of roots may vary, but that variation is completely unrelated to whether or not the plant is native.

Tree roots

Nativists often claim that the roots of eucalyptus trees are shallow (except when they claim they are very deep in order to make the opposite case that they use more water than other tree species). So, we will digress briefly to provide some information about tree roots from a reputable, scientific source.

According to a study of tree roots by Harvard’s forestry research institution, Arnold Arboretum, (1) tree roots vary little by species. The configuration of tree roots varies somewhat over the life of trees. Early in their life, trees often have a deep tap root, but the tap root is slowly replaced by a wide, lateral network of fine roots around the perimeter of the tree, usually far wider than the tree canopy. To the extent that the root system varies, it is more a reflection of soil conditions. If the soil is very compact or the tree is planted in a rock or concrete basin, the width of the root system will be physically constrained. If the tree is unstable in the ground, it is usually because of where it has been planted.

UC Alumni Magazine gins up fire hysteria

In June 2017, the UC alumni magazine published an article in defense of its plans to destroy all non-native trees in the East Bay hills. (Available here: UC Alumni Mag – Glen Martin interviews Scott Stephens) Curiously, this article appeared in an edition devoted to climate change and adaptation to the changing climate. You might think that concern about climate change would predict a greater respect for our urban forest, which stores the carbon that will contribute to greenhouse gases when the trees are destroyed. Again, don’t look for consistency in the nativist viewpoint. You won’t find it.

Here are a few of the absurd statements made in the article in the alumni magazine:

The article claims that the 150 acres where UCB destroyed trees over 15 years ago are now covered in native trees and shrubs that “came in” on their own when the trees were destroyed. All of these areas are easily visited and observed. They are occupied by non-native weeds and piles of wood chips. Here is a picture of one of those areas taken on August 6, 2017.

Site 29. The tall, dry weeds are the remains of poison hemlock that dominates this site where eucalyptus was destroyed by UCB. Shade is lost when trees are destroyed and weeds thrive in the full sun. The weeds dry out during dry summer months and become fuel for summer fires.

The article repeats the ridiculous claim that eucalypts are called “gasoline trees” in Australia. The word “gasoline” is not used in Australia. As in all British Commonwealth nations, what we call gasoline is called petrol. Calling eucalyptus trees “gasoline trees” is an American rhetorical device. A native plant advocate probably made it up, then it was shared in their closed community until it became a “fact” in their minds. It is a means of generating fear. It is a tool used by native plant advocates to support their demand to destroy all non-native trees in California.
The article describes the huge die off of native conifers in California, caused by climate change and related infestation of native bark beetles and it predicts that they will be replaced by different species of trees that are adapted to present climate conditions. These observations are made with no apparent understanding of how it contradicts UCB’s strategy here in the Bay Area. If the climate is changing in California and its landscape must change along with it, why is UCB trying to install the landscape that existed here 250 years ago?

UCB’s latest propaganda installment

The recent fire in the East Bay Hills was another opportunity for UCB to gin up the fear machine against non-native trees. The fire started on Grizzly Peak Blvd where UC Berkeley destroyed 1,900 eucalyptus trees on 11 acres in 2004. When the trees were destroyed, the ground was quickly colonized by non-native annual grasses and the road was lined with the trunks of the trees they had destroyed. The dried grass and the dead logs were the fuel of the fire that started on August 2, 2017. The fire was stopped when it crossed the road into the eucalyptus forest in Tilden Park.

This area on the west side of Grizzly Peak is known as Frowning Ridge. It is one of the first areas that was clear-cut by UC Berkeley over 10 years ago. Destroying the trees did not prevent the grass and shrubs from igniting in the August 2017 fire. Pictures of that area before and after the trees were destroyed are available here: https://milliontrees.me/2013/06/08/guest-article-about-fema-projects-by-a-student-of-the-forest/

UCB now writes in its alumni magazine that there was no major damage to property and no loss of life because of UC’s “fuels management program” that destroyed the trees. The fire risk to life and property was increased by the “fuels management program,” as facts on the ground tell us. Scott Stephens, speaking for UCB, speculates that the fire “would have thrown embers miles ahead, starting hundreds of spot fires that would also burn explosively and merge. That’s what happened in 1991.”

In fact, that’s NOT what happened in 1991. The only source of embers identified by the FEMA Technical Report on the 1991 fire was “brush.” That report also says the maximum distance of the fire spread was less than 3 miles, so if embers started spot fires, they did not travel many miles.

A study by US Forest Service of embers starting spot fires during wildfires all over the world included the 1991 fire. The only known ember reported in the ‘91 fire was a wooden shingle from one of the homes that burned. That study said of urban fires in California, “In the wildland-urban interface fires in California—Berkeley in 1923, Bel-Air in 1961, Oakland 1991—wooden shingles which were popular in California as roof material, assisted fire spread. Wooden shingles increase fire hazard owing to both ease of ignition and subsequent firebrand production.” (2)

But here is the kicker to this rewriting of fire history by Scott Stephens. Less than a month ago, Stephens was interviewed about the many wildfires in California this year. He blamed the wildfires on the heavy rains that produced a lot of grass and he said forests are less likely to burn: “UC Berkeley Fire Science Professor Scott Stephens says most of the fires so far have been in grassland areas that were revived from the rain, then dried out early during triple-digit heat waves… He says forests are better at retaining moisture and the Sierra will be more resilient this year because of the rains.”

Stephens knows what is causing wildfires in California, but he chooses to misrepresent the fire in the East Bay Hills last week, presumably in the service of UCB’s desire to destroy our urban forest. Perhaps it is naïve of me to expect more from a faculty member at California’s most prestigious research and educational institution. But I find it disappointing.

Please join Million Trees in rejecting fear as the maker of public policy. Be suspicious when you are asked to be afraid of something. Are you being manipulated? Do the fear mongers have ulterior motives?

Thomas O. Perry, “Tree Roots: Facts and Fallacies,” Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University
Eunmo Koo, et. al., “Firebrands and spotting ignition in large-scale fires,” International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2010, 19, 818-843

Fire in the East Bay Hills, August 2017

On Wednesday, August 2, 2017, a fire started in the Berkeley/Oakland hills in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is an area with a history of catastrophic wildfires and so the media and the public paid close attention to the fire as firefighters fought to contain it.

The East Bay Times reported that the fire began on Grizzly Park Blvd near mileage sign marker 14 and spread to 20 acres until it was contained late Friday, August 4, 2017.

Dan Grassetti, the President of the Board of Directors of Hills Conservation Network, monitored the fire while it was in progress and when the road was opened again, he wrote the following report about the fire and what we can learn from it. We are grateful to Dan for the photos he took and for sharing his observations about the fire.

The Hills Conservation Network is a 501C3 non-profit which advocates for fire safety in the East Bay. Visit their website to see how they advocate for reducing fire hazards without clear cutting trees and using pesticides.

Million Trees

I was able to tour the site today and took some photos. The fire was split between an area that had previously been treated [by removing all eucalyptus] by UC and an adjacent area that still had some eucalyptus. The fire took out all the ground fuels, including the dead tree carcasses [logs] that Tom Klatt [of UC Berkeley] had left there from years ago. Apparently what the experts tell us about live trees not being fuel while dead trees being fuel is true! [Despite what Tom Klatt tells us about UC’s projects, which leave the logs on the ground.]

When UCB destroys trees, they leave the logs lying on the ground. Note that some of those logs burned in the August 2017 fire.

You will note that the fire burned under a number of trees, including Monterey pines and eucalyptus without igniting them. This is the same pattern we have seen in every fire site we’ve walked since the ’91 disaster.

On the east side of Grizzly Peak where eucalypts are still standing, the fire burned the understory and scorched the trunks of the trees, but did not ignite the trees. We have seen that pattern several times in past fires since 1991.

The lessons seem clear. Roadside party sites attract folks who start fires. If you’re going to have these zones you pretty much have to create a vegetation free zone a goodly distance from these sites. What burns in a wild land fire are the ground level fine fuels. Tall trees provide shade which tends to lessen the amount of ground level fine fuels.

Dan Grassetti, Hills Conservation Network

August 5, 2017

Addendum: It’s foggy in the East Bay Hills today, August 6, 2017. At midday, Frowning Ridge is barely visible through the fog.

Across the road, in Tilden Park, the trail is muddy under the trees that are dripping the fog from above. The moist ground prevents fires from igniting and spreading.

A few trees were cut down by fire fighters on the east side of Grizzly Peak, in Tilden Park. Their stumps are visible.

The trees that were cut down have been cut into pieces and stacked beside the road. You can see that the bark of trees is charred by the fire in places, but the heart of the tree did not burn.

Million Trees

Tamarisk beetle: A case study in the dangers of biological controls to eradicate non-native species

Our readers were introduced to Matt Chew in his guest post about the economic interests of ecological “restorations.” Dr. Chew is a faculty member of Arizona State University’s Center for Biology and Society and an instructor in the ASU School of Life Sciences.

The most recent newsletter (see page 8) of the California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC) informed us that the beetle that was introduced in Arizona to eradicate tamarisk has spread to California, where it was not introduced. When the beetle was originally introduced, its spread beyond where it was introduced was not predicted, based on climatic restrictions on its life cycle. As usual, evolution overturns the best laid plans. According to Cal-IPC, “Rapid evolution in this developmental trait, however, allowed beetles to stay active later in the season and thus facilitated their expansion southward…”

Tamarisk defoliated by tamarisk leaf beetle along Colorado River, near Needles, California

The rapid defoliation of tamarisk throughout the southwest, including California, is an immediate threat to the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, which long ago adapted to tamarisk in the absence of its native host, willow. The native willow requires a great deal more water than tamarisk. Therefore, willow died off when water throughout the southwest was diverted out of riparian corridors for human consumption and agricultural production.

Dr. Chew is an expert on tamarisk and the role it plays in the ecosystems of the southwest and so we asked him to write another guest post for us on this topic. He has generously obliged with this detailed history of biocontrols and their use to eradicate non-native species.

Biocontrols are also topical because a new biocontrol was recently approved by the USDA to eradicate cape ivy. This biocontrol was eagerly anticipated by native plant advocates and is likely to be widely used by land managers in California. Therefore, this is a timely opportunity to learn about the pros and cons of biocontrols. How long will it take the introduced insect to start feeding on the many other species of ivy that are not considered “invasive?”

Evolution and natural selection are wild cards in attempts to eradicate non-native plants and animals. Although there are many dangerous consequences of using pesticides, the role that evolution plays in rendering pesticides useless is less understood and taken into consideration. Much like the hungry beetle that now is running rampant in the southwest, the weeds that are continuously sprayed with herbicide are also adapting and evolving defenses against the chemicals being used to eradicate them. There are now millions of acres of agricultural crop land infested by weeds that are immune to the pesticides that were sprayed on them for decades. Our pesticides are now useless on these “superweeds.” Instead of getting off the pesticide treadmill, we are developing stronger—and therefore more toxic—herbicides.

There are many reasons why we object to the eradication of non-native plants and animals. The tamarisk beetle is an example that illustrates a few of our objections:

Many of the plants being eradicated are providing food and habitat for animals. The animals that depend upon them are being harmed by their elimination.
The methods used to eradicate non-native species often have unintended, negative consequences, such as breeding “superweeds” that cannot be eradicated.
The puny tools of humans are often powerless against the much stronger forces of nature, such as natural selection and evolution. These forces of nature should be treated with greater respect, particularly by people who call themselves “scientists.”

Million Trees

From California to Texas and occasionally beyond, tamarisks are among the most talked-about introduced plants in the US. Most of that discussion consists of familiar anti-alien dogma, augmented by the long-obsolete assertion that tamarisks are profligate water-guzzlers. Suffice for now to say that anti-tamarisk sentiment led to state and federal suppression policies beginning around 1940, and eventually to legislation at both levels. Little more than accumulated bad reputation of tamarisk and its presence in the region of interest led the US Fish and Wildlife Service to include tamarisks among the supposed threats to the persistence of the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus) when that subspecies was formally listed “endangered” in 1993. All of that meant both political will and appropriations were applied to the US Department of Agriculture’s search for biological control agents to deploy as “counter-pests” against tamarisks. By 1998 they had their critter, an Asian leaf-eating beetle that putatively specialized on tamarisks and would rather die than eat anything else.

By that time, though, circumspection had set in, because especially in southern Arizona the endangered birds had taken to nesting in tamarisk stands. USDA promised USFWS that their armored foreign legion would not jeopardize flycatcher populations. USDA argued that the beetles they were about to propagate and release by the multi-millions were genetically incapable of surviving below 38° North latitude. In addition to famously dividing North from South Korea, that frontier runs from near the tip of Point Reyes through Stockton and Mono Lake; just south of Tonopah, Nevada; south of Canyonlands Nation Park; through Moffat and Swink, Colorado; on through the Garden City Kansas and increasingly irrelevant points east. Southern Arizona would surely never see a tamarisk leaf beetle. “Because SCIENCE!” Hold that thought.

In 1952 the otherwise obscure and perhaps pseudonymous writer Rose Bonne copyrighted a succinct cautionary account of biological pest control. Perhaps it was read or sung or shown to you as a child: I know an Old Lady [who swallowed a fly]. Ms. Bonne denied knowing how or why the old lady swallowed the fly, but considered it portentous: “Perhaps she’ll die!” Subsequent actions had definite (if sometimes puzzling) rationales. The next four animals consumed represented a hopeful trophic cascade: the Old Lady swallowed a spider to catch the fly, then a bird to catch the spider, a cat to catch the bird and a dog to catch the cat. At that point, distended and incoherent, she panicked, swallowing a goat to catch the dog, a cow to catch the goat, then finally, fatally, a horse. (Revisionists inserted a pig between the goat and the cow. If you doubt me, Google it.)

The history of biocontrols

We can barely pause to consider the long and checkered history of biological control. Its inception required a few conditions, which may have arisen in different orders in different places. A sense of ownership, territorial claims or resource collection rights seems necessary, as does dissatisfaction with the dictates of fate. Why attempt to affect an outcome without expecting to benefit from the effort? A bit of empirical, practical natural history knowledge is also indispensable. Together they add up to the possibility of acting on the basis that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” to garner a greater share of whatever natural product seems desirable. Dogs to guard flocks and cats to discourage rodents are biological controls. The more organized and concentrated agriculture became, the greater the need for knowledge of “natural enemies” to enlist as economic allies. Even after revolutions in industrial chemistry offered alternatives, better living was still sometimes available through biology.

With private property rights come boundary disputes, complaints about trespass and spillover effects of management decisions. Public property, especially where subject to intensive multiple use mandates, adds complexity and diversity (if not novelty) to the mix. Rights collide with powers and authorities. Politically compromised jurisdictions—like U.S. state authority over wildlife except where superseded by federal laws and treaties or licensed to private parties—are endless fodder for litigation and finger pointing. All the while, science reconstructs what is known or considered knowable, changing expectations, affecting policies and destabilizing political balances.

Modern civilizations depend upon the plants they have introduced

Modern agricultural, horticultural and forestry practices are all legacies of the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment motivations underpinning European colonialism. Empires were assembled and contested primarily for their economic advantages. During the past half-millennium they generated new wealth and new social classes that developed new governments. Among the array of actions those governments continue to undertake is facilitating the redistribution of valuable plants and animals. A visit to any retail food market reveals our near-total embrace of that redistribution. Almost every staple ingredient in every foodstuff is raised or grown far from its “wild” point of origin. Even insistent locavores prefer locally raised food, not locally evolved food. A negligible fraction of us recognize never-transported, never-domesticated edible organisms. Fewer still could survive on them as hunter-gatherers. Such are among the generally intended, hoped-for, positive outcomes of imperial colonialism. Famine is unnecessary, though it is a political tool, deployable as a weapon.

Fish, meat and leather, plant and animal fibers, timber, pulp and derived products can still be wild harvested, but are mostly and increasingly farmed. Anything worth gathering is worth cultivating, from redwood trees to bison to sugarcane to minks to soybeans to insects, yeasts, and bacteria. Even aspirational exceptions like native plant gardening are actually impossible to accomplish: seed intentionally transported from one location to another has been biogeographically rerouted; plants sold by native plant nurseries are raised in multi-source, formulated soils in plastic pots. Even simply deciding to leave a plant where it was found can render it an artifact, and there may no longer be any wilderness so remote that the configuration of its biota remains uninfluenced by human agency.

Benefits of introduced species often outweigh harm

We are told that some of the consequences of all this redistributed and reconfigured biota are marginally negligible. Others are cutting into the profits. Some organisms are moved around unintentionally and unknowingly (zebra mussels, various “blight” fungi) often because unaware transportation technology designers and operators never prevented their distribution. Many intentionally abducted and marooned populations are behaving in unexpected ways, thriving without always accomplishing their intended purposes (alligator apples and cane toads in Australia; house sparrows and wild carrots in North America) or even significantly over-achieving (“Asian” carps and kudzu in North America; rhododendrons and grey squirrels in Britain). Even where post-colonial inclinations to recover and reinstate pre-colonial values are tolerated, they hardly withstand translation into economic choices. We are adeptly, fundamentally invested in moving things around. We are likewise invested in competition, and building coalitions and alliances to help us win competitions. Especially competitions we thoughtlessly or accidentally set in motion.

The Old Lady who swallowed the fly would probably have been fine had she not overthought the problem. The fly was doubtless well on its way to being digested by the time she found a spider, which was likewise moribund before a bird came to hand. Maybe should could have swallowed a willow flycatcher (already protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act) and skipped the spider? Had the US Army Corps of Engineers, the USDA and others not overthought the problem in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, they might have come up with suitable alternatives to planting tamarisks to stabilize Texas barrier islands, deepening Four Corners arroyos and fly-away Dust Bowl topsoils. Yes, tamarisks, too, were brought to us to biologically control problems of our own making and conception. Then we needed a beetle…

As things turned out, USDA scientists were either mistaken or disingenuous regarding the latitudinal limits of their tamarisk leaf beetles. Likewise, even about the identity of the beetles, which is why I haven’t inflicted their Latin epithets on you yet. By 2010, sniping between USFWS and USDA, abetted by various conflicting conservation NGOs, led to a new “Biological Assessment” for the federally imposed tamarisk leaf beetle invasion. (I usually avoid using “invasion” in such circumstances, because invading exceeds many capacities of so-called “invasive species.” This was a real invasion, though, planned and carried out by people, not beetles. Beetles merely bred and spread.) One species of beetle became five, four which had been introduced: Diorhabda carinulata; D. elongata; D. sublineata; and D. carinata. Some were quite well-adapted to life in southern Arizona (31-32° N) and beyond. Furthermore, the endangered birds were also nesting in tamarisks in southern Utah, c. 37° N. USDA washed its hands of the federal program and revoked federal permits to release beetles; but that had no effect on the State of Colorado, which was heavily invested in producing them and continues to do so.

Distribution of tamarisk leaf beetle. Tamarisk Coalition

Fast-forward to 2017. Tamarisk leaf beetles have been spreading along Arizona waterways at rates up to ten times faster than their most ardent cheerleaders imagined they could, and from multiple directions. They will arrive in almost every known Southwestern Willow Flycatcher nesting area sometime this year. By next spring those riparian thickets will be defoliated just at the point when the nestlings most require thermal cover (i.e., shade). Thanks to Reclamation-Era water diversion projects, attempts to re-vegetate those areas with willows will require constant gardening. Reclamation replaced willow habitat with tamarisk habitat. Nevertheless, the birds persisted. Beetle releases suppressed the tamarisks, but will almost certainly fail to eliminate them entirely. Beetles are just another evolutionary pressure on a tamarisk population that is already unlike any other in the world due to unforeseen hybridizing among several species. New tamarisks and new beetles are evolving. Maybe the beetles will try a bite of something else. They’re in California now; could they find something there? Maybe the birds will evolve to eat the beetles, although that hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps the day will come when the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher gives way to the Tamarisk Beetlebird. It might not even take very long. But don’t bet on it. And don’t bet on biologists, bureaucrats or any other ambitious adults to re-learn the lesson of unintended consequences they laughed at as children, then (like so many other lessons) forgot.

Matt Chew

The Natural History of America’s Urban Forests

The story of America’s urban forests, as told in a book by the same name (1), is a story of loss and redemption.

The loss of America’s trees

The American chestnut was the first of our iconic trees to be lost to us. Between 3 and 4 billion chestnut trees were killed in their natural range by a blight caused by a fungus imported in an Asian species of chestnut (2). With the exception of a few isolated chestnuts outside their natural range, all American chestnuts died in the first half of the 20^th Century. Over one hundred years after the epidemic began, scientists believe they have finally developed an American chestnut that will survive the fungal infection. They have achieved this by the addition of a single gene to the 38,000 genes of American chestnut. They are applying for regulatory approval of the EPA and USDA to plant the genetically modified tree in the wild, a process they expect to take several years.

Dutch elm disease (DED) was introduced in America from Europe in logs and furniture in the 1930s. DED is a fungal disease spread by a beetle. The natural range of American elm was much larger than chestnuts and they were widely planted as park and street trees in cities because of their tolerance for challenging urban conditions. Therefore, their loss was devastating to many communities. Most communities tried to save their elms by removing diseased trees in an attempt to isolate the disease. By the 1990s, the majority of American elms were dead. Many scientists have tried to develop a DED-resistant variety of American elm by cross-breeding them with species that are not vulnerable to the disease. Several DED-resistant varieties of elms are being planted and their fate will determine the future of American elms.

Asian long-horned beetle (ALB) arrived in North America in the late 1990s on wood packing material, such as wooden pallets. It is less selective about its tree hosts than the beetle that carries the elm fungus, although it has a preference for maples. Once again, destroying infested trees was the preferred control method. “Over 1,550 trees in Chicago have been cut down and destroyed to eradicate ALB from Chicago. In New York, over 6,000 infested trees resulted in the removal of over 18,000 trees; New Jersey’s infestation of over 700 trees led to the removal and destruction of almost 23,000 trees, but infested trees continue to be discovered.” (2) Injections of a pesticide (imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide) were also used on infected trees.

Emerald ash borer (EAB) also arrived in North America in the 1990s, but it has spread far more rapidly than the long-horned beetle. Little was known about EAB when it arrived from Asia because it does not kill Asian species of ash, which have developed a resistance to the beetle predators after centuries of co-existence. In North America, the EAB threatens the entire ash genus: “It has killed at least tens of millions of ash trees so far and threatens to kill most of the 8.7 billion ash trees throughout North America. Emerald ash borer kills young trees several years before reaching their seeding age of 10 years.” (2) Ironically, ash trees were widely planted in urban areas to replace the elms that were destroyed by DED.

Here in California, we have lost 5 million of our oak trees to the pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death since 1995. Also, over 100 million conifer trees in the Sierra Nevada have died in the past 5 years of a combination of drought and native bark beetles.

A digression: Turnabout is fair play

Some of our readers might be surprised by our reporting about the devastating consequences of introducing pathogens and insects to our urban forests. After all, aren’t we usually defenders of introduced species? So, let’s take this detour to explain how this topic is consistent with the mission of Million Trees:

There is a lesson in these stories about the relationships between insects and trees. Insects introduced from distant places, such as Asia, quickly attacked our native tree species that do not exist in the native ranges of the insects. It didn’t take thousands of years of co-evolution for the insects to find the native trees that they killed. They came, they saw, and they feasted on our trees. In most cases, the insects found trees here in the same genus as the trees in their home ranges that were chemically similar. And in most cases, the insects were not nearly as damaging to trees in their home ranges because their host trees had developed resistance to the insects.

Now let’s turn this story around. Native plant advocates who wish to destroy non-native plants claim that they will become “invasive” because they don’t have insect predators here. They claim that native insects “co-evolve” exclusive relationships with native trees and are unwilling and/or unable to use introduced plants and trees.

Anise Swallowtail butterfly in non-native fennel

Not only is there little empirical evidence to prove that native insects do not use introduced plants, it doesn’t make sense. If introduced insects are quick to attack our native trees, why should we assume that native insects are not just as quick to attack introduced plants?

Furthermore, when introduced plants are attacked by our native insects, they are more vulnerable to the native insects because they have not had an opportunity to develop defenses against them. The Asian insects that are killing our native trees are not a serious problem in their home ranges because the trees in their home ranges are resistant to them

In other words, claims that introduced plants are invasive because they have no insect predators are contradicted by reality. In fact, introduced plants are at a disadvantage when confronted by the insect predators in their new home. Once again, we find little logic in the unproven hypotheses of invasion biology.

Redemption of our urban forests

Efforts to restore America’s urban forests began in earnest in the 1960s, partly as a response to the loss of chestnuts and elms and partly as a growing interest in the environment. These efforts are too numerous to mention, but we will pay tribute to a few of them.

Arbor Day is celebrated all over the country. This is a park in Minneapolis.

Early interest in America’s trees was reflected in the creation of Arbor Day in Nebraska in the 1870s. Celebration of Arbor Day spread slowly across America until it was observed in nearly every state of the nation. Sterling Morton was the organizer of the first Arbor Day and he was also instrumental in the creation of one of our most important research arboretums, the Morton Arboretum in Illinois. Harvard’s research arboretum, Arnold Arboretum, was founded in 1872 and to this day is responsible for much of our knowledge of our trees.

Private enterprise has also made significant contributions to our knowledge of trees. Davey Tree Experts was founded in 1880 by a tree-evangelist who was inspired by butchered trees to write practical guides to inform citizens about how to take care of their trees properly. Bartlett Tree Experts was founded in 1907 and is also a respected provider of tree care. Much of the damage done in our urban forests is caused by people who don’t know how to take care of their trees. Hiring a certified arborist to take care of your trees is money well spent.

The US Forest Service is the source of much of our knowledge about the value of our urban forests. David Nowak and Greg McPherson of the US Forest Service were responsible for groundbreaking research about the carbon stored by trees, the pollution that trees remove from the air, the contribution that trees make to the value of our properties and to our health and well-being.

Armed with this new improved understanding of the value of our trees, an army of volunteers and a proliferation of non-profit organizations are now engaged in the effort to preserve our urban forests. Tree People in Los Angeles was among the first of these organizations. One of their first projects was to plant one million trees for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Since then they have planted millions of trees in Los Angeles.

We recently had an opportunity to appreciate how many non-profit organizations there are in California, devoted to the care and preservation of our urban forests. Thirty-three non-profit tree advocacy organizations collaborated in a public comment on California’s Urban Greening Grant Program, which will give California cities $76 million to plant trees to increase carbon storage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The letter of the non-profits acknowledged the importance of introduced trees in our urban forests: “Native trees are generally not suited to urban conditions. They have difficulty adapting to the urban environment, thereby substantially reducing survivability. According to California’s Guide to the Trees Among Us, only 6% of California’s urban trees are native to California. As an example, the approved list of street trees for the City of San Francisco includes no trees native to San Francisco. In Oakland, two of the 48 allowed species are native.”

These are the forestry non-profit organizations that signed the letter to the Urban Greening Grant Program

Introduced trees are the foundation of California’s urban forests. Efforts to eradicate non-native trees will doom us to a treeless landscape and all that implies about our environment: more pollution, more noise, more wind, more greenhouse gas emissions, more erosion, less habitat for wildlife, and less beauty in our landscapes.

Jill Jonnes, Urban Forests: A natural history of trees and people in the American cityscape, Viking, 2016
Wikipedia

Another legal victory in the long fight to save our urban forest

The Hills Conservation Network (HCN) has won the third legal battle against the many attempts to destroy the urban forest in the East Bay. Every lawsuit they have filed has resulted in significant victories that have prevented three public land managers from destroying as many trees as they wanted. We will briefly describe HCN’s early victories and end by telling you about their most recent victory. Finally, we will explain the implications of those legal successes for the threats to the urban forest that are still anticipated.

East Bay Regional Park District

Frowning Ridge after 1,900 trees were removed from 11 acres in 2004. This is one of UC Berkeley’s first projects to destroy all non-native trees on its properties.

When UC Berkeley clear cut all non-native trees on about 150 acres of their properties in the hills over 10 years ago, there was no opportunity for the public to object to those projects because there was no environmental impact review. Those projects were a preview of the damage that other public land managers intended and they helped to mobilize opposition to the projects when they were formally presented to the public.

The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) published its “Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Resource Management Plan” in 2009. That plan proposed to radically thin and/or clear cut all non-native trees on several thousand park acres. Along with HCN, I was one of the members of the public who objected to those plans for many reasons: the loss of stored carbon and carbon storage going forward, the pesticides used to poison the non-native trees and vegetation, the increased fire hazard resulting from grassy vegetation that occupies the unshaded forest floor when the trees are destroyed.

Tilden Park, Recommended Treatment Area TI001, June 5, 2016. This in one of the projects of East Bay Regional Park District, in process.

EBRPD chose to ignore our objections and published an Environmental Impact Report based on the unrevised plans. We repeated our objections to the project when the EIR was published. The Hills Conservation Network filed their first lawsuit against the EBRPD EIR, which did not adequately address the environmental impacts of the plans. HCN and EBRPD engaged in a long and arduous negotiation which resulted in a settlement that saved many trees in Claremont Canyon and some in other project areas. EBRPD continues to implement their plans as revised by the HCN settlement.

UC Berkeley and City of Oakland

Meanwhile, UC Berkeley and City of Oakland wrote their own plans and applied to FEMA for grants to implement their plans. Their plans were more extreme than those of EBPRD. They proposed to clear cut ALL non-native trees on their project acres.

Once again, along with HCN, I asked that FEMA not fund those grants to UC Berkeley and City of Oakland because of the environmental damage they would do and the increased fire hazard that would result if the projects were implemented. FEMA’s response to our objections was to require an Environmental Impact Study (the federal equivalent of an EIR) for the projects.

I joined HCN in recruiting over 13,000 public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Study (EIS). About 90% of those public comments were opposed to the projects. Despite that public opposition, the EIS was approved with a few small concessions. A few project acres would be “thinned” over a 10-year period, but ultimately all non-native trees would be destroyed on the project acres of UC Berkeley and City of Oakland.

HCN sued FEMA to prevent the funding of the projects as described by the EIS. The Sierra Club prevented any negotiation from taking place by counter-suing. The Sierra Club lawsuit demanded that EBRPD clear-cut ALL non-native trees. The Sierra Club was not satisfied with the radical thinning that EBRPD is doing on most project acres. These competing lawsuits produced a stalemate that lasted until September 2016, when FEMA cancelled all grant funding to UC Berkeley and City of Oakland in settlement of HCN’s lawsuit against FEMA.

That was truly a fantastic victory that was not anticipated. In fact HCN’s lawsuit only asked that UC Berkeley and City of Oakland scale back their plans to use the same “thinning” strategy being used by EBRPD. To this day, it feels like a gift.

Sierra Club’s lawsuit to force EBRPD to clear cut non-native trees on their property was dismissed by the same judge who approved the FEMA settlement. The Sierra Club has filed an appeal of that dismissal. Sierra Club remains fully committed to its agenda of destroying all non-native trees and using pesticides to prevent them from resprouting.

UC Berkeley’s response to losing FEMA grant

UC Berkeley attempted to satisfy CEQA requirements for an Environmental Impact Report for their FEMA project by writing an addendum to their Long Range Development Plan. They claimed that their Long Range Development Plan adequately evaluated environmental impacts of their planned tree removals. If they had succeeded, they would have been in a position to implement their plan without FEMA funding.

The Hills Conservation Network filed their third lawsuit against UC Berkeley on the grounds that a brief addendum to UC’s long-range development plan did not meet legal requirements for an EIR. The judge who heard arguments for a permanent injunction to delay implementation of the project until completion of a full EIR, agreed with HCN. He pointed out to UC Berkeley’s lawyer that the description of the project in the long-range development plan bore little resemblance to the project presently planned. The judge had done his homework.

The final chapter in this legal saga was that UC Berkeley attempted to avoid paying HCN’s legal fees. California’s environmental law (CEQA) requires that the losing party pay the legal fees of the winning party. This provision is intended to enable small citizen groups to challenge deep pocket corporations and institutions. HCN (and its legal representative) had been adequately compensated in its first two legal battles, but UC Berkeley thought it could refuse.

The judge thought otherwise. Not only did he require UC Berkeley to pay for its illegal attempt to avoid environmental impact review, he commended HCN for its public service: “The Court determines that Petitioners were a successful party in this action, and that this case resulted in enforcement of important public rights and conferred a significant benefit on the public.” Yes, indeed, HCN has performed a valuable public service and we are grateful for the judge’s recognition.

For the moment, we believe that UC Berkeley’s plans to destroy all non-native trees are on hold. They have several options. They can complete an EIR for the original plans. Or they can revise or abandon their plans. We will watch them closely.

Update: On June 14, 2017, UC Berkeley filed a lawsuit against FEMA and California Office of Emergency Services to reverse the settlement that cancelled the FEMA grants to destroy all non-native trees on UC Berkeley project acres. (Media report on UCB lawsuit is available HERE.) HCN is developing a legal strategy to address this latest move by UC Berkeley. UC Berkeley’s lawsuit implies that they are still committed to their original plans to destroy all non-native trees.

City of Oakland’s response to loss of FEMA grants

The reaction of City of Oakland to the cancellation of their FEMA grant was thankfully very different from UC Berkeley’s reaction. In November 2016, they signed a contract to write a vegetation management plan for the purpose of reducing fire hazards. That contract makes a commitment to conducting a complete public process, including an environmental impact review. The contractor has already held two public meetings and an on-line survey. We will participate in this process and we urge others to participate. Sign up HERE to be notified of the public meetings.

The Oakland Fire Department has announced the next public meeting regarding the development of the vegetation management plan on Thursday, June 29, 2017 to provide project updates and offer an opportunity to ask questions/provide feedback. Project staff will be available to give a summary of the community survey responses received in March/April 2017, and to provide an update on Vegetation Management Plan development, methodologies, and work completed and underway.

Public Meeting: June 29, 2017, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Richard C. Trudeau Conference Center
11500 Skyline Blvd
Oakland, CA 94619

These are the Oakland city properties that will be covered by the vegetation management plan: 1,400 acres of parks and open spaces and 300 miles of roadsides. Interactive map is available here: https://oaklandvegmanagement.org/

We are hopeful that Oakland’s vegetation management plan will be one that we can live with. The City of Oakland should understand that another lawsuit is an alternative if the vegetation management plan is as destructive as their original plans.

Although I contributed to the cost of HCN’s lawsuits (along with many others), I don’t have the stomach to engage in them. Therefore, I am deeply grateful to HCN for their courage and fortitude in preventing the total destruction of our urban forest. Although I was skeptical of legal challenges as the way to prevent the destruction of our urban forest, I am now a convert. The HCN lawsuits were the most effective tool we had.

The evolving goals of ecological “restorations”

We are publishing a “progress report” from a member of our tree team who attended a Weed Management Workshop on June 3, 2017. This report suggests that the goal of local ecological “restorations” may be more realistic than they were in the past and potentially less destructive.

Friends,

I attended a Weed Management Workshop this morning that was co-sponsored by East Bay Regional Park District and the California Invasive Plant Council. It was attended by about 70 people, representing many of the “stewardship” organizations engaged in native plant “restorations.” The main speakers were Doug Johnson, Executive Director of the California Invasive Plant Council and Pam Beitz, a member of the Integrated Pest Management staff of the East Bay Regional Park District.

The primary purpose of the workshop was to recruit new volunteers for the many “restoration” projects in the East Bay. Similar workshops will be offered in Mill Valley (June 17), San Jose (June 24), and Portola Valley (July 15). Since volunteers do not use pesticides or heavy equipment, those methods of eradicating “invasive” plants were not discussed. [Information about remaining workshops available HERE.]

Although the usual accusations about the negative impact of “invasive” plants were discussed, the speakers made several acknowledgements about limitations on their objectives that represent significant progress in the 25-year debate about invasion biology.

In the spirit of encouragement, I will tell you about a few of them.

Doug Johnson set the tone at the beginning of the workshop when he said, “Non-native plants aren’t evil. It’s important not to get ideological about this.” The audience did not react negatively to his appeal to base judgments about non-native plants on their ecological function and impacts on ecosystems.

Pomo gathering seeds, 1924. Smithsonian photo archieve

Pam Beitz acknowledged that the historical landscapes, which “restorations” attempt to recreate were, in fact, manmade. She provided several observations from Kat Anderson’s Tending the Wild to illustrate that point. Native Americans intensively gardened the landscape to foster the plants they needed for food, shelter, and tools. The implication of that history of our landscape is that ecological “restoration” must make a permanent commitment to managing the landscape. [HERE is an article on Million Trees about “Tending the Wild.”]

Beitz said the goal of these weed management projects is to eliminate “invasive” plants from a small enough area that it can be managed for the long term. She said it is no longer considered feasible to eradicate “invasive” plants.

In answer to the question, “Why manage the wildlands?” Beitz said, “Because we are driven to alter our environment.” She also said that human disturbance maximizes biodiversity, citing a study by Joe Connell that found the greatest diversity where there are intermediate levels of disturbance. This is a radical departure from the earlier view that the most effective conservation eliminates all human activities.

There were also many representatives of local “restoration” projects who described their projects and recruited more volunteers. Some of their presentations indicated the shifting emphasis of native plant “restorations.”

Margot Cunningham of Friends of Albany Hill said that 50% of the 300 plants on Albany Hill are natives, despite the fact that it is heavily forested in eucalyptus, and that many of those native plants are growing under the eucalypts. She said there are 100 species of butterflies and moths and that monarchs roost in the eucalyptus trees. There are 80 species of birds. Her organization is trying to eliminate plants they consider invasive, such as ivy. [HERE is an article on the Million Trees blog about Albany Hill, which corroborates the view of Friends of Albany Hill.]
Native toyon under eucalyptus on Albany Hill
Wendy Tokuda is one of the most prominent native plant advocates in the East Bay. She described several of the projects she has been working on for about 10 years, such as trying to eliminate broom along 3 miles of a trail in EBRPD. She emphasized the importance of focusing one’s effort on a small enough area that the goal can be both attained and sustained. [HERE is an article on the Million Trees blog about the 10-year attempt to eradicate broom on a trail in the East Bay Regional Park District.]

Broom on EBRPD trail after 10 years of effort, April 2017

Friends of Five Creeks said, “In a city, stewardship is forever.”

I have been following the native plant movement for over 20 years. I believe this workshop articulated some significant departures from their original agenda:

There is a new understanding that the historical landscape was created by humans.
Any attempt to recreate the historic landscape will require a permanent commitment to manage the landscape.
Because of the scale of such an undertaking, it is not realistic to transform all open space to pre-settlement conditions. Projects must be scaled to match available resources.

Anonymous member of the tree team

The observation that humans are “driven to alter our environment” struck a chord. We are in the camp that prefers not to interfere with the workings of nature any more than necessary because we believe that human knowledge is inadequate to presume to make better management decisions than natural processes. There are pros and cons to every change in nature. Some plant and animal species will benefit and some will be harmed. It’s like flipping a coin. I prefer to put the coin in the hands of nature, rather than the hands of humans. However, we understand and are sympathetic to the human desire to “help” nature.

Robin and chicks. Courtesy SF Forest Alliance

A recent article in the New York Times provided a good example of how the good intentions of humans often lead to intrusions into the natural world. The author explained how she became the self-appointed guardian of birds nesting in her garden. Her small dog was a predator of fledgling birds. She felt obligated to identify all the nests in her garden so that she could keep her dog indoors when the birds left the nest.

When her dog died, she discovered that she could not give up that role. If one bird was competing with another for a nesting spot, she found herself choosing sides, although she knew she had no business choosing winners and losers in the natural world: “It is wrongheaded to interfere in nature when something is neither unnatural nor likely to upset the natural order. I can’t help myself…It’s humiliating, all the ways I’ve interfered.”

We know that volunteers in “restoration” projects mean well. Since they don’t use pesticides or have access to the heavy equipment needed to destroy trees, we don’t argue with them directly. Our advocacy for the preservation of our urban forest is aimed at the managers of our public lands because we are as much the owners of those lands as anyone else and our tax dollars are used to fund their projects.

Million Trees