Conservation Sense and Nonsense

What is the goal of ecological “restorations?”

In the not-so-distant past, the goal of ecological “restoration” was usually described as the re-creation of an historical landscape that was believed to have been undamaged by humans, presumed to be “in balance” and therefore sustainable after “restoration” without further human management. In North America, the pre-European landscape is usually selected as the ideal landscape to be replicated, based on the assumption it had not been radically altered by Native Americans. New knowledge has overturned this model:

Native Americans setting grass fire, painting by Frederic Remington, 1908

Archaeologists now inform us that human societies have radically altered the environment for thousands of years. The pre-European landscape of North America can no longer be considered a “pristine” landscape. In fact, nowhere on Earth has escaped anthropogenic change.
Decades of attempted “restorations” inform us that a continuous gardening effort is required to maintain them.
Climate change has altered the native ranges of plants and animals and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Unless drastic measures are taken to alter the course of climate change, the concept of “native” will become progressively more meaningless.
Science has rejected the concept of “balance” in nature. Nature is now considered dynamic, constantly changing, often in random, unpredictable ways in response to major ecological events such as earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, floods, etc.

Oddly, many invasion biologists accept these new understandings of ecological science without changing their deep commitment to eradicating all non-native plants and animals. Daniel Simberloff published an article about the current status of the concept of “balance of nature” simultaneously with the publication of his defense of invasion biology. He described the current thinking about this concept: “…a widespread rejection of the idea of balance of nature by academic ecologists, who focus rather on a dynamic, often chaotic nature buffeted by constant disturbances.”

Invasion biologists have therefore revised their goal for ecological “restorations” to accommodate their new understanding of the dynamic nature of ecosystems.

The revised goal of ecological “restorations”

If the return to an equilibrium state is no longer the goal of ecological “restorations,” what is the new goal? This is how invasion biologists writing in defense of their discipline described their goal: “…we should seek to reestablish – or emulate, insofar as possible – the historical trajectory of ecosystems, before they were deflected by human activity, and to allow the restored system to continue responding to various environmental changes…” (1)

In this post we will deconstruct this new definition of the goal of ecological “restorations.” Our first problem with this new definition is that we don’t know the “historical trajectory” of a landscape because it is fundamentally unknowable. We would have to reconstruct all the events and changes in the environment in the Bay Area in the past 250 years in the imagined absence of any Europeans. Even if we knew what would have happened without our presence, we cannot then ensure the continuation of that imagined environment because, the fact is, WE ARE HERE AND WE AREN’T GOING AWAY!

Because we cannot reconstruct an imagined environment that has not been “deflected by human activity,” restorationists—who are the practitioners of invasion biology–focus on the one element in the environment of which there is sufficient historical knowledge, i.e., plants. Most local restoration projects eradicate all non-native plants and trees, usually using herbicides to accomplish that task. They rarely plant anything after this eradication attempt because they don’t have the resources to do so. Those few projects that re-plant after non-natives are eradicated usually irrigate the new landscape for several years. Here is an incomplete list of everything these projects do not do to replicate an historical landscape:

Soils are not restored for many reasons:
- We have no way of knowing the composition of soil 250 years ago.
- Soils have been altered by the plants that have been growing in them and by the herbicides used to kill those plants.
- Urban soils have high nitrogen levels resulting from exposure to fossil fuel exhaust.
The atmosphere is not restored:
- There are much higher levels of ozone and carbon dioxide than there were 250 years ago.
The climate is not restored:
- The temperature is higher than it was 250 years ago.
- The timing of seasons has therefore changed.
- Precipitation and fog have changed in known and unknown ways.
The disturbance events that sustained historical landscapes or set them on another evolutionary course are not restored:
- We cannot set fire to urban landscapes annually without polluting our air and endangering our lives.
- We cannot allow our creeks and rivers to overflow in urban areas without damaging our properties.
Most occupants of the historical landscape are not reintroduced:
- The grazing animals that helped to sustain grassland are gone and cannot be returned to urban landscapes.
- The top predators such as bears and wolves that kept grazing and other animals in balance with available resources cannot be returned without threatening our safety in an urban setting.
- Many insects that lived in these historical landscapes are unknown to us and some are extinct.

Bears roamed the grasslands in the Bay Area, preventing over-population of grazing animals. The El Cerrito Plaza with the Albany Hill in the background, centuries ago. Oil painting by Laura Cunningham, with permission

In other words, destroying plants will not “restore” an historical landscape. Nor will it return that landscape to its “historical trajectory” even if that trajectory were known or knowable. Plants live in complex communities in which they are interacting with everything in the environment. Local “restoration” projects do not “restore” an historical landscape because they do not and cannot change anything other than the plants that occupy the space. Because most environmental variables have not been altered by these projects, the landscape will quickly return to its unrestored state unless it is intensively gardened. In that case, the landscape will be continuously “deflected by human activity,” which violates the original goal of invasion biologists.

Misanthropic premise of invasion biology

The revised goal of invasion biology is unattainable because the absence of humans is a prerequisite for its attainment. We cannot know and we cannot replicate a theoretical historical trajectory for ecosystems in which humans were not present. And when we modify ecosystems in an attempt to do so, human activities will determine their future trajectory. The premise of invasion biology is that success of ecological “restorations” depends upon the absence of humans. Therefore, invasion biology has no practical application in the real world.

Carolina Murcia, James Aronson, Gustavo Kattan, David Moreno-Mateos, Kingsley Dixon, Daniel Simberloff, “A critique of the ‘novel ecosystem’ concept,”Trends in Ecology and Evolution, October 2014, Vol. 29, No. 10

FEMA has published the final Environmental Impact Statement for projects in the East Bay Hills

Readers of Million Trees will recall some of the most controversial projects in the San Francisco Bay Area which propose to destroy hundreds of thousands of trees in the East Bay Hills. The owners of these properties—UC Berkeley, City of Oakland, and East Bay Regional Park District—applied for grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to fund these projects, based on the claim that fire hazards would be reduced by the projects. Detailed descriptions of the proposed projects as originally planned are available HERE.

The public comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement closed in June 2013. FEMA has announced the publication of the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which is available HERE. FEMA now reports that it received more than 13,000 public comments and informs us that the final EIS reflects the concerns expressed in the public comments as well as the analysis of “subject matter experts.” We haven’t read either the public comments or the final EIS yet, so we are only quoting excerpts directly from FEMA’s announcement so that you have this information as soon as possible. If you read these documents, we welcome your reaction to them.

Here are excerpts from FEMA’s announcement of the final EIS (emphasis added):

“One of the major revisions to the draft EIS influenced by information gathered during the public process is that FEMA will not fund the proposed methodology of eradicating designated tree species without a phased approach. The originally proposed eradication methodology to completely and immediately remove the “overstory” was deemed not to satisfy the purpose and need for the grant of fire reduction, and therefore did not meet hazard mitigation program eligibility requirements.

Identifying and analyzing implementation options is another required element of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) decision-making process that must be explored before federal funding can be awarded. Based on input and issues raised during the public comment process, and in consultation with the grantee, sub applicants, and cooperating federal agencies, FEMA revised the vegetation management methodology for two of the three sub applicants – City of Oakland and UC Berkeley. The revisions align the majority of proposed projects with a thinning alternative, the approach originally proposed by East Bay Regional Parks District as described in the Draft EIS.

The thinning approach has been scientifically validated by subject matter experts to effectively reduce fire risk. The revised vegetation management methodology will result in fewer trees being removed in any single year in certain areas, with the same total fuel reduction accomplished by the conclusion of the project. The EIS considers the overall impacts to the environment based on the amount of land treated and consequent impacts to resources. Each grant applicant is responsible for their ongoing land management practices and determination for how much vegetation will be removed to accomplish their fire reduction goals within the scope of the vegetation management approach defined in the EIS. Clear-cutting, a logging practice, is not part of the methodology considered in the EIS for any of the projects.”

The final EIS and response to comments are available on the web at: http://ebheis.cdmims.com/FinalDocuments.aspx

and will also be made available at http://www.fema.gov/environmental-historic-preservation-documents.

The public also may view hard copies of the EIS at the following locations:

Oakland Main Library, 125 14th Street Oakland, CA 94612
Oakland Rockridge Library, 5366 College Avenue Oakland, CA 94618
Berkeley Main Library, 2090 Kittredge Street Berkeley, CA 94704
San Leandro Main Library, 300 Estudillo Avenue San Leandro, CA 94577
Richmond Main Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza Richmond, CA 94804
FEMA Region IX Headquarters, 1111 Broadway, Suite 1200, Oakland, CA 94607-4052
East Bay Regional Park District, 2950 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland, CA 94605-0381
City of Oakland, Office of the City Clerk, Oakland City Hall, 2nd Floor, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612
California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Unit 10390 Peter A. McCuen Blvd First Floor Sacramento, CA 95655

Where does it belong?

The advent of molecular genetic analysis about 50 years ago is making it possible to determine the relationships between species of plants and animals. As this analytic method becomes more sophisticated and more accessible, we are slowly learning more about how plants and animals have been dispersed around the earth, often great distances, sometimes crossing oceans. Here is an illustration of some of the long-distance dispersal of species across oceans which have been identified (1):

Look closely at the dispersal labeled “b.” This line describes the travels of a genus of plant (Lepidium) in the mustard family (Brassicaceae) which arrived in Australia from California and Africa in two separate dispersal incidents: “This [molecular] pattern is likely explained by two trans-oceanic dispersals of Lepidium from California and Africa to Australia/New Zealand…” (2)

Lepidium flavum found alongside the road in Tecopa, California. Creative Commons - Stan Shepp — Lepidium flavum found alongside the road in Tecopa, California. Creative Commons – Stan Shepp

Calibration of the molecular trees indicates the arrival of this plant in Australia/New Zealand in the Pleistocene geologic era, between .3 and 1.3 million years ago. The authors of this study speculate that mucilaginous (sticky surface) seeds were carried by birds: “…sea bird migration pathways between coastal California and Australia/New Zealand and South Africa and Australia/New Zealand are fully compatible with the proposed colonization scenario.” (2)

Flowers and seed capsules of Blue Gum eucalyptus

We know that eucalyptus seeds were brought to California in the mid-19^th Century by humans who came by boat. But can we imagine a scenario in which the seeds could have been carried in their protective seed capsules on ocean currents? And is the fact that the seeds were carried in a ship across the ocean really so very different from them being carried on the currents?

Few of these long-distance dispersals have been identified so far, but many more are likely to be identified in the future as this analytic method becomes more widely available.

Next time you hear a nativist say, “It doesn’t belong here” when explaining why a plant or animal must be killed, please think about this example of the natural dispersal of plants and animals across the oceans to new homes. Who is to say that it doesn’t belong here?

Alan de Queiroz, “The resurrection of oceanic dispersal in historical biogeography,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 20 No. 2, February 2005
Klaus Mummenhoff, et. al., “Molecular evidence for bicontinental hybridogenous genomic constitution in Lepidium sensu strict (Brassicaceae) species from Australia and New Zealand,” American Journal of Botany, February 2004

Do insects prefer native plants?

We follow Doug Tallamy’s publications closely because he is the academic scientist most often quoted by native plant advocates to support their belief that insects require native plants and that the absence of the native plants will result in the collapse of entire ecosystems: “…our wholesale replacement of native plant communities with disparate collections of plants from other parts of the world is pushing our local animals to the brink of extinction—and the ecosystems that sustain human societies to the edge of collapse.” (1)

Main fountains of Longwood Gardens. Creative Commons - Share Alike — Main fountains of Longwood Gardens. Creative Commons – Share Alike

Tallamy co-authored his most recent publication, The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Diversity in the Home Garden, with Rick Darke, curator of plants at Longwood Gardens for 20 years. Longwood is a formal garden outside of Philadelphia, which seems at odds with the exclusively native gardens for which Tallamy advocates. And so we were intrigued by this unlikely team. Darke’s introduction to the book implies a departure from Tallamy’s usual mantra:

“Is this a book only about gardening with native plants? No. It’s a book about how native plants can play essential roles in gardens designed for multiple purposes, with a focus on proven functionality. For better and worse, the native plant movement in North America has evolved in the last decade…One of the most important functionalities is durability: the capacity to thrive over a long time without dependence on resource-consuming maintenance regimes. Claims that natives are always better than exotics fail to take into account radically altered environmental conditions in many suburban landscapes…In most cases and most places, the design of broadly functional ecologically sound, resource-conserving residential gardens requires a carefully balanced mix of native and non-native plants. It’s time to stop worrying about where plants come from and instead focus on how they function in today’s ecology. After all, it’s the only one we have.” (2)

Tallamy writes his own introduction to The Living Landscape, which suggests a softening of his hard-line insistence upon gardening exclusively with native plants:

“What is native in any given place today wasn’t native if we look back far enough in time, and it is certain that what will be native in that same place in the future will be different from what is native now. Functional ecological relationships take a long time to evolve—often thousands of years—but they do evolve. Humanity’s challenge is to reduce its introduction of rapid environmental changes that are currently causing extinctions to occur faster than the evolution of new species.” (2)

Has Tallamy’s viewpoint evolved?

When we reported on Tallamy’s previous publication in 2012, we quoted him as saying that a graduate student under his direction could not find any evidence that native plants were eaten by insects more frequently than non-native plants:

“Erin [Reed] compared the amount of damage sucking and chewing insects made on the ornamental plants at six suburban properties landscaped primarily with species native to the area and six properties landscapes traditionally. After two years of measurements Erin found that only a tiny percentage of leaves were damaged on either set of properties at the end of the season…Erin’s most important result, however, was that there was no statistical difference in the amount of damage on either landscape type.” (1)

May we conclude that Tallamy no longer believes that native plants are required by insects? No, we may not. In Living Landscape he takes a different approach to this question. He collaborated in three studies which found more insects in native gardens than in non-native gardens:

Significantly more caterpillars of butterflies and moths were found in suburban gardens of predominantly native plants compared to gardens of predominantly non-native plants. This study also quantified the number of birds found in these gardens and concluded that “…the negative relationship between non-native plant abundance and bird community integrity is apparent in managed ecosystems as well, regardless of whether the non-native species are invasive.” This seemed a leap of faith, given that the inventory of insects was done in a six-week period in August and September and the inventory of birds was done in a six-week period in June and July, rendering a cause-and-effect relationship dubious.
Two other studies were conducted in a constructed garden in which native and non-native plants were paired for comparisons. Some of the pairs were in the same genus. Again, significantly more caterpillars and other plant-eating arthropods were found on native plants, although the differences were much smaller when the plants were in the same genus, which are often—but not always–chemically similar.

Reconciling apparent contradictions

So, how are we to reconcile these studies which find more insects on native plants with other studies which report otherwise?

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we rely on the research of Professor Arthur Shapiro to inform us of which plants are useful to our butterflies. He tells us: “Most California natives in cultivation are of no more butterfly interest than nonnatives, and most of the best butterfly flowers in our area are exotic.” (3) The difference between Professor Shapiro’s studies and those cited by Professor Tallamy is that Professor Shapiro has been studying butterflies in “natural areas” rather than cultivated gardens. Most of the plants that he finds butterflies using are considered weeds, such as non-native fennel and star thistle, which we wouldn’t find in suburban gardens. We speculate that this difference accounts for some of the difference in findings.
Furthermore, the studies reported by Professor Tallamy only seem contradictory. In fact, if we look at them closely we find that one reports no difference in what caterpillars eat, but considerable difference in where they are found. And this strange difference is consistent with the scientific literature. A meta-analysis of hundreds of studies of insect-plant interactions published by Annual Review of Entomology reports these findings: “Herbivore densities are lower on invasive plants than on native plants, but there is no evidence that invasive plants overall suffer from less damage inflicted by native herbivores.” (4)

Go figure! More herbivores are found on native plants, but they don’t eat more native plants than they do non-native plants.

A parting shot

Professor Tallamy urges suburban gardeners to take insects into account when making their gardening choices and, of course, we agree. However, he closes his pitch for gardening with natives in The Living Landscape with a story which seems superficially compelling but doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny.

Eumaeus atala butterfly laying eggs on coontie. Creative Commons - Share Alike — Eumaeus atala butterfly laying eggs on coontie. Creative Commons – Share Alike

There is a beautiful butterfly (Eumaeus atala) in Florida that was historically dependent upon a particular native plant, coontie, which is a species of cycad. Coontie was popular with early settlers as a food flavoring and was nearly wiped out early in the 20^th century, along with the atala butterfly which was dependent upon it as its host plant. Tallamy claims that the atala made a comeback when coontie became a popular plant for suburban gardens. This makes a powerful case for how suburban gardeners can participate in efforts to conserve our native butterfly fauna.

Coontie. Photo by Dan Culbert, University of Florida

But is it true? Wikipedia says it’s not: “The atala is now common locally in southeast Florida rebounding to some extent as it has begun to use ornamental cycads planted in suburban areas.” This is an example of how chemically similar plants can be useful to native insects, whether they are native plants or introduced, non-native, ornamental plants.

Sago cycad palm is an example of an ornamental cycad

We apologize for being repetitive, but for the record we will close with the reminder that Million Trees urges everyone to plant whatever they want in their own gardens. In public open spaces, which belong to everyone, we ask only that land managers quit destroying trees and using pesticides for the sole purpose of attempting to eradicate non-native plants. The audience for Professor Tallamy’s publications is private gardeners, so we don’t really have a beef with him. We critique his rationale for his preference for native plants only because it is often cited by those who demand the eradication of non-native plants and trees in our public open spaces.

The Living Landscape is a beautiful book, which we recommend to our readers for its lovely photos of naturalistic landscapes.

Doug Tallamy, “Flipping the Paradigm: Landscapes that Welcome Wildlife,” chapter in Christopher, Thomas,The New American Landscape, Timber Press, 2011
Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy, The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Diversity in the Home Garden, Timber Press, 2014
Arthur Shapiro, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, University of California Press, 2007
Martijn Bezemer, et. al., “Response to Native Insect Communities to Invasive Plants,” Annual Review of Entomology, January 2014.

A defensive tirade from invasion biologists

Pesticide use by land managers in California. Source California Invasive Plant Council

An international team of invasion biologists has just published a defense of their academic turf, invasion biology. (1) Daniel Simberloff, an American member of the team, is the most relentless defender of the crusade to eradicate all non-native species, wherever they are found, all over the world. Their publication acknowledges the mounting criticism of this crusade and attempts to respond to that criticism, but what is most notable is what is missing from their attempt to defend their opinions. They make no mention of the harmful methods used to eradicate non-native species:

Pesticides are used to eradicate non-native species. Pesticide use is damaging the environment and the animals that live in it, including humans.
Prescribed burns are used to eradicate non-native species as well as to prevent natural succession from grassland to shrubs and ultimately to forest. These fires pollute the air and endanger our lives and property
Non-native insects and pathogens are introduced into our landscapes for the purpose of killing non-native species of plants and animals. These biological controls have a track record of killing unintended targets.
Healthy, mature trees, which store tons of carbon, are being destroyed, thereby contributing to climate change.

Keep these damaging methods in mind as we visit the hypocritical and contradictory arguments used to justify the projects for which these invasion biologists advocate. They set up “novel ecosystems” as the straw man to which they compare the goals of invasion biology. They define novel ecosystems as “a new species combination that arises spontaneously and irreversibly in response to anthropogenic land-use changes, species introductions, and climate change, without correspondence to any historical ecosystem.”

“Lack of rigorous scrutiny”

Their primary criticism of the concept of “novel ecosystems” is that it has not been “subjected to the scrutiny and empirical validation inherent in science” and its definition is “impaired by logical contradictions and ecological imprecisions.” These criticisms apply equally to invasion biology.

An international team of scientists analyzed 371 empirical studies which tested six major hypotheses in invasion biology. They found that empirical evidence for these hypotheses is uneven and declining. The scientists counted the number of studies that support, question/oppose, or are undecided/inconclusive about each hypothesis. They also compared the number of supporting studies when the hypothesis was new with the number of supporting studies published recently to determine the decline in support for the hypothesis. Here’s what they found:

Hypothesis	n	% of supporting studies	% of decline in support
Invasional meltdown	30	77%	41%
Novel weapons	23	74%	25%
Enemy release	106	54%	10%
Biotic resistance	129	29%	5%
Tens rule	74	28%	10%
Island Susceptibility	9	11%	25%

Although support is strongest for the invasional meltdown hypothesis, recent studies are less supportive than early studies, indicating substantial decline in supporting evidence. Declining evidence of invasional meltdown is consistent with the fact that exotic species are eventually integrated into the food web which reduces their populations, stabilizing their spread. There is apparently little evidence that islands are more susceptible to invasion than continents and few studies have been done to test the hypothesis.

A survey of invasion biologists in Europe found no consensus regarding the definition of “native” or “invasive.”

If empirical validation and semantic precision are required to establish the credibility of scientific hypotheses, invasion biology has failed that test.

“Precautionary principle of conservation and restoration”

These invasion biologists define the precautionary principle of conservation and restoration as follows: “we should seek to reestablish –or emulate, insofar as possible—the historical trajectory of ecosystems, before they were deflected by human activity.” This is an unusual use of the precautionary principle, which is more typically defined as avoiding damage to the environment by not using potentially harmful methods, even in the absence of solid evidence of such harm. The precautionary principle was not used when the following “restoration” projects were defined or implemented:

California Clapper Rail. British Wikipedia

The precautionary principle was clearly not used before the population of endangered California Clapper Rail was decimated by the eradication of non-native spartina on the entire West Coast, which was providing superior nesting cover for this rare, shy bird. The precautionary principle also would have precluded the use of an herbicide in that project which was untested on shore birds.
Nor was the precautionary principle used when plans were developed to aerial bomb 1.3 metric tons of rodenticide on the Farallon Islands for the stated purpose of killing mice that are the preferred prey of an average population of six burrowing owls, which are accused of eating the eggs and chicks of a rare bird.
If the precautionary principle had been employed, 15 native moth species in Hawaii might not have been lost when biological controls were introduced to control non-native species. This is just one of many examples of the unintended consequences of such dangerous introductions.

Ivy in the Conservatory in Central Park, New York City

In 1996, Daniel Simberloff made this statement in his publication about the hazards of biological controls: “…are there any protocols for biological-control introductions that would prevent all disasters? Probably not…” (2) Yet, in 2013, he expressed his support for the introduction of non-native insects to control cape ivy at a conference at UC Davis sponsored by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Although cape ivy is despised by native plant advocates, it is not an agricultural pest and therefore causes no economic damage to ecosystems, unless money is wasted on attempts to eradicate it.

“All ecosystems should be considered candidates for restoration”

In response to those who find value in novel ecosystems, these invasion biologists find none. They reject the possibility that there is ever a point at which it may not be possible to re-create a historical landscape. They continue to believe that ANY and ALL radically altered landscapes CAN and SHOULD be considered candidates for restoration. Their only caveat to this universal goal is that “damaged ecosystems…should be evaluated for feasibility, desirability, and cost-effectiveness, on a case-by-case basis, so that informed and science-based policy decisions can be made, in consultations with scientists, restoration practitioners, stakeholders, and advisors.”

These criteria for potential “restoration” have nothing to do with reality:

Most projects in the San Francisco Bay Area have not provided cost estimates when they were planned. The public demanded cost estimates for the projects of the Natural Areas Program in San Francisco, but these demands were ignored. Therefore, “cost-effectiveness” is not usually considered when these projects have been shoved down the public’s throat.
We consider the public to be “stakeholders” in decisions to radically alter our public open spaces. We are the visitors to these areas and our tax dollars pay for their acquisition, maintenance, and “restoration.” Yet, managers of public land are consistently making those decisions without taking the public’s opinion into consideration. Most projects are planned and executed without any public participation. In the few cases in which there are environmental impact reviews, the projects are implemented regardless of overwhelming opposition of the public.

“Human-damaged ecosystems can be at least partially restored”

The demonstrated futility of “restoration” projects is one of many reasons why there is waning public support for attempting them. Yet, invasion biologists who authored this diatribe claim that “restored sites recovered on average 80-86% of biodiversity and ecosystem services…and showed improvements of 125-144% over degraded ones.” This claim is contradicted both by other scientific studies and by experience with local projects:

“…this paper analyses 249 plant species reintroductions worldwide by assessing the methods used and the results obtained from these reintroduction experiments…Results indicate that survival, flowering and fruiting rates of reintroduced plants are generally quite low (on average 52%, 19%, and 16% respectively). Furthermore, our results show a success rate decline in individual experiments with time. Survival rates reported in the literature are also much higher (78% on average) than those mentioned by survey participants (33% on average).” (3)
Dunnigan Test Plot, August 2011. The result of an eight-year effort to restore native grassland. Does it look “biodiverse?” ecoseed.com.

There is frequently a discrepancy between the success rates claimed in papers and those actually observed. For example, Cal-Trans gave researchers at UC Davis $450,000 to restore 2 acres of non-native annual grassland to native grassland. UC Davis researchers spent 8 years and used multiple methods to achieve this transition. When they ran out of money, they declared success in their published report. They defined success as 50% native plants which they expected to last 10 years before being entirely replaced by non-native annual grasses again. Do you consider that a success?
On a more anecdotal level, we watch established landscapes that have required no maintenance in the past being transformed into weedy messes by failed “restoration” projects. Then, adding insult to injury, we hear those who are responsible for these failures tell us how successful they are.

“Inadequate political will”

The authors of this publication conclude:

“No proof of ecological thresholds that would prevent restoration has ever been demonstrated. Often the threshold that obstructs a restoration project is not its ecological feasibility, but its cost, and the political will to commit to such cost.” (1)

We are reminded of an old football adage: “The best defense is a good offense.” In other words, invasion biology is under fire, but the reaction of invasion biologists is to demand more….more money, more effort, and the commitment of public land managers to “restore” all ecosystems, regardless of what the public wants. And in support of that aggressive strategy, they refuse to acknowledge the damage that is being done to the environment and the animals that live in it, by the projects they demand.

The authors of this defensive tirade have hammered another nail in the coffin of invasion biology.

Carolina Murcia, James Aronson, Gustavo Kattan, David Moreno-Mateos, Kingsley Dixon, Daniel Simberloff, “A critique of the ‘novel ecosystem’ concept,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, October 2014, Vol. 29, No. 10
Daniel Simberloff and Peter Stiling, “How Risky is Biological Control?” Ecology, 77(7), 1996, pp 1965-1974
Sandrine Godefroid, et. al., “How successful are plant species reintroductions?” Biological Conservation, 144, Issue 2, February 2011

Where does it end?

It is our pleasure to republish with permission a post from the website of Flood Creek Non-Nativist Landcare Group. Flood Creek is located in Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia. Across Australia, Landcare is a popular volunteer-based environmental movement which enjoys general support from government in the form of occasional financial grants. Over the last 25 years, many Landcare groups have undertaken projects with the stated goal of eradicating non-native plants based on a belief that native plants and animals would benefit. That strategy will sound familiar to our readers, as will the damage to the environment which it causes.

The Non-Nativist Landcare Group is a small team of people with a history of participation in Landcare who want to foster a discussion of current nativist approaches to environmental management, and question their outcomes. Based on their experiences with conventional Landcare projects, the Non-Nativist Landcare Group has concluded that these often do more harm than good. The Group describes their mission: “Above all, this discussion is inspired by the goal of taking a more ecologically-based and functional approach to Australian socio-ecological systems and their health. We seek to highlight the inconvenient-truth that rational environmental management can never be based upon a simple mantra of “natives good, non-natives bad”. Extermination is rarely an effective way to promote landscape diversity and resilience.”

Please visit their website and wish them well in their effort to find a less destructive approach to land management.

When you look at the willful and wanton environmental destruction conveyed in these photographs you must ask yourself: ‘how could anyone do this in the name of environmentalism?’ After all the disturbance we’ve already inflicted upon this biosphere, how is this really helping?

In this example of willow demolition, the trees were cut down and dragged away and the stumps were poisoned. Then (for some unfathomable reason) a drainage ditch was excavated into the floodplain. In the photo below, the main flow-line is 40m off to the left.

Apart from the economic motives at play (a theme for a future post), I can think of only one reason why an ‘environmentalist’ might condone this kind of damage and disturbance. It must be to do with that old adage, ‘the end justifies the means‘.

The reasoning seems to be: ‘Sure, it makes a big mess and causes erosion, and nutrient release, and carbon emissions, and local temperature increases, and loss of habitat, but it’s necessary because we’re going to make Australia a place for natives-only again.’

So that’s the end we’re aiming for: a ‘native-only’ Australia. And these photos show the means we must accept along the way. It seems we’re just going to remove all of the non-natives from this continent so the environment is back to ‘pristine’ again and then we can stop with the chainsaws and excavators and herbicides in the name of ‘saving’ the environment.

We just want 1788-Australia back. Presumably without the dingoes and without the previous intrinsic Aboriginal management; plus with a few minor additions like cattle; and sheep; and horses; and apples; and asparagus; and hops; and wheat; and rice; and trout; and tomatoes; and lettuce; and cats; and dogs; and goldfish; and maybe just one or two other things, but that’s it! And we want all the ‘invasive’ natives, like Cootamundra Wattle, and Sweet Pittosporum, and Kookaburras to know their place and to go back where they were when Europeans first arrived….And stay there forever and ever….And not move just because the climate or fire regime has changed. And this won’t happen by itself so we’ll need funding and legislation and heavy machinery. And we’re going to fix it all ‘real good’ without knowing what it was actually like or exactly what species existed in many parts of the country back in 1788. And….and…..

….And then again……When you think about it…..Are we ever actually going to achieve anything even remotely approaching a native Australia?…..really?

I doubt it.

And I’d doubt the sincerity (or sanity) of anyone who says that we could. Surely nobody actually believes this?

So, given this impossibility, it seems pretty reasonable to ask ourselves: ‘how can the end justify the means, when it’s clear there really is no conceivable end?’ If it just goes on and on forever, then how do we justify these means to no end at all? How do we live with this permanent state of expensive self-congratulatory environmental vandalism?

More importantly, given how well-supported the above activities currently are, how do objecting grassroots Landcarers begin to articulate new ways to work with the adaptive living-landscapes around us? And how do we influence the direction of our own movement so that participation in Landcare is not assumed to mean support for this destruction?

All the death and destruction in these photographs is familiar to us here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The only difference is that the trees that were destroyed in this project were willows, which are native in California, but not native in Australia. That difference helps us appreciate the arbitrariness of nativism, which treats eucalyptus as demons and willows as the “good” trees in California.

We have yet to witness a “restoration” that wasn’t far more destructive than constructive. And based on our experience in the San Francisco Bay Area, we can venture an answer to the rhetorical question, “Where does it end?” It doesn’t end because every “restoration” is quickly occupied again by the plants that were destroyed by herbicide applications. As long as the objective continues to be to kill everything non-native and re-populate a landscape with native plants, the project will never be complete.

Therefore, it only ends when the goal is revised and/or the effort is no longer funded. And the only way to achieve that revised goal is for the public to object to the destruction of their public lands. So, if you are tired of witnessing these destructive projects, speak up! Tell your elected representatives that you don’t want your tax dollars spent on the pointless ruin of public open space.

Parks of New York City

Perhaps it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that New York City is the center of America’s cultural universe, but when it comes to park history and design, it’s an accurate accolade. It is the home of the first major park in the country, Central Park, as well as the most modern park innovation, High Line Park, an elevated railroad re-purposed into an urban trail park. We will visit those parks in today’s post and think about what has changed and what remains the same in the 150 years that separate the design of those quintessentially American parks.

Central Park

Central Park was designed and built by Frederick Law Olmstead and Albert Vaux before the Civil War. It opened in 1857 to great fanfare and has been as central to the vitality of New York City as its name implies, since its opening. It reflects the design sensibilities of Olmstead and the engineering genius of Vaux. It looks completely natural, but virtually everything in it—its lakes, its streams, its hills—was constructed.

Olmstead was partial to a green landscape with long vistas across meadows and lakes. He wasn’t inclined to plant colorful flowerbeds, though he could oblige when his clients demanded it. The trees and plants he chose for Central Park were as likely to be native to New York as not. His previous experience in agriculture informed his choices so survival of the landscape was ensured.

It’s not a coincidence that Olmstead’s plant list was not confined to native species because the concept of “nativeness” wasn’t defined when Central Park was designed. “The modern division of species into native and alien first appears in the writings of Hewett Cottrell (H.C.) Watson in the mid-nineteenth century.” Watson was an amateur British botanist who was aware that some plant species had been introduced to Britain and he decided that some sort of classification system was needed to keep track of such species. “He was the first to define ‘native’ in the modern sense: ‘apparently an aboriginal British species, there being little or no reason for supposing it to have been introduced by human agency.’” (1)

Watson acknowledged that distinguishing between aboriginal and introduced species wasn’t easy and he did not consider introduced species inferior to aboriginal species. For the next one hundred years, opinions of the relative merits of aliens and natives varied. Sometimes aliens were considered a problem and sometimes they were considered a benefit to ecosystems. Sometimes such problems were attributed to the introduced plants and sometimes they were attributed to underlying factors.

“All this changed in 1958 with the publication of Charles Elton’s book The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants. Today’s invasion biologists, if questioned, generally claim Elton’s book as their inspiration, and it has been described as signaling ‘the beginning of the field of invasion biology…’ But in many ways it is an odd book. It isn’t a scientific book in the usually accepted sense, nor is it a textbook. It is in fact a popular polemic, based to a large extent on a series of radio talks that Elton gave to the BBC. But what is not in doubt is that it sits squarely in the tradition of blaming introduced species for practically any environmental ill you care to mention…” (1)

Olmstead was not burdened by the constraints of nativism in the 1850s and so he was free to plant whatever he considered beautiful and suited to the climate and conditions in New York. We are fortunate to have this living evidence today that native and non-native plants survive and thrive together in Central Park. Central Park is the home of hundreds of species of birds and the temporary home of hundreds more species of migratory birds every spring and fall.

High Line Park

The High Line began in 1846 as a railroad line on the West Side of Manhattan, which transported unprocessed meat to the meat processing district and processed meats out of Manhattan. In 1934, after many people were killed in collisions with the train, 13 miles of train were elevated 30 feet above the street, bypassing the cross-traffic from 34^th Street to St. John’s Park Terminal at Spring Street. In 1980, the last train on the High Line transported frozen turkeys from the meat processing district. Soon thereafter, neighbors organized to prevent the demolition of the High Line. The re-creation of the High Line as a park began in 2006.

Landscape of first phase of High Line Park

The first phase of High Line Park opened in 2009, the second phase in 2011, and the third opened on September 21, 2014. All three phases opened to rave reviews. The park became an instant success both with New Yorkers and with tourists. Over 5 million people visit the High Line every year. Having seen it, we can report it is no mystery why it is so popular. It is a safe walk above the congested streets of New York with fabulous views of the Hudson River, the surrounding neighborhood, and the dramatic skyline of the Manhattan.

But the beauty and functionality of the park is not its only virtue. It has transformed this formerly industrial neighborhood. The surrounding neighborhood is dotted with cranes engaged in building valuable new residential properties. Existing buildings are now covered with art to entertain visitors to the High Line. The entire neighborhood has been revitalized by the development of this new, innovative re-creation of the City’s past. It was atrociously expensive to transform the High Line into a park, but the park has already repaid the investment.

Self-Seeded landscape of Phase 3 of High Line Park

The design of the third and final portion of the High Line is different from its predecessors. Perhaps to reduce costs, the third section has retained many of the original structures of the railroad, including its weedy landscape. The landscape is described as “self-seeded,” which is another way of saying that it is populated by the weeds that blew into the railroad ties during its 30-year fallow period. The plant list of the High Line reflects its eclectic origins. It is a mix of natives and non-natives, including many reviled by native plant advocates such as Tree of Heaven. What is remarkable about the landscape in the third section is how similar it is to the earlier sections, which were planted. In other words, achieving a “naturalistic” landscape bears some resemblance to the weeds of a vacant lot. The final section of the High Line is no less charming and beautiful than its landscaped predecessors.

The High Line, like many parks in New York City, contains many enterprises that provide food and entertainment to its visitors. Such enterprises are very controversial in San Francisco, where many park advocates consider them intruders. We enjoyed a handmade cup of coffee on the High Line and wondered why San Franciscans have such a purist view of what “belongs” in their parks.

Comparing New York City with San Francisco

As we said when we began, we consider New York City the center of America’s cultural universe. We are therefore encouraged that we found no evidence that New York City’s park system is dominated by nativism. Their parks are both more beautiful and better maintained than those in San Francisco. We suspect that San Francisco’s obsession with native plants has handicapped its ability to maintain beautiful parks because the plants that are native to San Francisco are brown and dormant much of the year. New Yorkers looked back to their city’s 19^th Century past to resurrect the High Line, while some San Franciscans are demanding a return to an 18^th century landscape.

We also believe that San Franciscan’s objection to enterprises in their parks is one of the reasons why there isn’t enough money to maintain the parks to the same standard as the parks of New York City.

There are undoubtedly other factors at play. The parks of New York City are heavily subsidized by wealthy foundations. Its wealthy residents have been generous with the parks of New York City. However, San Francisco is rapidly becoming as expensive a place to live as New York, so we wonder why our parks can’t enjoy the same level of support. Is San Francisco’s “natives-only” approach to landscaping making our parks less attractive to potential donors?

Can you think of other reasons why San Francisco’s parks look so seedy compared to the parks of New York City?

(1) Ken Thompson, Where do camels belong?, Greystone Books, 2014

Evolutionary advantage of introduced species

We have often wondered why so many plants and animals introduced to North America become invasive, compared to species introduced to Europe. In California, there are about 200 plants on the inventory of “invasive” plants. In Britain, there are only about a dozen plants considered “invasive.” In past articles, we have speculated that Americans are using different standards to determine invasiveness and that may be a factor. But now scientists, Jason Fridley and Dov Sax have recently reported the empirical evidence that suggests some regions are more vulnerable to invasion than others because of competitive advantages of species from regions with longer evolutionary histories. In fact, Charles Darwin is the original author of this theory:

“Darwin (1859) observed that because ‘natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates, such that, we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country…being beaten and supplanted by naturalized productions from another land.’ Darwin’s view, one of the earliest on biological invasions, presents invasion as an expectation of natural selection – a view largely absent from modern invasion biology. Darwin further suggested that species from larger regions, represented by more individuals, has ‘consequently been advanced through natural selection and competition to a higher stage of perfection of dominating power’ and therefore be expected to beat ‘less powerful’ forms found in other regions.” (1)

Based on Darwin’s speculation, Fridley and Sax formulated the evolutionary imbalance hypothesis, based on three postulates:

Evolution is essentially an infinite series of experiments as each generation is tested by the conditions they encounter. The more tests the species passes by surviving and reproducing, the more fit the species is to face the next test.
The number of such experiments vary by region that differ in size and biotic history, which influences the intensity of competition each species encounters.
“Similar sets of ecological conditions exist around the world” thereby facilitating the movement of species from their native ranges to new ranges.

It follows from these postulates that when species from previously isolated habitats are mixed, some species will be more fit than others for any given set of conditions. In other words, they have an evolutionary advantage by virtue of having faced more competition for a longer period of time. These are the environmental conditions that are likely to confer such an evolutionary advantage:

Larger regions with large expanses of habitat usually have larger populations of species. Larger populations have more genetic variation, which provides more opportunities for natural selection to choose a “winning” genetic combination.
Also, more stable environments enable lineages to survive for longer periods of time. The longer the opportunity for natural selection to operate, the more fit the surviving lineage.
The greater the competition each species experiences, the more fit the surviving species is likely to be. Therefore, species occupying diverse habitats are likely to be more fit than species in less diverse habitats.

The authors of this new study tested these hypotheses in three geographic areas that have well-documented non-native floras, including Eastern North American, the Czech Republic, and New Zealand. For example, the climate of the Northeast of America is similar to East Asia. Some of the most destructive invasive species in the Northeast are from East Asia, such as the emerald ash borer. Yet species from North America do not become invasive when introduced to East Asia. Species from East Asia have a much longer evolutionary history than species native to the Northeast because much of the United States was buried in glaciers during the Ice Ages, while East Asia was not. (2) The longer evolutionary history of East Asia makes East Asian species “fitter” and more likely to be successful in North America, while North American species are less successful in East Asia.

Failure of the competing theory

Invasion biology is the competing theory of why introduced species become invasive when introduced outside their native ranges. It is a theory that turns its back on evolutionary theory by assuming that plants and animals are incapable of adapting to changed conditions. Invasion biology assumes that introduced plants become invasive because they leave their predators behind. This is the predator release theory which also implies that introduced plants are not useful to native animals.

The problem with the predator release theory is that there is no empirical evidence that supports it. For example, equal numbers of insects are consistently found in native and non-native habitats. And when empirical studies claim to have found evidence of predator release, sampling errors have discredited those studies:

“For example, one study found fewer parasitic worms in introduced starlings in North America than in the entire native range of Europe and Asia. But once allowance was made for the actual local source of the starlings, the difference disappears: various evidence suggests starlings arrived in North America via Liverpool, and American starlings have most of the parasites of Liverpool starlings, plus quite a few others, either American natives or European parasites introduced with other birds. In fact, American starlings have more parasites than are found in the likely source population.” (3)

Starling in breeding plumage. Creative Commons - Share Alike — Starling in breeding plumage. Creative Commons – Share Alike

“Resistance is futile”

And so we add the evolutionary imbalance hypothesis to the long list of reasons why we are opposed to fruitless attempts to eradicate well established non-native species of plants and animals:

The methods used to eradicate non-native species are harmful to the environment: pesticides, prescribed burns, destruction of species that are performing valuable ecological functions such as healthy trees.
Attempting to eradicate non-native species rarely addresses the underlying cause of their existence. Therefore, natives rarely return when non-natives are eradicated because they are no longer adapted to the changed environmental conditions. For example, tamarisk dominates in the southwest because there is no longer enough water available to support the willows that were native to riparian corridors.
The climate has changed and will continue to change. Therefore, native plants and animals are no longer adapted in much of their historical ranges.

And now we know that many invasive species have evolutionary advantages over the native species they have displaced: “The evolutionary imbalance hypothesis…could have a grim implication for conservation biologists trying to preserve native species: They may be fighting millions of years of evolution. If that’s true, the phrase ‘Resistance is futile’ comes to mind.” (2)

Jason Fridley and Dov Sax, “The imbalance of nature: revisiting a Darwinian framework for invasion biology,” Global Ecology and Biogeography, 23, 1157-1166, 2014
Carl Zimmer, “Turning to Darwin to Solve the Mystery of Invasive Species,” New York Times, October 9, 2014
Ken Thompson, Where do camels belong?, Greystone Books, 2014

Escalating war on trees in the East Bay

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been considering grant applications for “fire hazard mitigation” in the East Bay since 2005, when the first of these applications was submitted. After years of debate about whether or not the projects achieve the stated purpose and at what cost to the taxpayers and the environment, FEMA finally agreed to resolve the controversial issues by mandating an environmental impact review, which began in 2010. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was published in April 2013 and the public comment period on that draft closed in June 2013.

FEMA tells us they received over 3,500 public comments on the draft, so needless to say it is taking some time to analyze and respond to those comments. Based on questions raised by public comments, FEMA sent questions to the applicants in October 2013, requesting clarification of their project plans. The applicants responded in November 2013, by revising their project plans. UC Berkeley and the City of Oakland responded that they now plan to “thin” rather than to remove all non-native trees, consistent with the original intentions of East Bay Regional Park District. FEMA now predicts that the final EIS will be published around the end of 2014.

Grant applicants are champing at the bit

The applicants for these grants are getting restless for award of the grant which will fund the removal of tens of thousands of trees or more. We recently reported to our readers that UC Berkeley began to destroy trees on its property in late August 2014, before the grant has been approved. The trees that were destroyed are still lying on the ground, looking like bonfires waiting to happen.

Some of the hundreds of trees destroyed by UC Berkeley in August 2014

More recently, Claremont Canyon Conservancy has successfully recruited 12 East Bay elected officials to ask FEMA for immediate release of the grant funds, as well as “complete removal” of all eucalyptus trees, rather than thinning as originally proposed by East Bay Regional Park District and as revised by the City of Oakland and UC Berkeley in November 2013. This request was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Contra Costa Times, and ABC TV news. Based on these news sources, as well as the website of the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, we can report that the following East Bay elected officials have signed this request:

City of Oakland
Jean Quan, Mayor of Oakland
Dan Kalb, Oakland City Council
Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland City Council
Larry Reid, Oakland City Council
Libby Schaaf, Oakland City Council

City of Berkeley
Tom Bates, Mayor of Berkeley
Jesse Arreguin, Berkeley City Council
Laurie Capitelli, Berkeley City Council
Susan Wengraf, Berkeley City Council
Gordon Wozniak, Berkeley City Council

State of California
Nancy Skinner, State Assembly
Loni Hancock, State Senate

We have an unsigned copy of a letter to FEMA:

– end letter –

We cannot report with confidence that all these politicians sent the same letter because Oakland Councilman Dan Kalb is the only politician who has responded to our public records request. Mr. Kalb’s request is similar, but requests “funding to remove a substantial number of the eucalyptus trees.” Mr. Kalb’s letter seems to acknowledge that requesting removal of all eucalyptus trees would be inconsistent with the City of Oakland’s November 2013 revision of its original grant application; he says, “I know that the City of Oakland has submitted some revised language as requested by [FEMA].” The elected officials who signed the above letter do not seem to realize that their request contradicts the agreement with FEMA in November 2013 to thin rather than to remove all non-native trees on their properties. Or perhaps they have changed their minds.

This eucalyptus forest at the North Oakland Sports Facility will be destroyed by the City of Oakland. — The City of Oakland wants to destroy this eucalyptus forest at the North Oakland Sports Facility. Note that where they have destroyed eucalyptus in the past, they have not controlled the resprouts. The grey-green small trees near the base of the hill are eucalyptus resprouts.

Stunning display of ignorance

We are rarely surprised by the extreme views of native plant advocates, but the letter sent by East Bay elected officials is a stunning display of ignorance, mendacity, or both:

The claim that native plants are less flammable than non-native plants is entirely fallacious. The indigenous landscape of California is highly flammable as is demonstrated by wildfires throughout California every year. In virtually every case, those wildfires occur in native landscapes.
This statement is not even superficially logical: “thinning will enable the Diablo Winds to blow through the eucalyptus more readily, thus enhancing the fire danger…” Obviously, destroying ALL the trees will provide even less of a barrier to Diablo winds.
The public record does not support the contention that eucalyptus is more flammable than any other type of vegetation. HERE is a report of the public record of the 1991 Oakland wildfire.
Oaks and bays have indeed grown in Clarement Canyon since eucalypts were removed there because it is a riparian corridor where trees are sheltered from the wind and water is funneled to them. However, that is not typical of regrowth after removal of the tree canopy in most locations where eucalypts have been removed. The more likely outcome is non-native annual grasses, as explained HERE by the environmental consultant who evaluated the plans of UC Berkeley. Since fire ignites more readily in grass, fire hazards are not reduced by this transition.

Non-native annual grassland now occupies most of the area where UC Berkeley destroyed 18,000 trees about 10 years ago.

News sources also interviewed Jon Kaufman, a spokesperson for Claremont Canyon Conservancy who expressed his frustration that their desire for the destruction of non-native trees in the East Bay Hills is being delayed by FEMA: “With fire season approaching, it’s a good time to remind FEMA they need to get off their asses.” His insulting approach cannot be called a charm offensive.

Mr. Kaufman is quoted as making the following misstatement of fact: “But Kaufman said no spraying would be involved and that herbicide will be applied topically to the stumps with a brush.” We have heard native plant advocates make this claim many times. Perhaps some of them even believe it. FEMA asked for clarification from grant applicants about their plans for herbicide applications in October 2013. The applicants replied in November 2013 that they will apply Garlon according to the manufacturer’s label.

Mr. Kaufman’s claim that herbicide will not be sprayed is contradicted by the manufacturer of Garlon, DowAgra. The manufacturer describes the method of cut-stump application: “Treat the exposed cambium area and the root collar (exposed bark on the side of the stump) down to the soil line. Be sure to treat the entire circumference of the tree. To ensure effective control on large trees, also treat any exposed roots (knees) that surround the stump.” This method is illustrated on the manufacturer’s website by videos of the applicator using spraying equipment.

The herbicides needed to destroy non-native vegetation are also foliar sprayed, as described by the Draft EIS. It is a fiction that non-native trees and plants can be eradicated without spraying herbicides. The use of large quantities of herbicides is nearly as controversial as the loss of our urban forest.

Are you a voter in Oakland or Berkeley?

If you are a voter in Oakland or Berkeley and you care about the preservation of our urban forest and/or object to the hazards created by spraying our public lands with herbicides, you should know that some of the politicians who signed the letter to FEMA are on the ballot on November 4, 2014. You can take their support for clear cutting all eucalyptus in the Oakland/Berkeley hills into consideration in your vote. Better yet, you could write to them to tell them your opinion of their misguided support for removing all non-native trees on public property. We do not expect our public officials to be experts in horticulture or fire science. However, we think it is irresponsible for public officials to endorse the position of a particular interest group without making an effort to inform themselves of opposing viewpoints.

Here is a list of the candidates you will find on your ballot:

City of Oakland – Candidates for Mayor
Jean Quan http://www.oaklandnet.com/contactmayor.asp
Rebecca Kaplan atlarge@oaklandnet.com
Libby Schaaf lschaaf@oaklandnet.com

City of Berkeley – Candidates for City Council
Jesse Arreguin – District 4 – running unopposed

There is also a petition in opposition to these destructive projects available HERE.

The only logical resolution

One wonders how FEMA can now award grants to the City of Oakland or to UC Berkeley. In November 2013, these public agencies told FEMA, in writing, that they will thin rather than clear cut all non-native trees on their properties. In August 2014, UC Berkeley destroyed all eucalyptus trees on a portion of the project area, which should be a demonstration of UCB’s intentions. Actions speak louder than words, even written words.

In the case of the City of Oakland, elected officials in positions of authority, including the sitting Mayor of Oakland, have contradicted the City of Oakland’s written commitment to FEMA to thin rather than to clear-cut by asking FEMA to immediately release grant funds to clear-cut all eucalyptus from their properties.

How can FEMA trust these agencies to do what they have said in writing they intend to do? The only logical response to the request of these elected officials is to inform UC Berkeley and the City of Oakland that they have effectively rescinded their grant applications.

Mysterious semantics of the native plant movement

In 2000, we wrote a public comment about plans to close areas at Fort Funston for native plant restoration that began with this quotation from Henry David Thoreau:

It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog in our brain and bowels, the primitive vigor of Native in us, that inspires that dream. Thoreau

We chose that quote to introduce our comment about Fort Funston because it is a place that was entirely altered to serve as a military fort, its sand dunes stabilized with ice plant and studded with gun bunkers; it is not a place that is easily imagined as a pristine native landscape. As with most poetry, Thoreau’s exact meaning escaped us, but what resonated was the suggestion that “wildness” exists in our minds, not in the material world. We found comfort in knowing that over 150 years ago, Thoreau was as mystified by the concept of wildness as we are today.

Today, we revisit the question of the meaning of wildness or wilderness, prompted by the publication of an op-ed by Mark Dowie in the Point Reyes Light. (1) Dowie is a journalist who is best known as the author of Conservation Refugees, in which he informs us that hundreds of thousands of indigenous people all over the world have been evicted from their ancestral lands by public and private land owners who believe humans are antithetical to their conservation goals. Dowie tells us that the tradition of evicting humans in the interests of preserving “wilderness” began with the eviction of Native Americans from Yosemite Valley as advocated by John Muir. This concept of preserving land by excluding all human activities is aptly called fortress conservation.

Dowie begins his op-ed in the Light with the observation that some words have “attained such a vague and ambiguous definition that [they have] become virtually meaningless.” The word “sustainability” has attained such status, he says and we agree. But his focus in his op-ed is on the word “wilderness” because it is a word that has become a tool in a dispute about land use in Point Reyes, where Dowie lives.

The National Park Service defines “wilderness”

After a protracted battle that lasted years, the National Park Service was finally successful in shutting down the Drakes Bay Oyster Company based on its contention that the existence of the oyster farm violated a commitment to return the Point Reyes National Seashore to “wilderness.” This was a battle that tore a small community apart and the wounds from that fight are still deep.

Mark Dowie was one of many people who opposed the closing of the oyster farm and he was often eloquent in its defense in the Light. One of many issues in this controversy was the National Park Service’s claim that the oyster farm was harming the environment. Highly qualified scientists debunked that claim and after a review by the National Academy of Science, the claims of the National Park Service were entirely discredited. Unfortunately, that had no influence on the final decision to close the oyster farm.

Within days of the oyster farm closing its retail operation, those who demanded its closure were on the warpath again. In an op-ed published by the Oakland Tribune, William Katz asked the National Park Service to evict ranchers and dairy farmers in Point Reyes: “The European invasion of this side of the continent over just the last 200 years is obviously a done deal. This fact makes it especially necessary to complete the original mandate of the park’s creation by removing the ranchers and their bovine accoutrements and re-establishing a natural area in which we may only be visitors.” The connection between those two sentences eludes us. In fact, they seem contradictory.

Dowie searches for the meaning of “wilderness”

And so, the question of what defines a “wilderness” is still very much alive in Point Reyes. Mark Dowie tells us that he has been actively seeking a meaningful definition for some years. He turned to several indigenous cultures based on the modern assumption that pre-European cultures occupied the elusive “wilderness:”

“Over the next four years of research, I met and conversed with many indigenous people who thrived in landscapes that looked as wild as anywhere I had ever been, whose language had no words for ‘wild,’ or ‘wildness,’ or ‘wilderness.’ Naturally, I began to wonder why societies populated by urbane people who spend most of their lives, if not all of them, on the streets of places like New York City, London, Rome, Los Angeles and Winnipeg do have a word for wilderness. And I wondered what exactly they meant by it, if anything.”

“What I finally figured out about ‘wilderness’ was that it’s really a concept that does not translate well from language to language, especially from western to indigenous languages. So it’s really not the word that has to be translated, but an entire ecological enthnography.”

And so, Dowie turns to those who use the word “wilderness” as their definition of the goal for what our public lands and open spaces should look like and what activities should be allowed in them:

“I recently overheard a debate in which to refine and defend his own personal definition, a local wilderness romantic divided the whole concept into two separate categories—uppercase and lowercase wilderness. Uppercase, he said, was “real” wilderness: vast roadless, trail-free areas occupied by many species, including large predators that want to eat humans. Lowercase wilderness could be found in state and national parks; as virtual or abstract wilderness, it was a cunning, managed artifice of the uppercase version designed to convince eco-tourists that they are having a true wilderness experience. The argument descended from there into such ridiculous semantic subterfuge that I walked away mumbling to myself that wilderness may not be a word at all, or a place for that matter, but as Roderick Nash concludes at the end of his 400-page tome on the subject, merely “a state of mind.” And that if wilderness exists at all, it could be as easily found and appreciated under a bench in Central Park as on the barrens of Baffin Island.”

Some of the stumps of the trees that were destroyed in Glen Canyon Park in 2013. Taken June 2014

Yes, Mr. Dowie, you have indeed found the mysterious meaning of the word “wilderness” as a “bog in the brain,” to quote Mr. Thoreau. We have our own example of a similar debate with native plant advocates about the future of Glen Canyon Park in San Francisco. Our readers will remember Glen Canyon as the scene of the devastating removal of many huge, old trees and the repeated spraying of herbicides to prevent the trees from resprouting and destroy the non-native understory. To those who objected to this destructive project, a native plant advocate responded:

“Please note the term “wilderness.” It implies natural, native flora and fauna; the wild plants and the bird and animal populations that support one another. That is what we want to have if we want a wild retreat. A morass of garden escapes and foreign invasive species is to be deplored. Let’s progress toward returning the area to a REAL wilderness. Do not let the concept that a plant’s becoming established in an area is a sign of its becoming native to the area. It remains an invasive element, a weed. It disrupts and destroys the normal habitat of native plants, animals, and insects in its surroundings. It will be a huge and long term task, but we can restore the entire canyon to a truly wilderness state. Let’s get started!”

In this version of “wilderness,” trees and plants must be sprayed with herbicide and a new landscape planted. The result—if it is successful—will be an entirely artificial landscape. There will be nothing “REAL” about it.

Language is an obstacle to agreement

One of many obstacles to reaching agreement with native plant advocates about the future of our public lands and open spaces is that we don’t share a vocabulary. “Wilderness” is one of many words that cannot be defined by our mutual understanding.

“Sustainability” is another word that is used by native plant advocates, which we believe is inappropriately applied to the projects they demand because it is inconsistent with the realities of climate change and evolution. The landscapes they are creating are no longer adapted to current environmental conditions. They are not sustainable.

“Integrity” has recently become a favorite buzzword of nativists, used to describe their idealized landscape. We have absolutely no idea what that word means in the context of the contrived landscapes they attempt to create.

And so the debate continues with no end in sight. Meanwhile our public lands are being destroyed in response to the demands of native plant advocates. For us the word “wilderness” is now synonymous with “destruction,” which creates a fortress in which humans are not welcome.

(1) Mark Dowie, “The tortured semantics of wilderness,” Point Reyes Light, September 4, 2014