Conservation Sense and Nonsense

Weed Worshipers vs. Weed Warriors

Native plant advocates who volunteer to pull weeds often call themselves “Weed Warriors.” Now there is a countervailing movement of weed advocates who find value in the same plants that are detested by the native plant movement. Weed worshippers are found in the permaculture community because they share a desire to avoid the use of herbicides. We also find them amongst foragers who think of weeds as a source of nutritious, free food. These origins of weed worship come together into a coherent botanical philosophy in a recently published book, The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival, by Katrina Blair. (1)

Ms. Blair grew up in Colorado, in a family that lived close to nature. She developed her interest in wild plants early and has spent her life cultivating that interest both with her formal education and her experiences. She is the founder of Turtle Lake Refuge in Durango, Colorado. This is the mission of Turtle Lake Refuge:

“Our mission is to celebrate the connection between personal health and wild lands. We manifest this goal through promoting and practicing sustainable practices. Examples of our work include growing, harvesting and preparing local, wild and living food for the community, educating about the great values of the wild edible abundance available in our area, providing local micro-greens for the public schools, restaurants and stores…and educating about organic land stewardship practices.”

Turtle Lake Refuge serves lunch in their community twice each week. Here is a sample menu from a spring lunch, which reflects their commitment to “wild edible abundance:”

– Comfrey and hollyhock Green Juice:

Comfrey, hollyhock, lemon and honey

– Miso Soup:

Miso, tamari, fresh chives, cabbage and red onion

– Quinoa Beet Salad:

Sprouted Quinoa, beets, tamari, sunflower oil, ginger and garlic

– Sushi Roll:

Seed cheese, beets, buckwheat sprouts, pea sprouts and avocado

– Poppy seed Lemon Bar:

Buckwheat flour, honey, lemons, cashews psyllium and poppy seeds

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

Why weeds?

Ms. Blair explains why she has selected 13 weeds for her book which are found all over the globe, wherever human civilization is found, that is every continent except Antarctica. They are therefore representative of the plants that often arrive with humans and are capable of surviving whatever changes in the environment accompany human civilization. In a sense, they are symbols of resilience and adaptation in a rapidly changing world. She also tells us why weeds are just as important as the native plants that preceded the arrival of humans:

“Humans are creating change on a large scale at an exceedingly rapid rate, and yet if we try to hold back nature by eradicating every new species that appears on a barren land, we block nature’s progression of adaptation. There is an accepted perspective that change is negative and therefore justifies momentous efforts to block diversity from becoming established for fear that it will alter the native habitat. It is important to remember that “native” habitat only represents a moment in time. All habitats evolve and are changing constantly. If the wild weeds are resilient enough to be able to handle the climate and take root, they play an important role in the evolutionary aspect of nature.” (1)

Dandelions

The thirteen weeds that Ms. Blair chooses to tell us about in her book are: amaranth, chickweed, clover, dandelion, dock, grass, knotweed, lambsquarter, mallow, mustard, plantain, purslane, and thistle. We have chosen the dandelion to illustrate the usefulness of weeds because it is plentiful and well known in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dandelions are found everywhere. The origins of its English name are found in its name in romance languages: diente de leon (Spanish), dent-de-lion (French), diente di leone (Italian). These names all translate to “teeth of the lion” in English, a name that surely derives from the deeply jagged leaf, which apparently suggested the shape of the teeth of the lion. When named by the English, that reference to the shape of the leaf was lost in translation.

Dandelion seeds may have been brought by humans to new homes because they were known to be useful. But dandelions are not dependent upon intentional transport. Their wooly seed heads are dispersed by the wind and readily attach themselves to grazing animals. I remember blowing them into the wind as a child, oblivious to the fact that I was dispersing their seeds in the process.

An early reference to dandelions is found in the writing of the Roman military commander and naturalist, Pliny the Elder in 77 AD. He explained the healing properties of dandelions. Dandelions are used in Chinese herbal medicine—possibly for thousands of years—as well as in Indian traditional medicine, ayurvedic medicine. Ms. Blair uses dandelions to treat a wide variety of medical conditions, from a laxative to an anti-inflammatory which reduces swelling.

Every part of the dandelion, from its roots to its leaves is edible, according to Ms. Blair. The roots are used to make dandelion beer for the annual Dandelion Festival at Turtle Lake Refuge. Dandelion ice cream is also popular at the festival. Ms. Blair provides recipes for Dandelion Pesto, Dandelion Quiche, Dandy Candy, and Dandelion Root Stew. We are most familiar with dandelions as a salad green which adds bite to any salad.

Dandelion is equally useful to bees and butterflies because it is one of the first flowers in the spring.

The Druid’s Garden recently published a post about the usefulness of dandelions, including a description of how they can restore degraded soil.

Ms. Blair makes a similar case for the usefulness of the other 12 members of her weed family.

Opposition to herbicides follows….

As you might expect, if you eat wild plants you are probably opposed to use of herbicides in the places where you forage for your food:

“My deep passion for honoring the wild weeds intensified due to our local city and county’s practices in weed control. Hundreds of gallons of herbicides were being sprayed on the plants in town and on nearby wildlands with the intention of eradicating plant species considered weeds. Since I grew up loving all plants equally, I found it tragic to witness a once healthy plant that was contributing so much richness to our landscape become a twisted and dying being due to poisoning from herbicides. My passion for all plants inspired me to do what I could to change the discriminatory treatment of these noble weeds, who I have come to know as the true heroes of our time.” (1)

Ms. Blair tells the story of how she and her collaborators were successful in convincing the City of Durango to quit using herbicides in public parks. It is both an interesting story and one from which we can learn. They began by showing people how to use the weeds they were killing. The “Dandelion Brigade” harvested dandelions from their neighbors’ lawns and showed them how to make dandelion lemonade and other taste treats. They started an organic lawn service called “Grassroots” which made and distributed organic compost. These efforts convinced the city to create its first chemical-free public park, and eventually a second park. Then their efforts stalled because the city decided these two parks gave the public sufficient chemical-free options.

The second stage of their effort began with a ballot measure that, if passed, would have banned all herbicide use from every public park in Durango, including golf courses. They spent many months lobbying in support of that new ordinance and were confident that it would pass. Apparently the city was afraid it would pass as well and therefore began to negotiate with the supporters of the ordinance. This negotiation resulted in a compromise which accomplished much of what supporters of the ordinance set out to do. Although they still believed in the ordinance as originally written, they decided that a compromise would ultimately result in greater support throughout the community. The first phase of the compromise plan converted over one-third of the parks to organic management. The second phase would slowly transition most parks—except golf courses—to organic management methods.

The process of changing city policies regarding herbicide use was long and difficult. It required both patience and a willingness to meet people halfway by showing them how to substitute for herbicide use and by being willing to compromise.

Local foragers

Ms. Blair is not alone. She is a member of a big and growing movement. The favorable review of Ms. Blair’s book in the New York Times is an indication that foraging and respect for weeds are now in mainstream culture. Closer to home, we have our own contingent of lovers of wild food, which often includes plants commonly considered weeds:

“The Wild Kitchen is a roving underground supper club. From a roof-deck in the Mission one week to a houseboat in Sausalito the next, The Wild Kitchen knows no geographic bounds. One hundred diners sit around the communal table, enjoying eight course meals, each course highlighting a sustainably foraged ingredient from the local landscape. These meals connect the eater with their natural surroundings in a new way. The Wild Kitchen brings eaters together to grow community around the foods nature provides.”
“Reaping without Sowing: Urban Foraging and Berkeley Open Source Food” is a research project at UC Berkeley which is “studying the availability, nutritional value, and possible toxicity of wild edibles that volunteer in urban food deserts. Our research hypothesis is that in many such areas, there is a free, abundant source of nutritious fresh food: edible weeds.” The project identifies both native and non-native edible plants growing wild in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Quinoa plant – photo by Christian Guthier from Flickr

Quinoa is a specialty food item, found in high-end stores such as Whole Foods. It is growing wild along roadsides in Los Angeles because it is a plant that thrives on disturbance. Quinoa is an example of a plant that is adapted to human civilization and is also a source of food.

We hope that the foraging movement will grow and eventually become as strong and influential as the native plant movement has been in the past. And we hope that herbicide use in our public lands will be abandoned in the process of making the transition from venerating native plants to respecting ALL plants.

Katrina Blair, The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival, Chelsea Green, 2014

Annual Report (prepared by WordPress)

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here's an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 32,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 12 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

2014 Wrap-Up and 2015 Preview

Our last post of 2014 will summarize wins and losses in our effort to save our urban forest and preview the local issues that remain unresolved. 2014 has been a year of many accomplishments, but there have been disappointments as well.

2014 Accomplishments

Good news always comes first! We are most grateful for the hard work of the San Francisco team with whom we collaborate. After herculean effort, they completed most of the presentations to the members of the Board of Supervisors about the forthcoming approval process for the Environmental Impact Review of San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program, which has been in the works for eight years…and still counting. We are advocating for the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors to approve the “environmentally superior” Maintenance Alternative, which would enable the Natural Areas Program to maintain the native gardens they have created in the past 15 years, but would prohibit expansion of those gardens. The Maintenance Alternative could save about 18,500 healthy non-native trees from being needlessly destroyed and significantly decrease herbicide use in our parks.

Because native plant advocates have succeeded in convincing many politicians that their projects are “science-based,” the San Francisco team was particularly glad to have three lectures at the Commonwealth Club by academic scientists, which challenged the unfounded assumptions of the native plant ideology:

Dr. Scott Carroll, “Conciliation Biology: An Approach to Conservation that Reconciles Past, Present and Future Landscapes in Nature”
Professor Arthur M. Shapiro, “Ecological Communities and the March of Time”
Professor Joe R. McBride, “The History, Ecology and Future of Eucalyptus Plantations in the Bay Area”

These presentations were very well attended, including by native plant advocates. They were entirely successful from our standpoint, though they seem to have had little influence on the opinions of native plant advocates, many of whom seemed not to understand the scientific information being presented.

In March 2014, UCSF announced that they have put their plans to destroy most trees on Mount Sutro on indefinite hold. This decision was made in response to the public’s overwhelming opposition to these plans during the public comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Report in March 2013. However, UCSF has destroyed about 1,200 trees during the past 18 months which they claimed would mitigate immediate hazards. UCSF has also made a commitment to not using herbicides on Mount Sutro. UCSF has provided no estimated time frame for announcing a new plan. Please visit Save Mount Sutro Forest for a more detailed description of that announcement. We consider this a “holding pattern” because we know that UCSF is under constant pressure from those who want the Sutro Forest to be destroyed.

Invasion biology is being revised by academic scientists who inform us that empirical studies do not support the hypotheses of invasion biology. Here are a few of the highlights from the scientific literature:

Climate change is rendering the concept of “native” irrelevant. The ranges of plants and animals have changed and will continue to change in the future, as they have many times in the past 500 million years.
Plants and animals from places with long, stable evolutionary histories have adaptive advantages over those with a shorter evolutionary history. It may be futile to attempt to eradicate species with such adaptive advantages.
There is no evidence that biodiversity has decreased anywhere in the world as a result of introduced species.

Likewise, mainstream media has become more even-handed in its coverage of invasion biology and native plant “restorations.” Here are a few specific examples:

National Geographic has published a critique of invasion biology by Emma Marris. This represents a change of direction for National Geographic which has been consistently supportive of invasion biology in the past.
The San Francisco Examiner published an op-ed about the Natural Areas Program, which was critical of both the program and its cost.
The Nature Conservancy explicitly stated on its website that it is not necessary to eradicate eucalyptus in California.

2014 Disappointments

The publication of the final Environmental Impact Statement for FEMA projects in the East Bay Hills was the biggest disappointment of 2014. There were over 13,000 public comments on the draft and they were overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed projects. Yet, the projects are fundamentally unchanged by the final EIS, which will be officially approved by a “Decision of Record” on January 5, 2015. We are grateful to the Hills Conservation Network for their continuing opposition to these projects and we urge our readers to support their effort.

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

We were outraged by UC Berkeley’s destruction of hundreds of non-native trees on their property in August 2014, prior to the approval of these FEMA grants. And we were also appalled by the letters sent to FEMA by elected officials in the East Bay in July, demanding that funding be immediately released and approved for use to destroy all non-native trees on their properties.

In San Francisco, our biggest disappointment of 2014 was the approval of the revised Recreation and Open Space Element (ROSE) of the city’s General Plan, which has committed the city to managing all open space as “natural areas.” The ROSE defines “natural areas” so broadly that it includes not only areas that currently contain existing remnants of SF’s pre-settlement habitat, but also areas that could support native plants if they were planted there, or, in other words, nearly all open space in SF, including people’s back yards. This policy commits the city to managing nearly ALL open space in San Francisco, including that in private hands, the same way as the Natural Areas Program manages its lands. As disappointing as that decision was, it was also instrumental in producing one of the biggest accomplishments of 2014. We were successful in convincing the State of California to decline to fund a grant application which would have implemented the plans to convert all open space in San Francisco to native plant gardens. That so-called “biodiversity program” continues, but is presumably handicapped by the loss of that fund source.

Looking forward in 2015

In the past six months, the San Francisco team has devoted a great deal of time and effort to influencing the city’s Urban Forestry Council (UFC) to adopt “best management practices” that would discourage the destruction of healthy trees. The UFC has hosted a “listening series” of presentations by those who advocate for the eradication of eucalyptus forests as well as those who are opposed to that destruction. Native plant advocates have introduced new justifications for destroying the eucalyptus forests:

They claim that eucalyptus forests are dying of disease, drought, old-age, etc. We have sought the advice of many professional arborists and academic ecologists who assure us these claims are inaccurate.
They claim that the health of the eucalyptus forests would be improved by radical “thinning.” The scientific literature informs us that mature forests do not benefit from thinning because mature trees are unable to respond positively to increased light and wind. Thinning is only beneficial to young trees and even then, the disturbance can damage the trees that remain. Radical thinning of the mature eucalyptus forest is likely to destroy the few trees that will remain.

The UFC has completed its listening series and will probably reach its conclusions in 2015. Based on the meetings we have attended and the conversations we have had with members of the UFC, we are not hopeful about the outcome. They seem to be sympathetic to the demands of those who want the non-native forests of San Francisco to be destroyed. In that case, their “best management practices” could be specifically supportive of the plans of the Natural Areas Program to destroy 18,500 trees in San Francisco and Pacifica. If you would like to express your opinion to the Urban Forestry Council, you can write to them here: SFUrbanForestCouncil@sfgov.org.

We also expect the final Environmental Impact Report for San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program to be published in 2015. We will make our best effort to convince the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors to approve the Maintenance Alternative. However, we should all understand that the lack of an approved EIR does not seem to have prevented the Natural Areas Program from destroying trees whenever and wherever they wish. Many trees (perhaps a few hundred) in Glen Canyon Park, McLaren Park and Pine Lake in Stern Grove have been destroyed without an approved Environmental Impact Report. In other words, the Environmental Impact Report seems increasingly irrelevant to what is actually being done in our parks.

A few of the trees destroyed recently in Pine Lake "natural area" — A few of the trees destroyed recently in Pine Lake “natural area”

The President of the San Francisco Forest Alliance, Carolyn Johnston, ran for a seat on the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Group of the Sierra Club. If you follow the controversy about the Natural Areas Program in San Francisco, you may be aware of the Sierra Club’s role in supporting the nativist agenda (HERE is an example of their role). Carolyn lost by only 6 votes. If everyone in San Francisco who abandoned the Sierra Club because of its support for turning urban parks into native plant gardens, would renew their membership, maybe we could win a seat next year. We are grateful to Carolyn for running.

We also expect a final response from the California Invasive Plant Council to our request that Blue Gum eucalyptus be removed from its list of “invasive” plants.

In summary

Science is rapidly revising the unfounded assumptions of invasion biology and climate change is making the concept of “native” meaningless. But these realities are having no apparent influence on public policy, which seems to be immune to such facts. Popular culture always lags behind science.

Million Trees is changing its emphasis in response to these political realities. In 2015, we will focus on the science that is revising invasion biology because that’s where progress is being made. This type of research is both difficult and time-consuming for us because we do the background reading to understand the scientific literature and produce accurate reports that are accessible to the layperson. We therefore expect to publish new articles only once each month in 2015. As always, we invite guest authors to step forward with news of new developments that we are not covering.

Thank you for your readership in 2014 and for any help you gave us in 2014 on our various initiatives. We wish you all a Happy New Year in 2015.

Taking a mushroom break for the holidays

Let’s take a break for the holidays from the often unpleasant chore of debunking invasion biology and reporting on the destructive projects it spawns. We will share some photos of the mushrooms in our neighborhood. There is a bumper crop this year because of the heavy rains after several years of dry weather. They don’t last long, so let’s enjoy them while they’re here.

We know next to nothing about mushrooms and in the spirit of a holiday break we haven’t done any research in preparation for this post. If there is someone amongst our readers who knows something about mushrooms, we invite you to correct anything we’re saying or add any information that might interest others. And in the interest of public safety, our readers should understand that we assume none of the mushrooms we have photographed are edible.

Mushrooms are the “fruiting bodies” of the fungi that live underground. They emerge briefly to distribute the spores that will disperse fungi farther afield. In other words, mushrooms are sort of analogous to the flowers and fruits of plants, where reproduction occurs.

Here are a few mushrooms now blooming in our neighborhood:

Not the prettiest mushroom, but one of the biggest. This one was over 12 inches wide.

This colony of mushrooms was even bigger!

Hundreds of tiny mushrooms growing out of the trunk of a big magnolia tree.

Here are a few mushrooms taken in San Francisco’s parks in December 2012 by Janet Kessler and published by the San Francisco Forest Alliance. We republish here with permission.

Addendum: One of our readers has sent us pictures of mushrooms taken recently in her neighborhood in San Francisco. She has identified these mushrooms.

Mature Parasols - note hand for size comparison — Mature Parasols – note hand for size comparison

Cage fungus. The odor will attract flies into the cage.

Happy Holidays and thank you for your readership!

Final Environmental Impact Statement for FEMA projects in the East Bay is NOT an improvement!

On December 1, 2014, FEMA published the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the projects in the East Bay Hills which propose to destroy hundreds of thousands of non-native trees. FEMA’s email announcement of the publication of the EIS implied that the projects had been revised. Two of the agencies applying for FEMA grants—UC Berkeley and City of Oakland—had originally proposed to destroy all non-native trees on their properties. The third agency –East Bay Regional Parks District—had proposed to thin non-native trees in most areas and destroy all in a few areas. FEMA’s email announcement of the final EIS implied that both UC Berkeley and City of Oakland would be required to use the same “thinning” strategy as East Bay Regional Parks District.

After reading the final EIS, the Hills Conservation Network (HCN) is reporting that FEMA’s email announcement was rather misleading. In fact, both UC Berkeley and City of Oakland will be allowed to destroy all non-native trees on their properties. In a small sub-section (28.5 acres) of their total project acres (406.2 acres), UC Berkeley and City of Oakland are being asked by FEMA to destroy the trees more slowly than originally planned. However, they will all be destroyed by the end of the 10 year project period.

HCN has analyzed the EIS and consulted legal counsel. The following is HCN’s assessment of the EIS and their plans to respond to FEMA. We publish HCN’s assessment with their permission. Note that HCN is asking the public to send comments to FEMA and they are raising funds to prepare for a potential legal suit.

“After having reviewed the Final EIS in depth and having consulted with various stakeholders, HCN has concluded that the Final EIS, in spite of FEMA’s efforts to improve it from the Draft version, remains unacceptable.

While FEMA has made some modifications to portions of the EIS in response to the enormous number of comments submitted last year [more than 13,000], the fact remains that if implemented in their current form, these projects would remove essentially all of the eucalyptus, pines, and acacias from the subject area. While for portions of the area FEMA is now proposing that there be a phased removal of these species, the fact remains that the objective is ultimately to convert the current moist and verdant ecosystem into one dominated by grasses, shrubs, and some smaller trees. This will forever alter the character of these hills that so many of us have grown up with, know and love.

But worse than that, these projects would actually increase fire risk, destabilize hillsides, cause immense loss of habitat, release significant amounts of sequestered greenhouse gases, and require the use of extraordinary amounts of herbicides over a large area for at least a decade.

Additionally, by preemptively clearcutting 7 acres of Frowning Ridge in August of this year, UC not only made a clear violation of FEMA rules but also essentially negated the accuracy and relevance of the EIS. While FEMA acknowledges this in the EIS, they still want to move forward with a document that may no longer accurately reflect the reality of the current environment, the cumulative impacts of these projects, and any of the other factors that underpin the EIS process.

For these reasons, HCN will be submitting a comment letter to FEMA asking that the EIS be pulled back, reworked, and recirculated….at a minimum. Additionally, we are currently exploring legal options should the EIS be finally released on January 5, 2015 in its current form. One way or another, we are committed to ensuring that the will of a small number of influential people doesn’t result in the loss of a treasured resource to the vast majority of us (both human and other).

We ask your support in sending additional comment letters to FEMA [ebh-eis@fema.dhs.gov] and most importantly that you consider making a tax-deductible contribution to HCN. While we wish we did not have to do this, the fact is that the only way we can have a shot at preventing this irreparable harm from happening is by hiring lawyers, and that is what we will do. This takes money, so please do what you can either by sending a check to HCN at P.O. Box 5426, Berkeley, CA 94705 or by making a donation through our website at http://hillsconservationnetwork.org/HillsConservation3/Support_HCN.html.”

Thanks again for all your support,

Hills Conservation Network

Another lame attempt to defend invasion biology

The Editor of an academic journal, Diversity and Distribution, wrote and published a defense of invasion biology (which he prefers to call “invasion science”) entitled, “Misleading criticisms of invasion science: a field guide.” (1) We recently critiqued a similar defense by other invasion biologists, so we’ll “cherry-pick” a few issues from this publication which weren’t covered in our earlier critique.

“Costs and Benefits?”

The authors begin by describing their academic discipline: “Invasion science is the study of the causes and consequences of the introduction of organisms to the areas outside their native ranges. It concerns all aspects relating to the transport, establishment, and spread of organisms in a new target region…and the costs and benefits of invasion with reference to human value systems.” However, the publication makes no mention of any benefits of non-native species nor does it mention the costs to the environment associated with the attempts to eradicate non-native species, such as herbicide use. Non-native species are said to be “far more likely to cause substantial ecological and socio-ecological damage” than to benefit ecosystems and, in any case, if there are any benefits they are said to be “transient.”

Zebra mussels, open underwater with siphons out. Creative Commons

Actually, there is empirical evidence that the negative impacts of non-native species are transient. For example, the population of zebra mussels in the Great Lakes began to decrease significantly within three years when the population of migrating ducks discovered them and altered their migratory route to take advantage of that new food source. And the negative effects of garlic mustard on forest regeneration were significantly decreased within 50 years of its arrival in North American forests.

Monarch butterflies roosting in eucalyptus tree.

Evidence of the benefits of non-native species is too voluminous to enumerate, so we will just offer our local example of the services to wildlife provided by eucalyptus in California. It is one of the few sources of nectar in the winter and is therefore essential to the survival of honeybees and hummingbirds. Eucalyptus is the over-wintering roost of 75% of monarch butterflies in the California migration. It is the preferred nesting habitat for raptors.

We see no evidence in this publication that “costs and benefits” of non-native species have been considered.

Are most “invasions” benign?

The authors respond to the defenders of non-native species who say that most non-native species are benign:

“The impacts of most invasions have not been studied, and so important effects may remain undetected,
Invaders that are apparently innocuous in one region can be disruptive in other regions,
Subtle impacts that may be unrecognizable without careful technical study can produce enormous ecosystem changes over time, and
Many non-native species that currently appear innocuous may become damaging many years later—when it is no longer feasible to eradicate them.” (1)

Here’s how we paraphrase this defense: “We may not have much evidence that non-native species are doing any harm, but we are sure they are doing harm and even if they aren’t doing any harm, we’re sure they will eventually do a great deal of harm.” Does this seem an adequate defense of projects that are eradicating all non-native plants on thousands of acres of public land, using harmful methods such as herbicides and prescribed burns? We think a higher standard of proof is needed to justify such damage to our public lands.

Invasion biologists chastise critics

Invasion biologists are angry that their academic turf is being challenged by other academic scientists:

“In our view, the escalation of cavalier bashing of the discipline is undermining systematic science-based efforts to improve the efficiency of management of problematic non-native species and invaded ecosystems.” (1)

We have seen no “cavalier bashing” of invasion biology. What we have seen, and provided to readers of Million Trees, are many scientific studies which show that the hypotheses of invasion biology are often not supported by evidence from the field. Most of the papers don’t even mention “invasion biology,” they just present their evidence in scientific journals.

We wish it were true that these studies were “undermining management” of non-native species. Unfortunately, we see no evidence that criticisms of invasion biology by academic scientists have any impact on public policy. Every project in the San Francisco Bay Area which is eradicating or proposing to eradicate all non-native species on our public lands is moving inexorably forward. There is no apparent connection between the revision of the hypotheses of invasion biology by academic scientists and the practical application of those out-dated hypotheses by managers of public lands. If the primary goal of invasion biologists is to eradicate non-native species rather than to defend their academic discipline, they seem to have nothing to fear. They would be wise to shut up and let the destruction continue quietly under the public’s radar.

A new round of criticism of invasion biology

Meanwhile, the angry reaction of invasion biologists to criticism of their discipline has not stopped that criticism. Hardly a day goes by without the publication of new critiques of invasion biology by other scientists. Where do camels belong? by Ken Thompson was published in September 2014. It is a full frontal assault on the unfounded assumptions of invasion biology. It is a hard-hitting, often amusing summary of the flaws in the reasoning on which invasion biology was constructed. Although Mr. Thompson is a British academic scientist, his book is written for the general public, drawing on the scientific studies of his colleagues who share his opinion of the fallacies of invasion biology. The book is also unique in mentioning the damage that is done by the fruitless attempts to eradicate firmly entrenched non-native species.

Mr. Thompson was recently interviewed by Canadian public radio. Here is a choice excerpt from that interview:

“He also cautions that our efforts to control or eliminate invasive species can be tremendously expensive, are rarely successful, and often have damaging unintended consequences. For example, the herbicides used to try to eliminate invasive plants often have devastating impact on vulnerable native species. The cure, in some of these cases, is worse than the disease, he says. Professor Thompson says the invasive species we might worry about most is actually us. Humans have spread to every corner of the globe, and altered a huge amount of the planet. ‘We’ve chopped down forests, built dams and turned the whole world into a giant cattle pasture, and then we’re surprised that some species quite like what we’ve done. We shouldn’t be surprised.’”

The publication of Where do camels belong? is one of the few bright spots in 2014, a year full of disappointments for those who value our urban forest in the San Francisco Bay Area. We recommend it to our readers. It may cheer you up as it did us.

Update: Professor Richardson recently published (February 11, 2015) an article in Ensia, an on-line science blog, which was written in response to an earlier article(January 21, 2015) in Ensia by Daniel Simberloff. Professor Simberloff’s article defended “invasion biology” and criticized any acceptance of “novel ecosystems.” Professor Richardson’s response seems to defend “novel ecosystems.” It seems that Professor Richardson has altered his views regarding novel ecosystems since writing his article two years ago about “Misleading criticism of invasion science.” Welcome to reality, Professor Richardson. Updated 4/8/15

David Richardson and Anthony Ricciardi, “Misleading criticisms of invasion science: a field guide,” Diversity and Distribution, 19: 1461-1467, 2013

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.