Where is the invasion biology debate headed?

Mark Davis speaking at Beyond Pesticides conference, April 2017

Mark Davis is Professor of Biology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is one of the first academic ecologists to publicly express skepticism of invasion biology. His book, Invasion Biology, was published by Oxford University Press in 2009. It was the first critique of invasion biology written by an academic scientist. Professor Davis cites the many empirical studies that find little evidence supportive of the hypotheses of invasion biology.

In 2011, Nature magazine published an essay written by Professor Davis and 18 coauthors entitled, “Don’t Judge Species on their Origins.” This essay suggested that conservationists evaluate species based on their ecological impact, rather than whether or not they are natives. The essay initiated an intense debate in the academic community of ecologists that continues today.

Professor Davis spoke at the Beyond Pesticides conference in Minneapolis at the end of April 2017. (Video available HERE) He described invasion biology as an irrational ideology that is based on nostalgia for the past and a belief that wildlands are being damaged by “alien invaders.” In fact, the perceived damage is largely in the eye of the beholder, depending largely on one’s membership in a group benefiting from the nativism paradigm, such as chemical manufacturers, conservation organizations, government agencies, and employees. Some academic careers are also at stake. Futile attempts to re-create historical landscapes always have the potential to make things worse. In many instances, it is more sensible to change one’s attitude about the changing landscape than trying to change nature.

We invited Professor Davis to write a guest post for publication on Million Trees. We asked him to express his opinion on these questions:

Has the status of invasion biology changed much since Nature published your essay 2011?
Has increased knowledge of climate change had an impact on the status of invasion biology in academia?
What do you think is the future of invasion biology both as an academic discipline and as public policy?

Professor Davis’s guest post addresses these questions. We are grateful to Professor Davis for his many contributions to our understanding of the fallacies of invasion biology and for his thoughtful guest post.

Million Trees

Competition to define nature

In the past few years, a new perspective has been taking hold in the field of ecology. Referred to as ‘ecological novelty’ it emphasizes that many factors are producing ecologically novel environments. Climate change (which includes changes in temperatures and patterns of precipitation), increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, which affects photosynthetic rates, increased atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (the whole earth is being fertilized due to the increased nitrogen we are pouring into the atmosphere), and the introduction of new species are all rapidly changing our environments.

A strength of the term ecological novelty is that unlike the invasion vocabulary it is simply descriptive. It simply states that ecosystems are changing and are different than they were in the past, even the recent past. It says nothing about whether this change is good or bad. In this paradigm, species can be referred to as novel species, new arrivals, or long-term residents.

The less biased ecological novelty paradigm differs dramatically from the more ideological nativism paradigm. It differs in the language it uses and it differs in the implied direction that land management should proceed. More generally, it forsakes the normative atmosphere that permeates restoration ecology, conservation biology, and invasion biology, all of which have been substantially guided by the nativism paradigm.

The Sutro Forest in San Francisco is a good example of a novel ecosystem. It is a thriving mix of native and non-native species. Much of it will be destroyed by the irrational belief that native species are superior to non-native species. Million Trees

Currently, invasion biologists are trying to discredit ecological novelty as a valid or valuable perspective. This is hardly surprising since the ecological perspective would displace the nativism paradigm, and many stakeholders have much to lose if the nativism paradigm were abandoned, e.g. chemical companies, restoration and management companies, local, state, and national agencies, to name just a few. Not surprisingly, articles trying to shore up invasion ecology and to keep it relevant have been common in recent years.

While the public may not be aware of it, there exists a heated competition to define nature. Which side wins will significantly determine how nature is managed. Given that the redistribution of species is only going to increase in upcoming decades, it is hard to imagine that people will still be so preoccupied with origins by the middle of the century. Like the notion of wilderness, the nativism paradigm is more of a twentieth century concept, while the construct of ecological novelty is more fitting for the twenty first century.

Undoubtedly, nativist groups will still exist and will still be preoccupied with trying to restore their vision of the past. But, due to the number of species being moved to new regions, much more attention likely will be given to the function of species than their origins, if only for pragmatic reasons. For people coming of age now, cosmopolitanization is the new normal, both with respect to people and other species. We will still carry our predispositions to divide the world into us and them, but it should be clear to most that the nativism perspective will be obsolete and that beyond the creation of museums, restoring the past will not be possible, whether a city or a forest.

Currently Earth is the only planet we know of where life exists. In this context, the desire and practice of declaring some species as aliens, exotics, or invaders seems sadly provincial and even unseemly. Roman playwrite Publius Terentius Afer (aka Terence) wrote in his play Heauton Timorumenos, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”, or “I am human, and nothing of that which is human is alien to me.” To those who still see such value in distinguishing native from alien species, I say, “I am of the planet Earth and nothing of that which is earthly is alien to me.”

Mark Davis

Status report on the invasion biology debate

We invited Professor Davis to write a guest post for publication on Million Trees. We asked him to express his opinion on these questions:

Has the status of invasion biology changed much since Nature published your essay 2011?
Has increased knowledge of climate change had an impact on the status of invasion biology in academia?
What do you think is the future of invasion biology both as an academic discipline and as public policy?

Million Trees

Competition to define nature

The Sutro Forest in San Francisco is a good example of a novel ecosystem. It is a thriving mix of native and non-native species. Much of it will be destroyed by the irrational belief that native species are superior to non-native species. Million Trees

Mark Davis

Unseen City: A tribute to urban nature

It was pure pleasure to read Unseen City (1). Unlike most nature writing, Nathanael Johnson asks readers to notice and appreciate the urban nature that we tend to take for granted. Ironically, the plants and animals that we see every day and in great numbers do not get the attention they deserve. Most nature writing tends to focus on rare and remote species to which we have little access and often laments their absence where we live. Conservationists often advocate for expensive programs to reintroduce rare species to urban centers where they haven’t lived for decades, if not centuries.

Johnson’s focus on the ordinary species around us is refreshing. We were happy to take a break from the usual hand-wringing about loss of biodiversity and instead enjoy the richness and beauty of the nature we have. It is our loss when we ignore the nature we have. Johnson’s intense focus on urban species reveals that they are every bit as interesting as the rare species we seldom see. Johnson’s approach to nature is analogous to the optimist’s “glass-half-full” approach to life.

Another appealing aspect of Johnson’s approach is that his story is told from the perspective of a young father, introducing his toddler daughter to the mysteries of nature. One of our primary concerns about the museumification of our parks by native plant advocates is that children are being deprived of the opportunity to interact with nature. Being required to stay on trails or observe from behind fences is no way for children to appreciate the complexity and beauty of the natural world. Johnson takes his daughter deep into the weeds to experience nature in a physical, tactile way.

A few examples of the homely creatures in our cities

Johnson wrote his book while living in San Francisco and then in Berkeley. So, the species he encounters and studies are those with which we are all familiar. Here are some of the creatures he tells us about, with a few of the interesting things we learn about them.

Pigeons are reviled by many serious bird watchers. In fact, they are remarkable creatures in many ways. They mate for life and they are extremely devoted parents. They tend to nest in the same place and their ability to find and return to that nest from long distances is one of the reasons why humans have formed intense relationships with them. There is a long tradition of keeping homing pigeons that are raced by their keepers in competitions that occur all over the world. The pigeons are taken long distances from their nests and then timed on how long it takes them to return home. Johnson tells remarkable stories about how pigeons overcome challenging attempts to prevent them from finding their way home.
Eastern grey squirrel. Creative Commons

Squirrels are both extremely agile and very resourceful. Here is an example of how squirrels defeated an attempt to keep them out of a bird feeder: “…squirrels had to climb up through a vertical pipe, leap onto a blade of a spinning windmill, cling to it, and then sail off on the right trajectory to land on a platform. Then they had to go paw over paw upside down along a suspended chain that passed through a series of spinning disks, negotiate a revolving door, run through a slack canvas tube, and keep their balance while crossing a pole covered with slick spinning rollers. From there, it was a six-foot jump to another tunnel, through which they had to ride a sliding vehicle made to look like a rocket ship by pushing it along with their paws. Finally, there was an eight-foot jump to the food.” (1) I retell this to story to spare our readers the pointless effort of trying to prevent squirrels from raiding their bird feeders.
Turkey vulture in San Jose, California by Dan DeBold. Creative Commons

The turkey vulture is another underappreciated bird. They eat primarily dead animals and many of those animals died of diseases or toxic chemicals and are rotten and maggot infested when they are finally found (by smell) and eaten by the vulture. The digestive and immune system of the vulture is capable of detoxifying chemicals and killing bacteria and viruses in the dead animal. In other words, the vulture is cleaning up the remains of dead animals. India has learned the value of vultures the hard way. They killed many of their vultures with an anti-inflammatory drug they were feeding to their livestock. When their vulture population dwindled, they were buried in dead animals, many dangerously diseased and toxic. We eradicate animals at our peril because we often don’t understand the roles they are playing in the ecosystem.

Defending novel ecosystems

In addition to asking his readers to appreciate the positive qualities of the creatures in our cities, he also asks us to reconsider the deep prejudice against them that has become the conventional wisdom. Plants and animals that people believe were transplanted by humans into places where they did not exist in the distant past are considered “alien invaders” that dominate their predecessors, driving them out and reducing biodiversity.

This narrative, which originated in academic science as “invasion biology” in the 1960s, has become a popular story with the media, which is always attracted to scary stories. The media is significantly less interested in the peaceful resolution of their horror stories. With few exceptions, an introduced species that initially seems to be a problem eventually fades into the woodwork to become just another player in the ecosystem. Johnson uses the Argentine ant as one of many examples of an introduced species that spread rapidly, but 20 years later has nearly disappeared. In other cases, a species initially considered an unwelcome intruder becomes a valuable asset, such as zebra mussels which filter pollution from lakes and have become a source of food for diving birds.

Novel ecosystems are the future

Johnson concludes his book with this reminder that novel ecosystems have been created by human disturbance and that we should be grateful for the plants and animals that are capable of surviving our abusive treatment of the planet:

“The species that I’ve written about here are, at best, invisible, and at worst, reviled. We honor least the nature that is closest to us. As Courtney Humphries put it in Superdove, ‘We create and destroy habitat, we shape genomes, we aid the worldwide movement of other species. And yet we seem disappointed and horrified when those plants and animals respond by adapting to our changes and thriving in them.’

“Because they are associated with human disruption, the organisms that spring up from our footprints look like corruptions of nature. But I’ve come to see it the other way around: These species represent nature at its most vital and creative.

“Nature never misses an opportunity to exploit a catastrophe. When humans bulldoze and pave, nature sends in a vanguard of species that can tough it out in the new environment. These invasive species are not nature’s destroyers, but rather its creators. They begin setting up food webs, they evolve and diverge into new species. Because humans purposefully import exotic plants—along with the insects, seeds, and microbes we accidentally bring in from around the world—cities are remarkable centers of biodiversity. These creatures crossbreed, hybridize, eat one another, form cooperative relationships, and evolve. And so, at a time when thousands of species are at risk of extinction because of our destruction of wilderness, new species are springing up in the new habitats we have created.” (1)

Worshipping the rare at the expense of the common

The ONLY known Raven’s manzanita plant is in the San Francisco Presidio. Its exact location is a secret to protect it.

Vast sums of money are being spent in often futile attempts to reintroduce rare plants and animals to urban environments where they have not lived for a long time. The National Park Service and San Francisco’s Natural Resources Division are having little success with their efforts to reintroduce Mission Blue butterflies. After over 30 years, the National Park Service has still not successfully germinated endangered Raven’s manzanita from seed. These fruitless efforts are not just wasteful of resources, they also inflict damage on the environment by using pesticides and setting fires to eliminate competition and destroying trees to increase sunlight on rare plants and host plants of rare insects.

The veneration of rare plants and animals is often at the expense of the plants and animals that are adapted to present environmental conditions. In Unseen City Nathanael Johnson invites us to place greater value on the ordinary creatures who are capable of living with us. We can treat them with the respect they deserve by not destroying them in pursuit of a fantasy landscape populated by fantasy creatures that are not capable of surviving the changes we have made in the environment.

Nathanael Johnson, Unseen City: The majesty of pigeons, the discreet charm of snails and other wonders of the urban wilderness, Rodale Wellness, 2016

The Ecological “Restoration” Industry: Follow the money

Matt Chew is one of many professional academics that criticize invasion biology. Unlike most, he emphasizes explaining the weaknesses of eco-nativism using scientific, historical, and philosophical methods, depending on the issue. This has made him a useful collaborator and resource for like-minded but primarily science-oriented colleagues. Million Trees is deeply grateful for his willingness to speak publically about the fallacies of invasion biology, including the generous gift of his time in writing this guest post for us.

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. He teaches courses including the History of Biology, Biology and Society, and a senior conservation biology course in “novel ecosystems,” described HERE on the university’s “ASU Now” news website.

He was also a speaker at the 2013 annual conference of Beyond Pesticides. A video of his presentation is available HERE (go to 24:40). He says that “invasive” plants are convenient scapegoats that are presenting a marketing opportunity for the manufacturers of pesticides. Invasion biology is at the core of the greening of pesticides.

In his guest post, Matt helps us to understand how he chose to pursue a multidisciplinary critique of one topic rather than adopting a single disciplinary approach and identity. He began his professional career as a practicing conservation biologist, experiencing firsthand the sometimes startling disconnects between laws, policies, aspirations, public expectations, and realities “on the ground.”

We celebrate April Fool’s Day with Matt Chew’s article. When we waste our money on ecological “restorations” the joke is on us!

Million Trees

Matt Chew with his class in novel ecosystems

Those familiar with my academic work know I invest most of my efforts documenting and explaining the flaws and foibles of “invasion biology.” But I got into this messy business as a practical conservation biologist, a natural resources planner “coordinating” the Arizona State Natural Areas Program during the late 1990s. I found the toxic nativism of natural areas proponents morbidly fascinating, and the practical politics of natural areas acquisition and management morbidly galling. I chose to follow my fascination. But as “Death of a Million Trees” marks the end of its seventh year as a WordPress blog, and in light of recent decisions by Bay Area authorities, it’s time for a galling reminder: Follow the money.

Authorities responsible for suburban fire suppression and recovery necessarily view stands of living trees as liabilities. They can’t see the forest for the fuels. The prospect of eliminating them merely drives their value further into the negative. That it must be subsidized is ironic because eucalyptus and Monterey pine are plantation grown in many countries for timber or pulp. But they aren’t traditional sources of California wood products and a glut of more familiar drought-killed trees awaits salvage far from finicky neighbors.

So condemned trees can’t just be disappeared by pointing them out to eager loggers. “Concept planning” can be fairly vague, but “action planning” must be very specific. A job this big requires both general and sub-contracting. It requires hiring and training and supervising. Capital equipment will be acquired, maintained and repaired. Affected areas must be surveyed and material volumes estimated. Before trees can be felled, access routes must be surveyed and created. After trees are felled they must be sectioned, staged, loaded and hauled away for disposal. More often they are shredded in place. At every step, someone pays and someone profits.

Where “ecological restoration” is the objective, stumps must be pulled or blasted and roots must be excavated. The eucalyptus seed bank will need to be eliminated or rendered inert. Perhaps even a century’s accumulation of organic topsoil will need amending, or removing and replacing to reconstitute prehistoric substrates. Seed suppliers and nurseries will be contracted to provide plant “native” materials. After the armies of tree-fellers and stump-blasters will come waves of laborers, tractors, diggers, spreaders, and planters in an endless relay of trucks. Ecological restoration is farming, all the more so in proximity to a cityscape arrayed in exotic plants. If all goes well and the rain falls in judicious quantities at auspicious times, planting will be followed by perpetual weeding. At every step, someone pays and someone profits.

It’s hardly surprising that FEMA has no intention of underwriting restoration on that scale. Their plans envision minimally spreading shredded wood, leaving a layer up to two feet deep to gradually decompose, and hoping whatever oaks and other present understory plants they haven’t accidentally fractured or flattened will thrive in the sudden absence of big trees. Two feet of material will gradually compact, but assurances that it will rot into organic soil within a few years are pretty optimistic. Whether and when it will support anything resembling a native plant assemblage is dubious. Meanwhile, some viable stumps will require recurring treatment with the herbicide du jour and occasional supplemental felling. It’s not a reset-and-forget strategy. It’s just the first step of a long and contentious cycle of interventions. And of course, at every step, someone pays and someone profits.

Whenever public property and expenditure is concerned there should be an open procurement process with a clear data trail. A call for proposals is written and published, bids are received, contracts awarded, and work commences. But we can be certain that by the time the prospect of deforesting the Bay Area was openly discussed by policymakers, potential bidders were positioning themselves to influence the shape of the emerging policy and take advantage of it. And various interest groups who saw deforesting the hillsides as a means to their ends became a de facto coalition of advocates. Some acted more openly than others, and some to greater effect. But prominent nonprofit organizations expect returns on their investments. Nothing happens unless someone pays and someone profits.

Some of the premises underlying the logic of the program will inevitably be faulty. Should it falter at any step due to unforeseen events (e.g., meteorological, horticultural, ecological, economic or political), contingencies will be implemented… if funds are available. There are only three certainties. Firstly, no action occurs unless someone pays and someone profits. Secondly, nature, within which I include all aspects of human society, is complex and capricious. No one can predict with much certainty how a post-deforestation landscape will look or function. Finally, a coalition of the discontented will emerge and agitate for improvements that require someone to pay, and allow someone to profit. As Nancy Pelosi recently reminded us, “we’re capitalist and that’s just the way it is.”

Matt Chew

Integrated Pest Management is a sham!!

Many thanks to Marg Hall for this guest post about the pesticides being used by the supplier of our drinking water in the East Bay and for the research she did to inform the public that there is a BIG gap between written policies and the reality of pesticide use on our public lands.

One day last winter, I came upon a crew cutting down about 50 eucalyptus trees on what appeared to be EBMUD lands in the East Bay hills. (East Bay Municipal Utility District, EBMUD, manages the local drinking water lands and infrastructure.) Knowing that rain was predicted, and that the standard procedure is to apply the nasty herbicide Garlon to the cut tree stumps to prevent re-sprouting, I stopped to ask the workers about the job. The contractor (Expert Tree Service) refused to answer my questions, even the most basic one: who hired them?

Tree removals done by EBMUD on Grizzly Peak Blvd (prior to the incident reported by Marg Hall)

I thought it an especially bad idea to apply Garlon in the drinking water watershed during the rainy season, so I stopped them by simply refusing to leave the work area until I got some answers. It was easy. I was polite but firm. The police were called. After being threatened by the contractor with per-minute fines for delaying the work, and a trip to jail from the police, I left them to their destruction. This is how I became interested in the management of EBMUD lands.

On a personal note, I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Ironically, I’d been looking for hiking trails where I didn’t have to confront the risk of cancer-causing pesticide applications. The whole situation made me very grumpy.

Following up, I was assured by EBMUD staff that they do NOT allow contractors to apply herbicides to cut eucalyptus stumps, and that very few, in fact almost no, herbicides are used in the drinking watershed lands. OK, that sounded pretty good. Wanting to verify this claim, I filed a public records request to EBMUD.

Aerial spraying pesticides on public parks

Meanwhile, we (FAB, The Forest Action Brigade, a grass roots group with which I am affiliated) heard of a plan by East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) to aerial spray from a helicopter (yes, you read that correctly!) an herbicide named Milestone (which is prohibited for use in New York State because it is very persistent and mobile in the soil). This was to be done in Briones Park, an area that directly supplies two creeks that feed into the Briones water reservoir.

Mobilizing public support, we were able to stop that spraying, but among our growing concerns we now added the safety of our drinking water. Even though this spray was planned by the East Bay Regional Parks District (EBRPD), the staff from the Water District (EBMUD) knew about it, and didn’t try to stop it…until we raised the issue.

Management of wastershed land by supplier of our drinking water

Last summer, EBMUD invited public comment on a draft update of their Watershed Management Master Plan. In this document, an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program was referenced (available here: ebmud-ipm-program). Curious, we obtained copies of this document.

On paper it looks pretty solid. Like most IPM programs, this one contained written assurances that only minimal pesticides will be used, and then only as a last resort. Quarterly meetings of the IPM committee would provide oversight, meet and compile reports of pesticide usage. Among committee goals are: approve pesticide use requests, ensure consistency among work groups regarding pest management, and advise on pest management strategies. The guidelines require that pesticides be used only after certain damage thresholds are reached, with follow-up evaluations of effectiveness, and documentation of adverse side effects on non-targeted organisms.

Reading this leads one to the conclusion that the land management practices are just a step below organic gardening practices. With such controls and alternatives, what could possibly go wrong?

Control of pesticide use is more theoretical than real

As I soon learned when I started asking for public records, the IPM program as outlined in the EBMUD Watershed Management draft plan is a “paper only” plan. The oversight committee has not met in 15 years, and in fact only actually met for several years (the program started in 1996). There has been no oversight, no annual report, and wildly inconsistent use has developed over the various work units at EBMUD. They do follow minimal state reporting and training requirements, but that’s it.

I found no comprehensive evaluation of pesticide use, no analysis of levels of use, or experiments with alternatives, as one would expect in an “integrated” approach. Instead I received pages and pages of daily logs by individual workers documenting pesticide use. There appear to be no restrictions on use as long as the applicators documented applications, and the pesticides used were on the approved list of pesticides. The list of approved pesticides is long and includes known carcinogens.

Since nobody at EBMUD was keeping track, several of us embarked on a labor-intensive project to sort through records ourselves and tally an annual pesticide total. We focused on EBMUD properties in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties and usage for the year 2015. We were disheartened by our findings. In these areas, EBMUD made 647 applications by truck, backpack or by hand of herbicides totaling over 700 gallons and 205 pounds.

We compared the use of pesticides by EBMUD with those used by EBRPD. EBRPD used significantly less herbicide than EBMUD in 2015. EBRPD used 193 gallons of herbicide (glyphosate, Garlon, Oryzalin) in 2015 (and smaller quantities of specialty herbicide for specific projects). EBRPD has 120,536 acres of property compared to only 28,000 acres of EBMUD property.

Many environmentalists concerned about pesticide use had thought EBMUD carried out a more environmentally respectful philosophy of land management. This is not true. While the Watershed and Recreation work unit reported using only 8 gallons of pesticides that year, they constitute only one of several work units. EBMUD staff in the Watershed and Recreational work unit believe that is the sum total of pesticides used in “the watershed” and that pesticide usage is low. While some of the maintenance operations are outside of the drinking water watershed lands, some are not. Nevertheless this distinction is meaningless since all land is a “watershed” whether it drains to Briones reservoir or the San Francisco Bay. Furthermore, applications of pesticide are routinely done in areas open to the public.

One such application was documented last fall by someone walking on a public road in her neighborhood who took this video (If the video won’t play for you, try clicking on this link to the video HERE:

In it you see vast quantities of Roundup (glyphosate), applied from a truck-mounted tank using a garden hose. That method of application explains why the volume of EBMUD’s pesticide use is so high. Competent and responsible pesticide applicators use a spray nozzle to reduce the flow and spread the herbicide more evenly.

Inexplicably, the worker was soaking bare ground along the side of a road. It is pointless to apply Roundup to bare ground. It is a foliar spray that must be applied to actively growing plants. It has no effect on seeds, roots, or tubers in the ground. This is explained clearly on the manufacturer’s label for the product.

This spraying was done in a residential neighborhood (Carisbrook Road, Montclair area of Oakland). No pesticide application notices were posted before, during or after the application in violation of EBMUD’s IPM guidelines, which say, “If there is likely to be public contact with the area to be sprayed with pesticide, adequate notification or posting should be conducted.”

Carisbrook Reservois on Carisbrook Road in Montclair, Oakland, where pesticides were sprayed by East Bay Municipal Utilities District — Carisbrook Reservoir on Carisbrook Road in Montclair, Oakland, where pesticides were sprayed by East Bay Municipal Utilities District

The video was sent to EBMUD board members. EBMUD’s response was a defense of this application as consistent with existing policy and regulation. They also claimed that the herbicide was not sprayed on a pedestrian path. In fact, the spraying occurred on a public road in a residential neighborhood that was used as a path by those who live in the neighborhood, such as the woman who recorded the video.

How to achieve REAL control over pesticide use on public land

That raises the obvious question: if this pesticide application is acceptable, what good is an IPM program except as a means to mislead the public into thinking we are being protected?

There’s an easier, simpler way to obtain the kind of protection we need: Forget IPM. Institute a total ban. No pesticides. PERIOD. It can be done.

Marin Municipal Water District has banned all pesticide use on their properties. Organic farmers do it. Why not demand this from our local land managers?

Public Policy is in OUR hands

In recent decades, public land managers have been using public tax money to apply more and more pesticides in public spaces. In the years ahead, as the Republicans dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, destroying what little (pathetic) regulation that we now have, we local activists will need to do our own protecting.

It starts here, in our own backyards. We know there is tremendous popular support for this. People really don’t like to be exposed to pesticides when they visit public parks. Robust local activism is our only hope. Yes, we can!!

Marg Hall

The forest is greater than the sum of its parts

The Hidden Life of Trees was written by a German forester, Peter Wohlleben. After completion of formal academic training as a forester, he took a government job managing a 3,000 acre public forest. After 20 years of managing that forest for timber production with chainsaws, bulldozers, and insecticides, he decided about 10 years ago that he could not continue damaging the forest he had fallen in love with.

He resolved to manage a forest for the benefit of the forest, rather than for economic benefit. In fact, he was able to do both. The community for which he had been managing its forest for timber, decided to change its mission to forest preservation: “So, 10 years ago, the municipality took a chance. It ended its contract with the state forestry administration, and hired Mr. Wohlleben directly. He brought in horses, eliminated insecticides and began experimenting with letting the woods grow wilder. Within two years, the forest went from loss to profit, in part by eliminating expensive machinery and chemicals.” (1)

The forest educates the forester

In the decades that Mr. Wohlleben has cared for the forest, he has learned a great deal about the trees, and more importantly how the trees function as a community in the forest: “…in nature, trees operate less like individuals and more as communal beings. Working together in networks and sharing resources, they increase their resistance.” (1)

In The Hidden Life of Trees, Mr. Wohlleben tells us how the trees communicate and share resources in the forest. When foresters interrupt these functions by artificially spacing out the trees, they can disconnect the trees from their networks, depriving them of their natural resilience mechanisms.

How do trees communicate?

Creative Commons. Photo by Steve Garvie.

Scent is one of the means of communication between trees. On the African savannah Acacia trees are one of the favorite food of giraffes. When the giraffes start munching on the Acacia, the tree pumps a powerful toxin into its leaves that makes it unpalatable to the giraffes. The scent of that toxin is wafted to neighboring Acacia trees, which triggers them to start pumping that toxin into their leaves, making them unpalatable before the giraffes even get to them. If the distance between the trees is increased beyond the range of the scent message, the Acacias are unprepared for the giraffes when they arrive after being repelled by the toxic defense of their distant neighbors.

Hope Jahren tells a similar story in Lab Girl about the role of scent in the defense of an entire forest in an infestation of tent caterpillars in a research forest in Washington. The initial attack of the caterpillars defoliated entire trees and fatally damaged others. The wounded trees emitted a powerful acid that made the caterpillars sick. The scent of that acid warned healthy trees a full mile away. The spread of the caterpillars throughout the forest was halted by this scent message, making the healthy trees equally unpalatable to the caterpillars.

The underground communication and defense system

The roots of trees radiate out from the trunk forming a perimeter of roots that is often twice as big as the canopy. In the forest, the root systems of neighboring trees often intersect and grow into one another. The trees in the forest are also connected underground by a web of fungi that connect the roots of a tree to its neighbors. These connections transmit signals from one tree to the next, “helping the trees exchange news about insects, drought, and other dangers.” (2)

This network of roots and fungi is also how trees share resources in the forest. Every tree in the forest lives in a slightly different environment such as the nutrients in the soil, the physical composition of the soil, the available light, etc. Despite these differences in available resources, researchers at the Institute for Environmental Research in Germany discovered that the trees distribute available resources throughout the forest so that every tree was photosynthesizing* at the same rate. That is, every tree in the forest was sharing an equal amount of the sugar produced by photosynthesis: “Their enormous networks act as gigantic redistribution mechanisms. It’s a bit like the way social security systems operate to ensure individual members of society don’t fall too far behind.” (2) (The scientist who documented this sharing of resources by trees gave a TED talk about her research, which is available HERE.)

Wohlleben’s analogy, suggesting that the sharing economy of the forest is comparable to our social safety net is thought provoking. Let’s think about it. Are the trees being generous to their neighbors in the forest by alerting them to dangers and sharing resources with them? No, because by benefiting their neighbors, the trees also benefit themselves: “This is because a tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it…Their well-being depends on their community, and when the supposedly feeble trees disappear, the others lose as well. When that happens, the forest is no longer a single closed unit. Hot sun and swirling winds can now penetrate to the forest floor and disrupts the moist, cool climate.” (2)

Challenging the conventional wisdom

If the trees in the forest benefit by being close to one another, why do the local managers of our public lands keep telling us that “thinning” the forest will be good for the forest? Wohlleben tells us that the conventional wisdom that thinning the forest is good for the trees originates with the timber industry: “In commercial forests, trees are supposed to grow thick trunks and be harvest ready as quickly as possible. And to do that, they need a lot of space and large, symmetrical, rounded crowns. In regular five-year cycles, any supposed competition is cut down so that the remaining trees are free to grow. Because these trees will never grow old—they are destined for the sawmill when they are only about a hundred [in Germany]—the negative effects of this management practice are barely noticeable.” (2)

Our urban forest is not “destined for the sawmill,” so thinning the urban forest does not benefit either the trees that remain or the forest as a whole. The “thinning” strategy being used by the managers of our public lands is damaging both the forest and the environment:

The trees that remain are damaged by the pesticides that are used to kill the roots of their neighbors when they are destroyed. The pesticides that are sprayed on the stumps of the destroyed trees kill the roots of the tree and also travel through the interconnected root systems to damage the trees that remain.
The trees that remain are subjected to more wind when their neighbors are destroyed, which increases the potential for windthrow and therefore public safety hazards.
The forest is less capable of retaining moisture when shade is reduced, which also stresses the trees that remain.
Valuable habitat for wildlife is lost when trees are destroyed.

The Hidden Life of Trees informs us that the forest is greater than the sum of its parts. Every tree contributes to forest health just as every member of society contributes to the well-being of our communities.

*Photosynthesis is the process used by plants to convert light energy into chemical energy that is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars. The sugars are the fuel that enable plants to live and grow. (Wikipedia)

“German Forest Ranger Finds That Trees Have Social Networks, Too,” New York Times, January 29, 2016.
Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, Greystone Book, 2016 (originally published in German in 2015)

Lab Girl: A tribute to the challenges of science

Lab Girl is a memoir of a scientist, Hope Jahren. Jahren is a geobiologist, which is the scientific discipline that “explores the interactions between the physical Earth and the biosphere [global ecosystems].” (1) She describes the arduous journey from curious student to full-fledged scientist. That transition involved physically demanding collection expeditions, digging deep into the soil for the samples that informed her research into the complex relationships between the soil and the plants that live in it. Then long, tedious hours in the laboratory are required to analyze the soil and plant samples to develop the hypotheses needed to explain those relationships. Finally, complicated laboratory tests are needed to test the hypotheses.

If you don’t already have a deep respect for the demands of science, Lab Girl will help you to appreciate the dedication of the scientists engaged in the process of refining our scientific knowledge. At a time in our social history when science is being questioned by those with political agendas, Lab Girl is an antidote to skepticism about science and scientific expertise.

Familiar Themes

Jahren alternates chapters about her career with chapters about the plants she studies. As we might expect, Jahren has a profound respect for trees and so her book is relevant to the mission of Million Trees. She eloquently makes many of the same observations we make on Million Trees. Here are a few:

On the value of observation and the complexity and changeability of nature:

“Time has changed me, my perception of my tree, and my perception of my tree’s perception of itself. Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life. It has convinced me that carefully writing everything down is the only real defense we have against forgetting something important that once was and is no more, including the spruce tree that should have outlived me but did not.” (2)

On the importance of fungi to forest health:

“Underneath every mushroom is a web of stringy hyphae that may extend for kilometers, wrapping around countless clumps of soil and holding the landscape together. The ephemeral mushroom appears briefly above the surface while the webbing that anchors it lives for years within a darker and richer world. A very small minority of these fungi—just five thousand species—have strategically entered into a deep and enduring truce with plants. They cast their stringy webbing around and through the roots of trees, sharing the burden of drawing water into the trunk. They also mine the soil for rare metals, such as manganese, copper, and phosphorous, and then present them to the tree as precious gifts of the magi.” (2)

Placing blame for “invasive” weeds where it belongs: ON US!

“A plant that lives where it should not live is a weed. We don’t resent the audacity of the weeds, as every seed is audacious; we resent its fantastic success. Humans are actively creating a world where only weeds can live and feigning shock and outrage upon finding so many. This mixed message is irrelevant: there is already a revolution taking place in the plant world as invasives effortlessly supplant natives within every human-modified space. Our impotent condemnation of weeds will not stop this revolution. We aren’t getting the revolution we want; we are getting the one that we triggered.” (2)

On the future of our forests:

“Every year since 1990 we have created more than eight billion new stumps. If we continue to fell healthy trees at this rate, less than six hundred years from now, every tree on the planet will have been reduced to a stump. My job is about making sure there will be some evidence that someone cared about the great tragedy that unfolded during our age.” (2)

And that is the job of Million Trees as well…to make this record of fighting to preserve our urban forests. We echo Hope Jahren’s final message in Lab Girl: “Here is my personal request to you: If you own any private land at all, plant one tree on it this year. If you are renting a place with a yard, plant a tree in it and see if your landlord notices. If he does, insist to him that it was always there. Throw in a bit about how exceptional he is for caring enough about the environment to have put it there.” (2)

Hope for 2017

We have had some big disappointments in 2016, and it isn’t easy to find something useful to do to improve the political climate in our country. Planting a tree is something positive that many people are in a position to do. When you feel discouraged about the future of our country, go visit your tree and pat yourself on the back for making an investment in the future of our country.

Happy New Year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geobiology
Hope Jahren, Lab Girl, Alfred Knopf, 2016

An epilogue to the saga of the San Francisco Natural Areas Program

On December 15, 2016, the San Francisco Planning Commission approved the Environmental Impact Report for the Natural Areas Program and the Recreation and Parks Commission approved the management plan for the Natural Areas Program. The public hearing was over 6 hours long and is available for viewing HERE. Although we watched the hearing, we won’t try to summarize it here because readers can watch it if they wish. Rather we will comment on a few conspicuous observations about the hearing.

The most noteworthy feature of the hearing was that virtually all of the supporters of the EIR and the Natural Areas Program were allowed to speak first. Critics of the program were called on last. If you have spoken at such a hearing, you know that speakers submit a speaker’s card on which they indicate their support or opposition for the agenda item when they arrive. Typically, speakers are called in the order in which they arrive at the hearing. This usual procedure was apparently not followed in this case.

The main disadvantage of not being called upon in the order in which speakers arrive is that when a hearing is 6 hours long, many people with other responsibilities—such as work or family obligations—are forced to leave before their names are called. In the case of this hearing, I heard a number of names called of people whom I knew to be critics of NAP, who did not speak, presumably because they waited their turn but weren’t called in the order of their arrival.

Another conspicuous feature of this hearing was that the vast majority of speakers in favor of the EIR and the management plan either work directly for the program or are affiliated with it. Many supporting speakers were representatives of non-profits that conduct similar projects or they bring children into the parks to “educate” them about native plants. Their presence at the hearing was therefore a work responsibility which enabled them to spend an unlimited amount of time at the hearing.

This is an illustration of the biggest obstacle to the realization that nativism is a destructive agenda based on outdated scientific hypotheses for which there is no empirical evidence. In a word, “restoration” ecology is now a multi-million dollar industry in which many people are employed. Therefore, there is vested economic interest in continuing such efforts whether or not they are successful or beneficial.

Criticisms of the Natural Areas Program and its EIR

The speakers who opposed the approval of the management plan and its EIR were members of the general public who are neighbors of the so-called “natural areas.” They mentioned the destruction of trees (and the subsequent loss of sequestered carbon) and the use of herbicides as their primary objection to the plans. Another important issue was the restrictions on recreational access such as the closure of 10 miles of trails and the requirement that all access be confined to the trails that remain. These are issues with which our readers are familiar, so we won’t elaborate.

Comments based on personal experience with specific “natural areas” seemed most effective. One fellow said he had participated as a volunteer in several big plantings of native plants in a natural area. The plants died each time and presently few plants have survived several attempts to “restore” this so-called natural area. This experience had led this speaker to conclude that attempts to “restore” this park to native plants were futile.

A neighbor of Glen Canyon Park showed pictures of the impact on her neighborhood of the destruction of trees in the park several years ago. Her neighborhood has lost its windbreak and therefore dust from the bare ground is blowing into their homes. Their beautiful view of the trees has been replaced by bare ground.

The Natural Areas Program began 20 years ago and has been fully staffed and funded since its inception. Therefore, it should be judged by what it has accomplished. It has closed trails, destroyed trees, and built fences. It has repeatedly destroyed vegetation with herbicides and planted those areas with native plants. The native plants have died, in some cases several times in 20 years. In other words, it has little useful to show for 20 years of investment of effort and money. Since it has not been successful after 20 years, it seems insane to invest another 20 years of money and effort. Remember that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

Support for the Natural Areas Program

We hesitate to use the word “lie” to describe the justifications for the Natural Areas Program, but after listening to hours of testimony by its supporters, we will use that word to describe a few of their claims:

The most effective lie is that all the trees they destroy will be replaced with native trees. In fact, no such commitment is made in the management plan, which says explicitly that the natural areas will be converted to grassland and dune scrub. This “replacement” fiction is mentioned in the EIR. However, the EIR makes no commitment to planting the replacement trees in the areas or even the same parks where the trees are destroyed. This important caveat to the commitment to replace the trees was not mentioned by any of the speakers in support of the plans, including NAP’s leadership. In the case of the 15,000 trees that will be destroyed at Sharp Park, calling those removals anything other than a clear-cut is a lie.
Inaccurate descriptions of NAP’s use of herbicides also qualify as lies. The executive director claimed during the hearing that only 2.67 quarts of “active ingredient” were used in the natural areas in 2016. In fact, public records requests inform us that NAP used 1 gallon (4 quarts) of active ingredient from January 2016 to October 2016. The “active ingredient” is only a fraction of the amount of the formulated product. The “inert” ingredients in the formulated product are often considered hazardous. In other words, reporting only the volume of active ingredient underestimates the amount of herbicide being applied. The number of pesticide applications done by NAP is another way to evaluate the magnitude of pesticides used by NAP. From January 2016 to October 2016, pesticides were applied in the natural areas 111 times, which is 85% of all pesticide applications in park areas other than Harding Park (which is a golf course maintained to professional competition standards with contractual obligations regarding turf maintenance). A full report of NAP’s pesticide use is available HERE.
Courtesy San Francisco Forest Alliance
Claims that the forest in the natural areas will be “managed” for forest health are false. The management plan says explicitly that the trees will be removed for the purpose of expanding native plant gardens that require full sun. These areas will not be “thinned” as supporters claim. Rather they will be removed along the leading edge of the forest in order to create more unshaded ground for planting native plants. The health of the trees is not the criterion for their removal. These tree removals will not benefit the forest.

However, most of the statements made by supporters are not lies. Rather they are faithful repetitions of an ideology that most of them probably believe. Here are a few examples:

Nativists believe that native animals require native plants. There is no empirical evidence to support that belief. All empirical studies find equal numbers of insects, birds, amphibians, etc., using non-native plants.
Nativists claim that native pollinators require specific native plants. With few exceptions this belief is mistaken. The monarch butterfly, for example, is as willing and able to use one of the many non-native species of milkweed as it is a native species. Some butterflies require a specific genus of plant as its host, but a genus is typically composed of hundreds of species of which many are not native.
Nativists believe that the immutable relationship between specific animals and specific plants has evolved over “thousands of years.” They are mistaken. Animals adapt much more quickly to changes in the environment. Many changes in plants and animals have been observed over a period of years, rather than a period of centuries, let alone millennia.

Many of the supporters of the NAP plans mentioned that native plants would somehow mitigate climate change. This is a mysterious notion that I cannot explain. If we are destroying tens of thousands of trees that store tons of carbon, how can we claim this will reduce climate change? The grassland that is the goal of these “restoration” projects will store a small fraction of the amount of carbon stored by the trees. Is this absurd claim a reflection of ignorance about carbon storage? Or is it a strategy intended to confuse the public? Whatever the motivation, the claim that native plants mitigate climate change is NOT true.

The nativists apparently do not understand that the ranges of native plants and animals have changed in response to changes in the climate and they will continue to change. They aren’t stopping climate change by planting native plants. In fact, climate change requires that the concept of “native” be redefined. That’s why their projects are unrealistic and futile because they are based on a climate that no longer exists.

The epilogue

The San Francisco Forest Alliance has announced its intention to appeal the certification of the Environmental Impact Report to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. This appeal will be heard sometime in 2017. You will be notified of the hearing if you will subscribe to the Forest Alliance website: http//sfforest.org.

Meanwhile, the Forest Alliance will ask the City of San Francisco to prohibit the use of the most toxic herbicides in the city’s parks. There will be two public hearings regarding the city’s pesticide policies and practices:

Monday, December 19, 2016, 5 pm. This is a public hearing by San Francisco’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program. Details about that hearing are available HERE.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017. The Commission on the Environment will consider the recommendations of the IPM Program at this hearing. The Forest Alliance will publish the details of that hearing when they are available.

Best Wishes for a BETTER 2017

The certification of the EIR and the approval of the NAP management plan is not the holiday gift that we were hoping for. In fact, the entire year of 2016 wasn’t much of a gift to those who believe government has an important and valuable job to do. We look forward to a better year in 2017 and we wish our readers all the best for the New Year.

An announcement from the San Francisco Forest Alliance about their plans

We are publishing the following email message from the San Francisco Forest Alliance. They are thanking their supporters for their help at the public hearing about the Natural Areas Program and its Environmental Impact Report. They are announcing their intention to appeal that decision to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. And they inform their supporters of an opportunity to ask the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program to prohibit the use of the most toxic types of herbicide in the city’s so-called “natural areas.” That hearing will take place on Monday, December 19, 2016. Please help them if you can.

San Francisco SFFA supporters / concerned residents:

Thank you for sending in your letters and braving the rain to sit through the hours long joint meeting of the Planning Commission and SF Recreation and Parks Commission.

Yes, we lost last Thursday and now, with a heavy heart, but with a sense of pride and integrity, please rest assured that we did everything we could to convince the two commissions to see our side.

Thank you for your efforts and for working together, in solidarity and with gratitude from the SFFA leadership. We will appeal the decision to approve the EIR and will go before the Board of Supervisors next year with an emotional plea that they do the right thing. The City cannot implement the SNRAMP while the EIR is under appeal.

In the meantime, and because the SNRAMP cannot operate without the use of herbicides in city parks, there is something we can now do:

Attend an important hearing on Monday Dec 19th in City Hall at 5 PM.

San Francisco’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program is hearing public input on the guidelines for Tier 1 herbicides and on the approved pesticide list for 2017.

This hearing on the Integrated Pest Management program will be at City Hall on Monday, Dec. 19th at 5 pm, room 408.

We hope you can come because this is our main chance to influence any policy decisions about herbicides for the coming year.

If you plan to attend and make public comment please use our email box sfforestnews@gmail.com and leave us your name and phone number so we can coordinate our public input – it is not too late !

Important Reading Materials: For those who are planning to speak – those of us who are concerned about pesticide use in our city, please read Attachments B and C(click to access the documents)

B. Draft 2017 San Francisco Reduced Risk Pesticide List, including Draft Restrictions on “most hazardous” (Tier I) herbicides

C. Summary of issues raised regarding pest management for City properties, with agency responses

Note: It is important that you read these documents prior to making any public comments!

Public opinion does make a difference!

San Francisco Forest Alliance

BE INFORMED – GET INVOLVED – TELL YOUR NEIGHBORS

If you’re on Facebook, please “like” our page: https://www.facebook.com/ForestAlliance

Please sign our petition if you have not already done so.

A tragic fire is an opportunity to revise our fire safety policies

When a warehouse in Oakland burned to the ground, killing 36 young people on December 2, 2016, we learned that the City of Oakland is not inspecting many buildings for fire safety, as required by law. In fact, this particular warehouse had never been inspected because it wasn’t even on the database for such inspections. If it had been inspected, “they would have seen what visitors and former residents called a death trap and a tinder box: piles of wood, shingles and old furniture, extension cords and often-sparking electrical wires running willy-nilly throughout the structure, welding equipment and propane tanks scattered about — the kind of fire code violations that could have led inspectors to shutter the building immediately.” (East Bay Times, 12/8/16)

This tragic loss of young lives is an opportunity for Oakland to examine its priorities with respect to fire safety. Oakland, like most cities, does not have unlimited resources to address every public safety issue. Therefore, it must set priorities and in this case, Oakland needs to refocus its efforts where serious fire safety issues exist and where genuine economic need requires the city’s help. Specifically, we should stop destroying harmless trees and spend our limited resources on identifying and repairing unsafe living conditions that create fire hazards.

Our letter (below) to the elected and city officials of Oakland asking them to revise their priorities regarding fire safety, speaks for itself. If you agree with us about this issue, please write your own letter to your district council representative if you live in Oakland.

December 9, 2016

Dear Mayor Schaaf, (officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com)

The recent fire in a warehouse that killed 36 young people should be a wakeup call for city officials who say they are concerned about mitigating fire hazards. The City of Oakland wasted 10 years defending an indefensible plan to clear cut trees in the Oakland hills, based on the claim that it would reduce fire hazards. After cancellation of the FEMA grants that would have funded that project, Oakland has made a contractual commitment to spend $800,000 to develop a new plan for “vegetation management.”

Mosswood Recreation Center was gutted by fire on November 26, 2016

Meanwhile, we have had many major fires of residential properties in the flat lands where trees played no role in the fires. On November 26, 2016, the recreation center at Mosswood Park burned to the ground, just 50 feet away from a huge eucalyptus tree that was not ignited by that fire.

Trees around the Mosswood Recreation Center were not ignited by the fire, including this huge eucalyptus tree.

And last Friday, a warehouse that should not have been rented to tenants and should not have been used to stage huge parties, burned to the ground. Although many complaints had been lodged about that warehouse, no inspections or code enforcement corrected the many safety violations. The media also informs us that there are many other warehouses in Oakland being used illegally with potentially unsafe conditions. We also understand that the City of Oakland does not have the staff needed to conduct inspections or ensure enforcement of building codes.

In other words, when it comes to fire safety, the City of Oakland is focusing on the wrong issues in the wrong places. Residents in the hills have the financial resources to create defensible space around their homes. Young people in the flatlands, do not have the resources to pay for safe housing. This is both a safety AND an equity issue.

Therefore, the City of Oakland should redirect its limited resources where serious safety issues exist and genuine economic need requires the City’s help. I am writing to ask that the contract to develop a “vegetation management plan” be cancelled and the money be spent to conduct inspections and to subsidize the mitigation of real fire hazards.

Thank you for your consideration.

Oakland, CA

Cc: Councilman Dan Kalb (dkalb@oaklandnet.com) , Fire Chief Theresa DeLoach Reed (tdeloachreed@oaklandnet.com), Assistant to the Chief Angela Robinson Pinon (arobinsonpinon@oaklandnet.com)