Jared Farmer – Conservation Sense and Nonsense

Conference of the California Native Plant Society

In January 2015, the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) celebrated its 50^th anniversary by holding a gigantic conference. About 700-1,000 people attended. There were several hundred short presentations and many posters describing research and “restoration” projects. The abstracts of these presentations are available on the CNPS website. We are publishing a brief description of a few of the presentations sent to us by one of our readers who attended the conference. We publish with permission but without attribution, on request. We have added a few edits in brackets and italics as well as a few links to relevant articles on Million Trees.

I was very impressed with the quality of the presentations at the CNPS conference. Some were given by academic scientists or their graduate students. Many were given by land managers and managers of “restoration” projects. There were about 225 presentations in 5 simultaneous sessions, so it was possible to hear only about 45 of them. There were also many short “lightning” presentations and nearly 50 posters. Please consider this an impression of the conference, rather than a comprehensive report.

Michael Soulé was the opening speaker. You might recognize his name as one of the proponents of invasion biology who is angry about growing acceptance of “novel ecosystems” and the ecological functions they perform. [Million Trees has posted articles about this debate among academic scientists. Soulé is one of the invasion biologists who demanded that the Nature Conservancy abandon their support for novel ecosystems.] His objection to any acceptance of non-native plants was the main focus of his presentation. He closed by saying that he “cannot live” without wild nature. Since his definition of “nature” seems to exclude non-native plants, one wonders how he will manage to survive. Perhaps he lives in an alternate universe populated solely by native plants.

Jared Farmer was the speaker at the conference dinner. His subject was the history of eucalyptus in California. His presentation was similar to his treatment of the subject in his book, Trees in Paradise. [Million Trees has posted articles about Farmer’s book.] Like his book, his presentation was even-handed in its treatment of eucalyptus. That enraged the audience, which booed every time he said something positive about eucalyptus. One wonders why he was invited to speak to this audience. Were the organizers of the conference interested in promoting a more balanced view of eucalyptus? Or did they just want a provocative speaker to wake up a sleepy audience after hours of a fund-raising auction?

Many of the presentations were surprisingly frank about the difficulties experienced by “restoration” projects. CNPS deserves credit for inviting speakers who described some stunning failures of their effort to “restore” native landscapes. I’ll describe just a few of the themes of speakers I heard.

San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission

I was surprised to learn that San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is heavily engaged in native plant “restorations.” The PUC is responsible for managing thousands of acres of open space in the watershed that supplies San Francisco’s drinking water. Common sense suggests that the PUC’s top priority would be the purity and safety of the water supply. The PUC presentations at the conference suggest otherwise. The PUC’s commitment to native plant “restorations” seems to trump the goal of clean water.

The PUC attempted to “restore” 100 acres of wetland and riparian habitat in San Mateo, Alameda, and Santa Clara counties by planting over 500,000 native plants, obtained from several different nurseries. They claim to have followed a strict protocol which theoretically should have prevented the introduction of diseased plants. Their protocol obviously failed. The fact that many of the plants were infected with Phytophthora was not discovered until they were planted in the ground. Phytophthora is the pathogen that is causing Sudden Oak Death. The PUC is now faced with the difficult—if not impossible—task of trying to contain the spread of a fatal pathogen for which there is no known cure.

This project was funded by a “mitigation” grant for capital projects elsewhere in San Francisco. Environmental laws require the builders of new development to “mitigate” for the impact they have on the environment by funding projects elsewhere, which are considered beneficial to the environment. This often looks like legalized extortion to me. It also increases the cost of infrastructure improvements, which limits the number of improvements we can make. In this case, there clearly was no benefit to the environment. It was both money down the drain and a poke in the environment’s eye.

As pointless as that project seemed, the other project presented by the PUC seemed even more pointless. They presented a poster describing an experiment intended to determine the most effective application method and type of herbicide to eradicate coyote brush. They used several different methods and types of herbicide, including Garlon (triclopyr) [which is known to be very toxic to aquatic life] and Milestone (aminopyralid) [which is banned in the State of New York because it is persistent and very mobile in the soil].

Detail of poster about PUC project, CNPS Conference

As you know, coyote brush is a native plant, so one wonders why it was necessary to eradicate it. According to PUC’s poster, it’s another example of trying to prevent natural succession from grassland to scrub. You might ask why the PUC is obligated to maintain grassland? You might also ask how the PUC can justify using toxic herbicides in our watershed? I can’t answer those questions. It doesn’t make sense to me.

San Bruno Mountain

Mission Blue butterfly. Wikimedia Commons

There was also a discouraging presentation by the folks who have been engaged in the effort to “restore” San Bruno Mountain in order to preserve and maintain a population of several species of rare butterflies, including the endangered Mission Blue butterfly. This project officially began 32 years ago when the Habitat Conservation Plan was created by federal environmental protection laws. The goal was to restore native grassland required by the rare butterflies. The speaker said this goal remains largely unfulfilled. As for the butterflies, their current status is largely unknown because monitoring efforts are not sufficient to determine the size of the population.

While non-native plants considered “invasive” are a part of the problem in achieving the goal of this project, the biggest problem is, in fact, a native plant. Once again, natural succession from grassland to native scrub, dominated by coyote brush, is the main reason why grassland continues to shrink on San Bruno Mountain:

“Although the last mapping effort in 2004 reported 1296 acres of grassland, we believe that many of these areas are in imminent threat of scrub encroachment and could be converted to scrub after a good coyote brush recruitment year. Large patches of contiguous grassland with less than 2% scrub cover are quickly vanishing…Baccharis pilularis (coyote brush) accounts for the majority of the scrub encroachment observed on San Bruno. It seems to follow the well documented pattern of episodic establishment in wet seasons when roots can more quickly tap into needed soil water. Once seedlings have survived the first critical year, mortality drops quickly and full establishment plays out over the next 5-7 years (Williams et al. 1987). During this process of establishment, grassland resources decline and eventually disappear. Soil changes such as increased nitrogen and allelopathic compounds often follow scrub encroachment (Zavaleta and Kettley 2006, Weidenhamer and Callaway 2010) reducing the ability of grasslands to successfully re-establish without an intermediate disturbance such as a fire or intensive browsing (Hobbs and Mooney 1986).” (1)

San Bruno Mountain from Daly City. Wikimedia Commons

It’s seems almost comic that when all is said and done, the main threat to native grassland “restoration” is apparently a native plant that is just doing what comes naturally…”invading” grassland in the absence of fire or grazing.

Hybridization: Friend or foe?

Dieteria canescens variety canescens, native to Wyoming and other western states. Photo by Stephen Perry. — Dieteria canescens variety canescens, native to Wyoming. Photo by Stephen Perry.

I also attended the presentation of a native plant advocate from Mammoth Lake, on the eastern side of the Sierras. She is engaged in a futile crusade to prevent the hybridization of a new plant, which she considers non-native, with a closely related native plant. When this new plant arrived in her neighborhood, she recognized that it was different, but she was unable to identify it. It wasn’t easy to find someone who could identify it. Eventually, she found a botanist in Wyoming (where it is native) who was able to tell her that the new plant is a variety of a plant that is native at Mammoth Lake. These plants are in the aster family. The native is Dieteria canescens. The new plant considered a non-native invader is Dieteria canescens var. canescens. In other words, they are the same species!

From a horticultural standpoint, the new plant is superior to the native in every way: it is a bigger plant with more flowers; the flowers are bigger with more rays; the flowers are a deeper color. So, why must it be eradicated? Because native plant advocates fear that it will hybridize with the native aster and “swamp” it genetically, i.e., wipe it out. Would that be such a terrible thing? That is a matter of opinion.

Dieteria canescens, native to Mammoth Lake. Photo by Steve Mason

One person in the audience asked why the new plant was not being accepted as an adaptation to climate change that would probably increase the likelihood of the survival of the species. The speaker’s answer was that she could not accept the loss of the variety she considers native. Another person in the audience asked this rhetorical question: “What is our narrative here? How can we expect the public to understand that it is necessary to eradicate a plant that is the same species?” The speaker agreed that it is not an easy sell. I was encouraged by these questions. They seem to be a glimmer of common sense. I hope they are prophetic of the future of the native plant movement.

On that happy note, I close with an invitation to visit the CNPS website to read the abstracts of the hundreds of posters and presentations at this excellent conference.

“Assessment of the past 30 years of habitat management and covered species monitoring efforts associated with the San Bruno Mountain Habitat Conservation Plan (Draft),” Creekside Science, October 21, 2014.

Quibbling with Jared Farmer’s “Trees in Paradise”

As we said in our most recent post, we respect Jared Farmer’s comprehensive history of eucalyptus in California as told in his book, Trees in Paradise. However, we take issue with several of his assessments of projects that are still on the drawing board. Since these projects have not yet been implemented and final approval of them is still pending, for the record we will detail our quibbles in this post.

San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program

Farmer trivializes the plans of San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program to remove 18,500 trees over 15 feet tall and countless smaller trees on 1,100 acres of park property managed by San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department. This is his description of their plans:

“Unfortunately, poor PR and misinformed criticism initially created the impression that the greenery of Golden Gate Park would be clear-cut. In truth, less than 5 percent of the city’s crown jewel had been rezoned. Even so, some neighborhood groups opposed any cuts anywhere; they wanted to ‘integrate’ the blue gums instead of “exterminating” them. (And they didn’t want to give up any place where they could take their dogs off-leash.)

Most of these trees on Mount Davidson will be destroyed if the plans of the Natural Areas Program are implemented.

Mr. Farmer has not done his homework about San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program. The disputed tree removals are not in Golden Gate Park. He’s right that few acres of Golden Gate Park have been designated as “natural areas.” Most of those acres are oak woodland, which no one would dispute are appropriately designated for preservation of native species. There aren’t many tree removals planned in Golden Gate Park. It therefore has not been one of the areas that are disputed by critics of the Natural Areas Program. The most controversial “natural areas” are places like Mount Davidson where the plans propose to destroy 1,600 trees, including many Monterey cypresses, of which even eucalyptus-haters are fond. Mr. Farmer chooses to defend a “natural area” that isn’t being disputed.

Mr. Farmer repeats one of the accusations of native plant advocates that critics of the Natural Areas Program “oppose any cuts anywhere.” This is an exaggerated description of most critics of the Natural Areas Program. Those who have been engaged in the 15-year effort to negotiate for a less destructive program have offered many compromises over the years. The number of planned tree removals have not been reduced during that long debate. It would be more accurate to say that supporters of the Natural Areas Program do not want any trees in the “natural areas.”

He also repeats one of the most popular “cover stories” of native plant advocates in San Francisco that all criticism of their plans originates with dog owners. In fact, NAP is controversial among dog owners and for good reason. There are only 118 acres of legal off-leash areas in the 3,500 acres of San Francisco’s park land. The Natural Areas Program claimed 80% of those acres as “natural areas:” “Approximately 80 percent of the SFRPD off-leash acreage is located within Natural Areas.” (SNRAMP, page 5-8). The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the Natural Areas Program proposes to close or reduce the size of several off-leash areas. The DEIR provides no evidence that these areas have been negatively impacted by dogs. It also states that all off-leash areas in the natural areas are subject to closure in the future if it is considered necessary to protect native plants. Since NAP has offered no evidence that the proposed immediate closures are necessary, it is reasonable to assume it will offer no evidence if it chooses to close the remainder of the 80% of all off-leash areas in San Francisco located in “natural areas.” We know from the DEIR public comments that NAP supporters demand their closure.

There are many reasons why people are opposed to the Natural Areas Program (NAP) and similar native plant “restoration” projects. The loss of access to parks for walking one’s dog is only one of them. It is the reason most often cited by defenders of NAP because there is little sympathy for that particular use of parks; it is a way of belittling our concerns. In fact, this isn’t an issue in some of the most controversial “restoration” projects, such as Mount Sutro where no effort is being made to restrict access to hikers accompanied by dogs. Yet, opposition to that project is even greater than opposition to NAP because more trees are in jeopardy.

About 50 trees were destroyed in the Interior Greenbelt, the "natural area" on Mount Sutro, in 2010 — About 50 trees were destroyed in the Interior Greenbelt, the “natural area” on Mount Sutro, in 2010

The most common reason for opposition to NAP is the removal of healthy trees. A closely related reason which motivates many others is that large quantities of herbicides are being sprayed in our parks for the purpose of killing non-native vegetation. Herbicides are also needed to prevent eucalypts from resprouting after they are cut down. Mr. Farmer makes no mention of the huge quantities of herbicides that are required by the “restoration” projects that destroy eucalyptus. Some critics of these projects are primarily concerned about the loss of habitat for the animals that live in and/or use the existing vegetation.

According to the US Forest Service, San Francisco has one of the smallest tree canopies in the country. Only 12% of San Francisco is covered by a tree canopy. Only Newark, New Jersey has a smaller tree canopy. San Francisco is an extremely cold and windy place. As Mark Twain famously said, he had never been colder in his life than he had been in San Francisco on a summer day. Our trees are our protection against that wind. Destroying them will make San Francisco an even more uncomfortable place. Trees are an asset everywhere, but in San Francisco they are more than that. They make an inhospitable climate livable. The completely artificial landscape of Golden Gate Park would not exist without the windbreak of non-native trees at its Western, windward edge that enabled the transformation of barren sand dunes into a verdant park.

Golden Gate Park in 1880. The trees are about 10 years old. In the distance, looking south, we see the sand dunes of the Sunset District. That's what most of Golden Gate Park looked like before the trees were planted. — Golden Gate Park in 1880. The trees are about 10 years old. In the distance, looking south, we see the sand dunes of the Sunset District. That’s what most of Golden Gate Park looked like before the trees were planted.

Despite Mr. Farmer’s inaccurate assessment of San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program, we consider his chapters about eucalyptus in California very informative and we recommend Trees in Paradise to our readers. The controversy regarding eucalyptus in California is complex and we cannot expect to agree with everyone about every facet of the issue. Critics of ecological “restorations” in the San Francisco Bay Area are a broad coalition with a range of opinions. We welcome Mr. Farmer into our big tent.

Falling from grace: The history of eucalyptus in California

Eucalypti, painting by Guiseppe Cadenasso (1858-1918)

There is much to like in Jared Farmer’s chapters in Trees in Paradise about eucalyptus in California. He begins with a comprehensive history of when, where, why, and by whom eucalypts were planted in California. The history begins in the 1870s: “Planters believed variously that the exotic trees would provide fuel, improve the weather, boost farm productivity, defeat malaria, preserve watersheds, and thwart a looming timber famine. First and foremost, settlers propagated them to domesticate and beautify the land, to give it more greenery.” (1)

Although eucalyptus proved to be a disappointment as a source of timber, it continued to be widely planted in California until about 1913 because it was so well adapted to California’s climate, readily available, and grew quickly: “In 1924 a botanical investigator estimated that the state contained 40,000 to 50,000 acres of solid eucalyptus, broken down as 80 percent blue gum, 15 percent “red gums,” 4 percent sugar gum, and 1 percent others.” In 1927, the Los Angeles Times said of eucalyptus, “[it] seems more essentially California than many a native plant; so completely has it adopted California, and so entirely has California adopted it, that without its sheltering beneficence our groves and vineyards would be like Home without a Mother.’” (1)

Well into the 1960s eucalypts were still considered a valuable asset in California. Harold Gilliam, the nature writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, said, “’The Eucalyptus seems an indispensable element of this State’s landscapes, as indigenously Californian as the redwoods, the poppy fields, the long white coastal beaches, the gleaming granite of the High Sierra,’” (1)

The tide turns against eucalyptus in California

Jared Farmer dates the reversal of the reputation of eucalyptus in Northern California to 1972, when an unusually deep and prolonged freeze caused eucalyptus to die back. Because this was a unique event in California, with which there was little experience, the initial assumption was that the eucalypts were dead. Thus began a concerted effort to remove the dead trees that were presumed to be a fire hazard. Before the question of who would pay for this massive clean-up could be resolved, it became clear that the trees weren’t actually dead and would resprout. The removal effort was abandoned for the time being. This was an early lesson in the indestructibility of eucalyptus that would prove central to the debate in the future. Eucalypts resprout regardless of how they are destroyed; whether they are burned by fire or frost or cut down, they will resprout unless their roots are repeatedly poisoned with herbicide (usually Garlon).

Shortly after this episode, the managers of our public lands began to adopt policies requiring the removal of non-native species based on an assumption that native species would benefit from their removal. In 1982, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), properties managed by the National Park Service, adopted a policy of destroying all blue gum eucalyptus on 600 acres of park property in Marin County. Ironically, they chose to announce their intention to destroy the trees on Arbor Day in 1986. They were flabbergasted by the public’s response to their announcement. They received letters from 350 members of the public and petitions from hundreds more, virtually all adamantly opposed to the proposed plan. Marin County supervisors were also opposed to the plans. Farmer says the GGNRA was forced to scale-back their plans to a single demonstration area. (Farmer doesn’t mention that subsequently GGNRA has destroyed tens of thousands of eucalypts using a variety of justifications including fire hazard. (See “Our Mission.”)

The State Parks Department adopted the same policy to remove all blue gum eucalyptus from State parks around the same time. They started with Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay and the reaction of the public was much the same as it had been to the plans of the GGNRA. This time the State Parks Department didn’t back down. They did a complete Environmental Impact Report in response to public demands and then they removed virtually all the eucalyptus on the island in 1990, with the exception of 6 acres deemed to have historic value. Eucalyptus has been removed from two other State Parks: Annadel in Sonoma County and Montana de Oro in San Luis Obispo County. (If the State of California hadn’t experienced severe budgetary difficulties, this list of parks in which eucalyptus was eradicated would undoubtedly be longer.)

Public opinion about eucalyptus changed radically after the fire in the Berkeley-Oakland hills in 1991. It is important to note that the managers of public land had adopted the native plant ideology that requires the removal of non-natives such as eucalyptus prior to that fire. The fire was an opportunity for the managers of public lands to justify their projects based on a claim that the trees are a fire hazard.

Is it accurate to blame eucalyptus for the 1991 fire? Although Farmer says the eucalypts were not the cause of the fire, he claims there were eucalypts on only 20% of the burned area but that eucalyptus was 70% of the fuel in the fire. These statistics are new to us and are not consistent with FEMA’s technical report which says that the homes destroyed by the fire were the biggest fuel source. The primary reason there was so much eucalyptus leaf and bark litter was that there had been another deep, prolonged freeze the winter before the fire that caused the eucalyptus to die back as it had in 1972. As in 1972, no coordinated civic effort was made to clean up the dead tree litter.

Such deep freezes are rare in the San Francisco Bay Area. The freeze in 1990 was the first and only freeze since 1972 and there has not been another since 1990. The current balmy and dry winter is a harbinger of the warming climate. Such freezes in the future are unlikely. If there were another freeze, would we have the sense to clean up the dead litter next time? We would like to think so.

NY Times reported that 150 homes were burned in the Scripps Ranch fire in 2003, but none of the eucalyptus surrounding the homes caught fire.

Farmer identifies other factors in the reversal of the reputation of eucalyptus in California. There have been a few fatalities caused by falling limbs and trees, although Farmer rejects the suggestion that eucalypts are inherently more dangerous than other trees. Available databases and media reports of tree failures and fatalities don’t support the claim that eucalypts are more hazardous than other trees.

Farmer also reports insect infestations in eucalyptus, particularly in Southern California. He dances around the question of whether or not these insect predators of eucalyptus were imported from Australia by native plant advocates for the purpose of killing the trees. We have reported on a study by an entomologist at UC Riverside that supports that theory and we have witnessed native plant advocates bragging about having a hand in that scheme.

However, Farmer rejects the claim that eucalyptus is very invasive. He also reports the studies that find equal diversity and abundance of wildlife in eucalyptus forest and native woodlands. Claims to the contrary are often used by native plant advocates to justify the eradication of the eucalyptus forest.

Farmer ultimately concludes that eucalypts in California are dying of old age, implying that this will be the graceful resolution of the conflict about their existence in California. We believe he is mistaken in that judgment. Blue gum eucalyptus lives in Australia from 200-500 years, towards the longer end of that range in milder climates such as the San Francisco Bay Area. Our blue gums haven’t been here that long, so we don’t yet know how long they will live here. However, many professional arborists with no vested economic interest in their destruction have judged our eucalyptus forest in the Bay Area to be healthy.

We don’t advocate for planting blue gum eucalyptus. In any case, they aren’t available in nurseries in California any more. We ask only that existing trees be allowed to die of natural causes because of the environmental damage that would be done by destroying them prematurely: the release of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the spraying of herbicides to prevent them from resprouting, the loss of the habitat they provide.

We are grateful to Jared Farmer for his book about the trees of California. Mr. Farmer is a professor of history at State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of a favorably-reviewed book about Utah where he grew up and received his graduate education. He has done a prodigious amount of research of both scientific and historical documents about the trees of California. His writing style is engaging and he steps back from his subject to muse about the philosophical issues raised by his findings. His book deserves the respect of both tree and native plant advocates.

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(1) Jared Farmer, Trees in Paradise: A California History. W.W. Norton & Company, 2013

Holiday greeting from John Muir

Christmas Card from John Muir — “From eucalyptus cloistered aisles sweet wind born anthems rise and from tall silvery spires there wafts a living incense to the skies.” (1)

This 1911 New Year’s greeting from John Muir is a reflection of his fondness for eucalyptus. He planted eucalypts around his home in Martinez, California. Muir’s daughter reported that her father bought about a dozen different varieties of eucalyptus from a neighbor and she helped to plant them on the property. The property was planted with many non-native plants and trees, including palms that now tower over the property.

John Muir National Historical Site, NPS photo

Muir’s home was built by his wife’s parents in 1882. Muir and his wife moved into the home in 1890 after his wife’s father died. Muir lived in that home for the last 24 years of his life. It is now The John Muir National Historic Site.

The site is administered by the National Park Service which unfortunately actively engages in ecological “restorations” that destroy non-native species. In the San Francisco Bay Area, eucalypts are one of their highest priority targets for destruction. According to the Martinez News Gazette, the Park Service destroyed the eucalypts on Muir’s property in about 1991 and replaced them with redwoods. Twenty years later, they destroyed the redwoods because they decided they weren’t historically accurate. The Park Service has a contradictory mission of ecological “restoration” to a native landscape which is inconsistent with its mission of maintaining the historical integrity of the properties it manages.

John Muir was co-founder of the Sierra Club. He is also given credit for convincing President Teddy Roosevelt to protect Yosemite, Sequoia, Grand Canyon and Mt. Rainier as National Parks. Wouldn’t Muir be appalled by the current policies of the Sierra Club and the National Park Service which advocate for the destruction of eucalyptus in our public lands?

Theodore Lukens was another eucalyptus aficionado

The recipient of John Muir’s New Year’s greeting was another eucalyptus aficionado. Jared Farmer mentions Muir’s holiday card to Theodore Lukens in Trees in Paradise: “In 1911 Muir sent a holiday card to his friend Lukens with a watercolor depicting gum trees and a poem evoking the ‘cloistered aisles,’ ‘silvery spires,’ and ‘living incense’ of eucalypts.” (2)

According to Farmer’s excellent historical account of eucalyptus in California, Lukens was a “banker, real estate developer, one-time mayor, and self-taught forester” in Southern California who “worked tirelessly on behalf of afforestation.” Lukens and Muir shared the belief that “forest cover was key to the whole hydrological system: trees and tree litter encouraged rainfall, captured fog drip, increased rainfall retention, decreased transpiration and regulated stream flow.”

We recommend Jared Farmer’s book to our readers. This is a serious history of eucalyptus in California. It’s a complex story that requires an understanding of scientific as well as historical documents. Although we would quibble about some details, it is also a fair treatment of a controversial subject. Mr. Farmer is an historian, not a tree or native plant advocate.

Mr. Farmer tells the story in an engaging way and he puts it into a social context that deserves respect from both tree and native plant advocates. We are grateful to Mr. Farmer for bringing some solid information to an otherwise emotional debate. If it is widely read it could contribute to the resolution of a conflict that has been intractable.

We wish our readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We are hopeful that the New Year will bring more success to our mission to save healthy trees from destruction which will also reduce the needless use of pesticides in our public open spaces.

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(1) Published in Images of the Pacific Rim by Erika Esau, Power Publishing, February 2011.

(2) Jared Farmer, Trees in Paradise: A California History, Norton & Company, 2013.