Tag: native plant movement

The impact of native plant “restorations” on wildlife in our parks

Public land managers in the San Francisco Bay Area are destroying non-native trees and vegetation in our public parks and open spaces because of their preference for native plants.  These projects are harmful to wildlife because they destroy habitat, eliminate food sources, and spray herbicides that are harmful to wildlife.

Bev Jo is a frequent visitor to all of the parks of the Bay Area.  She knows our parks and the wildlife that lives in them.  She cares deeply about our wildlife.  We are publishing an excerpt of her comment to East Bay Regional Park District about the damage being done to wildlife, as a result of killing non-native trees and vegetation.

East Bay Regional Park District is in the process of selecting the projects that will be funded by the renewal of the parcel tax, Measure CC.  Measure CC will be on the ballot for renewal in November 2018 and will provide funding for “park improvements” for the next 15 years.  YOU can have some say about those projects by making your suggestions to the park district by the end of December.  Send your suggestions to publicinformation@ebparks.com.

Once upon a time, people in the San Francisco Bay Area were thrilled to live in a place where so many exquisitely beautiful and edible plants from all over the world could survive. It’s not a tropical region, but sub-tropical, so there are limits to what grows here and it depends on the area.  But, still there is so much magnificent variety here that cannot live in other parts of the US.

People loved to plant what they missed from their homelands. In our small yard, the previous Lebanese owner had planted a Greek Bay Laurel, Olive, Sour Orange, Apricot, Nectarine, Apple, Pear, and Plums. Our poor neighborhood that was once mostly barren dry grass and juniper hedges, now has so many beautiful herbs and plants that just taking a walk is like a trip to a botanical garden. There also has been an increase in birds and other native animals.

Ice Plant (Carpobrotus), NPS Photo

Visitors used to be stunned that even the California freeways could be beautiful, with South African Ice Plant in glowing bloom and large trees and shrubs that bloom throughout the year to help clean the air from the traffic and soften the noise.

And then, something very disturbing happened. A movement began to spread that many of us recognized as being frighteningly similar to the racist hatred against immigrant people, but this time it was about nature, in the guise of being for nature. Most of the luminous Ice Plant has been eradicated. Flowering plants, including edible herbs, who most rational people would revere for their beauty and ability to survive in an increasingly dry land are being called “trash” and killed.

Ground squirrel

It’s not just innocent plants who are being reviled and killed, but animals are also being poisoned, trapped, and shot for no rational reason. The killing frenzy even includes important keystone native animals, like the California Ground Squirrel.

Why do we have to see parks we have loved for decades ruined, with most of the trees cut down for no reason other than that they are the “wrong” species, especially when many of the “right” (native) species are dying from global warming, disease, and insect infestation? Most parts of the US, as well as the world, treasure trees and are planting more, but not the Bay Area.  Even while temperatures are increasing horrifically–and anyone can easily feel the twenty degrees difference between being in the sun versus being under trees–we are cutting down our trees.

Monarch butterflies over-winter in California’s eucalyptus groves

With so much of the land in the Bay Area covered by concrete, asphalt, and buildings, shouldn’t we value and love every tree we have? Aren’t the trees who most help native animals even more important to protect?  Of course I’m talking about the majestic Blue Gum Eucalyptus. In spite of myths saying no native animals use Eucalyptus, they are clearly crucial to the survival of the Monarch Butterfly. Their flowers are an important food source for hummingbirds, and they are the preferred nesting tree for large raptors, like Golden and Bald Eagles, Great Horned Owls, and Buteos.  Raptors haven’t been indoctrinated in the nativist cult. They just want the safest nest for their babies. A survey in Tilden Park found 38 different plant species beneath the canopy of Eucalyptus forests, compared to only 18 in Oak woodlands.

Monterey pines are also villainized, even though they are native, with fossil records throughout the Bay Area. They give throughout their life cycle, as they irrigate other plants with their extensive fog drip.  They enrich the soil more than most other trees, and feed and shelter a diverse population of animals, including woodrats. The woodrat’s intricately constructed pyramid nests provide homes for many other species like mammals, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, etc. The pines are a self-replenishing forest, continually creating baby trees, while their dead snags are perfect granary trees for acorn and other woodpeckers, as well as being lookouts for hunting birds. Visit Monterey pines to see the rich wildlife around them, from kingfishers to tree creepers. In one small area of local pines, it’s possible to find over forty mushroom species.

Cedar waxwings in crab apple

The advantage of having plants from all over the world is that someone is always blooming, fruiting, and setting seed. One of our most beloved, but not often seen birds, the Cedar Waxwing, travels in flocks from one berry-bearing shrub or tree to another. I have seen Waxwings eating non-native Cotoneaster, Ligustrum, and Pyracantha berries, and only once native mistletoe. Almost all our birds are benefiting from non-native species, for nesting and food.

Our most common spider species, so essential for a healthy eco-system, are non-native. Honeybees are forgotten in the vendetta against non-natives, but they are European and valuable as the chief pollinators of our agricultural crops. They are another example of a beloved species who survives because of the many non-native plants we have. Eucalyptus provide valuable food for honeybees during the winter, when little else is blooming in California.  And bees help plants reproduce, which provides more food for native animals, not to mention fruit and vegetables for humans.

Eucalyptus and bee. Painting by Brian Stewart with permission.

As the park district plans future projects for funding by Measure CC, I ask that the projects quit destroying non-native trees and vegetation, particularly by using herbicides.  Our wildlife needs these plants.  The park district does not “improve” the parks by killing plants and animals.

Bev Jo
Oakland, CA

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

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

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

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

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

Increased use of herbicides

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monarch nectaring on butterfly bush. butterflybush.com

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

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

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

Buddleia “starves” butterflies?

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

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

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

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

Is buddleia a host plant for butterflies?

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

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

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

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

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

Variable checkerspot. Photo by Roger Hall

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

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

Bad rap for non-native plants

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

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

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

  • Buddleia is very useful to butterflies. The loss of buddleia in our gardens would be a loss to butterflies.
  • San Francisco’s IPM program is using Doug Tallamy’s mistaken theories to promote the use of herbicides to eradicate non-native plants in San Francisco.
  • Buddleia is one of 87 plants that have been classified as “invasive” by the California Invasive Plant Council despite the fact that it is NOT invasive in California. The expansion of the list of “invasive” plants in California to include plants that are NOT invasive in California, will increase the use of herbicides and will eliminate plants that are performing valuable ecological functions.
  1. https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/never-plant-butterfly-bush  (N.B.  The butterfly in the photo in this article is European Small Tortoiseshell, found in Britain and in Europe.  The caterpillar in the photo is the monarch caterpillar on its host plant, milkweed.  Buddleia is food for both of these butterfly species.)
  2. Arthur M. Shapiro and Katie Hertfelder, “Use of Buddleia as Host Plant by Euphydryas chalcedona in the Sierra Nevada foothills, California,” News of the Lepidopterists’ Society, Spring 2009
  3. http://plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com/never-pull-up-and-discard-what-you-cannot-identify/

InfoWar: UC Berkeley bombards us with propaganda against trees

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

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

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

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

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

New “informational” signs in Strawberry Canyon

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

Many of the statements on this sign are inaccurate:

  • Monarch butterflies roosting in eucalyptus tree.

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

  • The sign also claims that the roots of native plants are deep, but the roots of non-native plants are shallow. These are equally ridiculous statements.  The depth of roots may vary, but that variation is completely unrelated to whether or not the plant is native.

Tree roots

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

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

UC Alumni Magazine gins up fire hysteria

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

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

  • The article claims that the 150 acres where UCB destroyed trees over 15 years ago are now covered in native trees and shrubs that “came in” on their own when the trees were destroyed. All of these areas are easily visited and observed.  They are occupied by non-native weeds and piles of wood chips.  Here is a picture of one of those areas taken on August 6, 2017.
Site 29. The tall, dry weeds are the remains of poison hemlock that dominates this site where eucalyptus was destroyed by UCB. Shade is lost when trees are destroyed and weeds thrive in the full sun. The weeds dry out during dry summer months and become fuel for summer fires.
  • The article repeats the ridiculous claim that eucalypts are called “gasoline trees” in Australia. The word “gasoline” is not used in Australia.  As in all British Commonwealth nations, what we call gasoline is called petrol.  Calling eucalyptus trees “gasoline trees” is an American rhetorical device.  A native plant advocate probably made it up, then it was shared in their closed community until it became a “fact” in their minds.  It is a means of generating fear.  It is a tool used by native plant advocates to support their demand to destroy all non-native trees in California.
  • The article describes the huge die off of native conifers in California, caused by climate change and related infestation of native bark beetles and it predicts that they will be replaced by different species of trees that are adapted to present climate conditions. These observations are made with no apparent understanding of how it contradicts UCB’s strategy here in the Bay Area.  If the climate is changing in California and its landscape must change along with it, why is UCB trying to install the landscape that existed here 250 years ago?

UCB’s latest propaganda installment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The final episode in the 20-year saga of San Francisco’s “Natural Areas Program”

the-end-is-nearOn December 15, 2016, the San Francisco Planning commission will hold a public hearing to consider certification of the Environmental Impact Report for the Natural Areas Program. If the EIR is certified, the Recreation and Park Commission will consider formally adopting the management plan for the Natural Areas Program at the same hearing.  The Recreation and Park Commission will have the option of adopting one of the alternatives to the management plan.  The San Francisco Forest Alliance will ask that the Maintenance Alternative be adopted by the Recreation and Park Commission because it is the “environmentally superior” alternative which will destroy the least number of trees and use the least amount of pesticides. 

If you can attend this hearing and make public comment, please contact the SF Forest Alliance (sfforestnews@gmail.com) for the details about where and when the hearing will take place.  If you can’t attend the hearing, please consider sending an email to the Recreation and Park Commission (recpark.commission@sfgov.org) by Monday, December 12, 2016 (the deadline for submission of written public comments to be included in the agenda packet of the commissioners). 

We lived in San Francisco for nearly 30 years and our local park was designated a “natural area” in 1997.  Based on our experience with the Natural Areas Program, we have sent the following email to the Recreation and Park Commission.  We hope that our letter will help you write your own public comment.

Subject:  Approve the Maintenance Alternative for SNRAMP

Dear Recreation and Park Commissioners,

Since the Natural Areas Program was created 20 years ago, hundreds of healthy trees have been destroyed and over one thousand trees died slowly after being surreptitiously girdled by vandals calling themselves native plant advocates in the 32 so-called “natural areas.”  Hundreds of gallons of herbicide have been sprayed on harmless plants, many that provided valuable habitat and food for wildlife.  Trails have been closed and big signs installed instructing park visitors to stay on the trails that remain. Fences have been installed in some parks to enforce those restrictions.

This sign in a "natural area" has been altered to express the public's opinion of the Natural Areas Program. Courtesy San Francisco Forest Alliance.
This sign in a “natural area” has been altered to express the public’s opinion of the Natural Areas Program. Courtesy San Francisco Forest Alliance.

After all that destruction and restriction, what has been accomplished?  Non-native plants have been repeatedly eradicated in the “natural areas” and native plants were planted.  These native plant gardens have repeatedly failed:  the native plants die and the non-native plants return, in some cases many times.  Native trees have been planted in a few “natural areas” but most have died, despite being irrigated during an extreme drought.  After wasting millions of dollars and the associated labor, there is little to show for that investment after 20 years.

Therefore, I am writing to ask the Recreation and Park Commission to vote to adopt the Maintenance Alternative as provided by the Environmental Impact Report that was 10 years in the making.  The Maintenance Alternative would enable the Recreation and Park Department to continue to take care of the “natural areas” they have already created, but it would prevent further tree destruction, further restrictions on recreational access, and require fewer pesticide applications.

Besides the obvious lack of success of the Natural Areas Program after 20 years of effort, there are many other reasons why it would be wise for the Recreation and Park Department to quit throwing good money after bad money.  Here are some of those reasons:

  • The Natural Areas Program was predicated on the mistaken assumption that native plants are superior to non-native plants as habitat for animals. In fact, in the past 20 years multitudes of empirical studies have been conducted that prove that wildlife has no preference for native plants.  Wildlife is just as likely to use non-native plants as they are native plants.
  • The Natural Areas Program also assumed that greater biodiversity would be achieved by eradicating non-native plants. They were mistaken in that assumption as well.  Studies have been conducted all over the world in the past 20 years that find no decrease in plant biodiversity resulting from introduced plants.
  • The climate has changed since Europeans arrived in the Bay Area in 1769 and it will continue to change. The plants that existed here in the distant past are no longer adapted to current conditions.  The ranges of native plants and animals must change if they are to survive in the long run.  Therefore, demanding that historical landscapes be re-created serves no useful purpose.
  • The native trees of California are dying by the millions. The US Forest Service informs us that 102 million native conifers have died in the Sierra Nevada in the past 6 years.  University of Cambridge recently published a study about Sudden Oak Death in which they reported that 5 million oak trees have died in California since 1995 and that the epidemic is “unstoppable.”  There are SOD infections in Golden Gate Park and the Arboretum.  The US Forest Service tells us that Coast Live Oaks will be virtually gone from California by 2060.  A study of redwoods predicts that its native range will shift north into Oregon by the end of this century.  In other words, if we want trees in California, many of them will have to be non-native trees adapted to a hotter, drier climate. 
  • Environmental conditions in a densely populated urban area such as San Francisco are also incompatible with the unrealistic goals of the Natural Areas Program. The heat island effect of urban areas exacerbates climate change.  Increased levels of soil nitrogen caused by the burning of fossil fuels promotes the growth of weeds.

The Natural Areas Program was a good idea that has outlived its usefulness.  We may try to keep it alive for sentimental reasons, but expanding it would be rewarding failure.  Please adopt the Maintenance Alternative.

Thank you for your consideration.

stop-destroying-trees

Embers start spot fires: The real and the imagined stories

Bay Nature recently published an article about the 1991 fire in the East Bay Hills and the closely related belief that such a fire can be prevented in the future by destroying all non-native trees.  To Bay Nature’s credit, it was a more balanced article than most.  Although the article was heavily weighted in favor of those who want to destroy all non-native trees in the hills, several defenders of our urban forest were also interviewed.

However, the article contains a fantasy about future fires that feeds into the fear of fire that has been fostered by those who advocate for removing all non-native trees:

“A strong wind begins blowing over the hills from the east. And then somehow—maybe a spark from a car, maybe a tossed cigarette—the whole dry, airy mess catches fire.  Now the flames on the ground are 30 feet high and even higher off the boughs, roaring like a jet engine. At the fire’s edges, trees appear to explode as the volatile oils in their leaves reach their boiling point and vaporize. The heat of the fire forms a convection column, with 60-mile-per-hour winds that rip burning strips of bark from the trees and toss them upward. This is another of blue gums’ talents—its bark makes ideal braziers. Tucked away inside a rolled-up strip of bark, a fire might live for close to an hour and fly 20 miles.” (1)

Although we have read many times in the plans to destroy trees that eucalyptus casts embers starting spot fires, we have never seen such an extreme description of how far embers could travel while still on fire and capable of starting a spot fire.  So, we tracked down the source of this theoretical scenario with the help of the author who cited this as the source of the theoretical scenario:  “The potential for an internally convoluted cylinder of bark to be transported tens of kilometres in a continuously flaming state is indicated by the sample that maintained flaming combustion for the entire experiment…This would correspond to a flameout time of almost 2000 s for a sample 2700 mm long, a lofted height of 9600 m and a spotting distance of ~37 km.” (2)

First let’s translate that quote into measurements we commonly use to appreciate how extreme this particular test was:  “This would correspond to a flameout time of almost 33 minutes for a sample 9 feet long, a lofted height of 6 miles and a spotting distance of 23 miles, traveling at 41 miles per hour.”  That is a very long ember, lofted a great distance at a great speed (but NOT 60 mph), staying lit for a long time (but NOT “close to an hour”).  

Theory vs. Reality

The study that was the source of the extreme prediction in Bay Nature about the distance that burning embers can travel was conducted on samples of Eucalyptus viminalis bark (NOT Blue Gum Eucalyptus, E. globulus) “tethered in a vertical wind tunnel.”  These are not real-world conditions.  So, how does this theoretical study compare to real-world conditions?

The FEMA Technical Report about the 1991 fire in the East Bay Hills contains a map of the full extent of the 1991 fire.  As you can see on this map, the maximum distance from the northern-most edge of the fire to the southern edge of the fire is less than 3 miles…not remotely close to 20 miles.  In other words, embers could not have started fires 20 miles away because the fire wasn’t even close to 20 miles long.

1991-fire-map-2

The FEMA Technical Report doesn’t tell us what the wind speeds were during the 1991 fire, although they describe the wind as being strong at several times during the fire.  If there is any evidence that winds were as much as 60 miles per hour, it’s not evidence we have been able to find.  We found a source of wind speeds measured on the Bay Bridge, including historical records.  This website says the strongest wind measured since 2010 was 31 miles per hour in April 2013.  That suggests that 60 mph winds are probably unusual in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The FEMA Technical Report doesn’t report any observations of firebrands or burning embers from eucalyptus.  The report mentions embers twelve times, but identifies the source of those embers only once.  In that one case, the source of embers was “a growth of brush”….not a eucalyptus tree or any tree, for that matter.  There are anecdotal reports of finding debris from the fire as  far as San Francisco, but no reports that the debris was still on fire or that it started another fire.

US Forest Service study of embers in actual fires

US Forest Service participated in a comprehensive study of “spotting ignition by lofted firebrands” based on actual wildfires all over the world, including the 1991 fire in the East Bay Hills. (3)  There is nothing in that study that corroborates the claim that eucalyptus bark embers are capable of travelling 20 miles while remaining lit and therefore capable of starting spot fires:

  • “In the wildland-urban interface fires in California—Berkeley in 1923, Bel-Air in 1961, Oakland 1991—wooden shingles which were popular in California as roof material, assisted fire spread. Wooden shingles increase fire hazard owing to both ease of ignition and subsequent firebrand production.”
  • “Unlike the flying brush brands which are often consumed before rising to great heights, the flat wood roofing materials soared to higher altitudes carried by strong vertical drafts…”
  • The only specific firebrand found in the 1991 Oakland Hills fire was found approximately 1 km (.6 mile) west from the perimeter of the fire, “though it may have travelled several  kilometres [1.86 mile].” It was a cedar shingle.  Here is a photograph of that shingle:  ember-1991-fire-2
  • Cylinder shaped embers do not travel as far as flat particles. Firebrands in the shape of cylinders were found to have a maximum spotting distance of 2050 meters, because “cylinders always fall tumbling.”
  • “The increased burning time inherent in larger firebrands was cancelled out by an increased time of flight because larger firebrands move more slowly.”
  • In a study of 245 extinguished fires, experiments and simulations, and observing 48 wildfires, “The longest spotting distance was observed as 2.4 km.”

This comprehensive study of actual wildfires all over the world finds no evidence of embers capable of travelling 20 miles while still burning and starting spot fires.  It reports that wooden shingles were the only observed burning embers in the 1991 fire and that wooden shingles are particularly vulnerable to being lofted as embers in a wildfire.  There are countless houses in the East Bay Hills covered in wooden shingles, yet instead of addressing that obvious source of embers, we are destroying blameless trees.

Developing the Cover Story

Claims about the extreme flammability of eucalyptus have escalated in the past 15 years as opposition to destroying trees and associated pesticide use has escalated.  Nativists have become increasingly dependent on flogging the fear factor as their other storylines have been dismantled by empirical studies and reality:

  • Monarch butterflies roosting in eucalyptus tree.
    Monarch butterflies roosting in eucalyptus tree.

    The “invasiveness” of eucalyptus has been downgraded by the California Invasive Plant Council from “moderate” to “limited,” their lowest rating. There is little evidence that eucalyptus is invasive unless planted along streams and swales that carry their seeds.

  • There are many empirical studies that find that all forms of wildlife—such as insects and birds—are served equally well by both native and non-native plants. Some iconic species—such as Monarch butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, hawks, owls—are dependent upon eucalyptus for winter nectar and safe nesting habitat.
  • Huge global studies of biodiversity report that the introduction of non-native species has resulted in no net loss of biodiversity. This is particularly true of introduced plants.  There is not a single instance of extinction caused by a non-native plant in the continental United States.
  • Climate change is making nativism increasingly irrelevant. California’s native conifers, oaks, and redwoods are dying by the millions.  Unless we want a treeless landscape, we must plant tree species that are capable of tolerating changed climate conditions.

    Owl nesting in eucalyptus, courtesy urbanwildness.com
    Owl nesting in eucalyptus, courtesy urbanwildness.com

These studies have left nativists with few tools to justify the eradication of non-native plants.  We can see the development of the FIRE!! cover story in the archives of the conferences of the California Invasive Plant Council.  In 2004 Cal-IPC held a workshop regarding exotic trees and shrubs.  Over 30 representatives of major managers of public lands attended, such as National Park Service, San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program, Marin County Open Space, etc.  The record of this meeting reflects the dependence upon fire to justify the eradication of non-native shrubs and trees:  “Golden Gate National Recreation Area:  ‘inform public ahead of time; use threat of fire danger to help build support for invasive plant removal projects.’”  The Golden Gate National Recreation Area—a National Park–advises other land managers to frighten the public into accepting the loss of their trees. 

Subterfuge is also recommended to land managers to hide the eradication of shrubs and trees from the public:  “To avoid public upset, drilling around into tree buttress roots and injecting 25% glyphosate…Trees die slow and branches fall slowly, so won’t pose an immediate hazard.”  In other words, land managers were advised to kill trees using a method that won’t be visible to the public. 

Perhaps most disturbing of all is that those who attended this workshop admit that they don’t really know if eucalyptus trees are more flammable than native vegetation and some doubt that they are:  “People are afraid of fire.  Help them understand Eucalyptus trees and other invasive plants are very fire hazardous.  Is there any solid research about Eucalyptus and fire?  Are Eucalyptus and brooms any greater fire danger than native chaparral?”  In other words, even those who wish to destroy non-native shrubs and trees seem to understand that fire is a cover story for which no supporting evidence exists. The evidence has been fabricated to support the cover story.

We now seem to live in a fact-free world in which various interests can make things up and distribute them on the internet with impunity.  The mainstream press is dying and is being replaced by fact-free social media.  If we are to protect ourselves from such manipulation, we must drill down into these storylines.  In the case of eucalyptus, we have debunked the myth that it is more dangerous than the replacement landscape.  Now it’s up to us to disseminate that information far and wide as an antidote to fear-driven nativism. 

  1. Zach St George, “Burning Question in the East Bay Hills: Eucalyptus is flammable compared to what? Bay Nature, October-December 2016
  2. James Hall, et. al., “Long-distance spotting potential of bark strips of a ribbon gum (Eucalyptus viminalis), International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2015, 24, 1109-1117
  3. Eunmo Koo, et. al., “Firebrands and spotting ignition in large-scale fires,” International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2010, 19, 818-843

Dialogue with native plant advocates

We believe that greater dialogue with native plant advocates would create more opportunities to find a compromise that would resolve the conflict about deforestation and pesticide use on our public lands.  Unfortunately, in the many years in which we have been engaged in the effort to prevent the destruction of our urban forest, we have found few such opportunities.

The Sierra Club is an extreme example of an organization that has isolated itself from all dissenting views on this issue.  Therefore, we were very excited that a member of the Sierra Club was able to send a letter to members, which we hoped would create new opportunities for dialogue with the Club and its allies on this issue.  (That letter is available HERE: Letter to Sierra Club members )

We are publishing today one of the responses that the author of the letter to Sierra Club received from a Sierra Club member.  We will also publish the reply to that letter.  We believe this dialogue is an example of the danger of isolating ourselves from those with whom we disagree.  When we refuse to discuss the issues, we deprive ourselves of opportunities to learn and we exacerbate conflict.

This is the letter sent by a native plant advocate to the author of the letter sent by a fellow Sierra Club member (we have removed his name because we do not have permission to publish):

img014 (1)

 

 

And this is the reply to that letter.  We have removed the author’s name because the letter was sent on behalf of hundreds of people who share her views.  Using her name more than necessary, inappropriately personalizes the issue.  This should be a public policy debate, not a personal vendetta.

Thank you for your letter of March 15, 2016, regarding my letter to Sierra Club members in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I am writing to provide you with the documentation about which you have questions:

Attachment A:  David Nowak’s “Historical Vegetation Change in Oakland…” states that, “Trees in riparian woodlands covered approximately 1.1% of Oakland’s preurbanized lands — redwood stand 0.7%, and coast live oak stand 0.5%.  Original forest cover is estimated at 2.3%…”  David Nowak has been employed by the US Forest Service since earning his Ph.D. degree from UC Berkeley.

I also recommend another visit to the Oakland Museum where you will find a touch screen map of historic vegetation of Oakland and surrounding communities in the East Bay.  It will confirm that the East Bay hills were not forested prior to settlement.

Attachment B:  The Environmental Assessment for the Strentzel-Muir Gravesite Plan at the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, California confirms that John Muir planted eucalyptus on his property.  The document also confirms the intentions of the National Park Service to retain eucalyptus on the property.  The entire document is available here:

Click to access Strentzel-Muir-Gravesite-Plan.pdf

Attachment C:  This is a holiday greeting card sent by John Muir to a personal friend in 1911, in which he depicts eucalyptus and describes it in poetic verse.

Christmas Card from John Muir
Christmas Card from John Muir

There are many reasons why eucalyptus was planted in California.  I recommend the history of the trees of California by Jared Farmer, Trees in Paradise:  A California History, for a more complete understanding of why eucalyptus was planted in California.  Mr. Farmer also describes John Muir’s fondness for eucalyptus.

We all have a right to our opinions, Mr. [redacted].  However, it is not in anyone’s interests to be misinformed of the facts regarding our urban forest.

Please let me know if there are any other statements in my letter for which you require documentation.

Sincerely,

[redacted]

Cc: Michael Brune and Aaron Mair

No, this is NOT an April Fool’s joke.  These are actual letters sent by actual people.  We will publish a more comprehensive report of feedback from Sierra Club members to the letter from a fellow member in late April.

Monarch myths revisited

Debunking the myths of nativism—especially those that justify the eradication of non-native trees—is the task we have assigned ourselves, which requires us to revisit a few of the misconceptions about monarch butterflies in California.

Monarch Butterfly. Creative Commons
Monarch Butterfly. Creative Commons

When application for endangered status for monarchs was filed in August 2014, a few new monarch myths emerged and have since been faithfully repeated by native plant advocates who are demanding the eradication of our urban forests.  The monarch migration in California is using predominantly non-native trees, which should afford those trees some protection.  Unfortunately, it has only produced more convoluted theories that deny the value of non-native plants and trees to monarchs.

Myth #1:  The California migration of monarch butterflies prefers native trees for their winter roost. 

Monarch butterflies roosting in eucalyptus tree.
Monarch butterflies roosting in eucalyptus tree.

A study of the trees used by monarch butterflies for their winter roost in over 300 different sites in California reported that the vast majority of monarchs are using eucalyptus:

“Three types of trees were used most frequently by roosting monarchs:  eucalyptus (75% of the habitats primarily Eucalyptus globulus), pine (20% of the habitats; primarily Pinus radiata), and cypress (16% of the Cupressus macrocarpa).  Twelve other tree species were identified…with a combined prevalence of only 10%.” (Three different studies by different authors are the source of these data, therefore they don’t add up to 100%.) (1)

Unfortunately, this fact has been obscured by a small study of a few selected sites used by monarchs during their migration.  Griffiths and Villanova (2) observed the monarch migration in a few sites in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties.  They report that the monarchs moved around among three tree species including eucalyptus, suggesting to them that Monterey pine and cypress are equally important to the monarchs.  While we don’t doubt that this may be true, we don’t think we can generalize from this study because it was conducted in the small native range of Monterey pine and cypress.

The California migration of monarchs spends the winter months roosting in tall trees in 17 counties along the coast of California, from Mendocino County in the north to San Diego County in the south. (1) Most of that expanse is outside the native range of Monterey pine and cypress.  Griffiths and Villanova do not acknowledge that both Monterey pine and cypress are being eradicated outside their native range for the same reason that eucalyptus is being eradicated, i.e., they are considered “alien invaders” where they have been planted outside their native range.  Here in the San Francisco Bay area, for example, 500 Monterey pines were destroyed on the Marin headlands a few years ago and an untold number of Monterey pines will be destroyed by the FEMA projects in addition to those that have already been destroyed here.

If, in fact, monarchs do have a preference for Monterey pines and cypress for their winter roost, they do not have that option outside of the small native range of those trees in Monterey County. 

For the record, we should tell you that we are just as opposed to the pointless destruction of Monterey pine and cypress outside their small native range as we are opposed to the destruction of eucalyptus.

There is paleontological evidence (fossil cones) that Monterey pines lived in the San Francisco Bay Area several times in the distant past.  That finding was reported (4) in Fremontia, the journal of the California Native Plant Society.  The author asked that Monterey pines be allowed to remain where they lived in the past because the species is threatened in its small native range.  Unfortunately, her advice has been ignored by native plant advocates, who continue to demand that all Monterey pines be destroyed where they have been planted outside their present native range.  This extreme viewpoint is one of the reasons why native plant advocates have earned their reputation as fanatics.

Myth #2:  The California migration of monarch butterflies used exclusively native trees before eucalyptus was planted in California.

Those who wish to discount the value of eucalyptus to overwintering monarchs often assume the California monarch migration predates the planting of eucalyptus in California in mid-19th century.  That assumption supports their claim that all of our eucalyptus can be destroyed without having a negative impact on monarch butterflies.   In fact, there is no historical record of the monarch migration until the mid-19th century.  The historical record of the monarch migration was reported by Vane-Wright (3), who tells us the California monarch migration is probably a 19th century expansion of the range of the eastern monarch migration, from east of the Rocky Mountains to Mexico.  Recent molecular analysis of the monarch migration confirms that the eastern and western migration of monarchs in North America are genetically identical, suggesting that the populations might be dispersing east and west from their Mexican winter roost. (5)

Monarch caterpillar on milkweed. Tilden Botanical Garden
Monarch caterpillar on milkweed. Tilden Botanical Garden

Monarch butterflies are not usually eaten by birds because their host plant contains a toxin that makes birds sick and the monarch’s warning colors broadcast that fact.  The warning colors of butterflies that are toxic to birds are often mimicked by other species of butterflies to confer that protection.  There is a monarch mimic, the Viceroy, in the eastern US, which occurs in California only in a tiny bit of riparian habitat in southeast California.  “The lack of mimics suggests the [monarch] may not have been here long enough for any to evolve.” (6)

Myth #3: Non-native species of milkweed is harmful to monarch butterflies.

Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed and their larvae, the caterpillar, feeds exclusively on milkweed.  Many native plant advocates believe that the monarch requires a native species of milkweed.  They are mistaken in that assumption.  Wikipedia lists over 35 species of milkweed (genus Asclepias) all over the world and many are known to be used by the widely dispersed populations of monarchs.

The dispersal of monarchs from their original range in North America is approximately 200 years old, according to molecular analysis of populations across the Pacific Ocean (Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Australia) and across the Atlantic (Spain, Portugal, Morocco).  These dispersals are assumed to have been aided by human transportation of both milkweeds and monarchs and extreme weather events.  “For example, monarchs were recorded in Australia in 1870 and were most probably carried there on cyclonic winds from a source population in New Caledonia.” (7)  These populations do not migrate and are therefore genetically distinct from the ancestral population of North American monarchs as a result of genetic drift.

In many of the homes of new populations of monarch butterflies there was no native species of milkweed before being introduced simultaneously with the monarch populations.  Although there are numerous members of the milkweed family native to Australia, monarchs do not appear to utilize the native species, preferring the introduced species of milkweed.

Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) Creative Commons
Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) Creative Commons

In California, a tropical species of milkweed is popular with gardeners (Asclepias curassavica).  Unlike the native species of milkweed, tropical milkweed does not die back in winter.  Gardeners therefore tend to prefer the tropical milkweed because it makes a colorful contribution to their gardens year around.

Of course, native plant advocates prefer native species of milkweed and they justify their preference by claiming that tropical milkweed is harmful to monarchs.  They claim that the monarch parasite (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha) can accumulate on tropical milkweed because it doesn’t die back during the winter.  Tropical milkweed is the only milkweed available in winter.  The parasite disrupts some winter breeding of monarchs, but that breeding would not occur in the absence of tropical milkweed.  If more monarchs are the goal, tropical milkweed is making a contribution to the monarch population.

New scientific research debunks the myth that tropical milkweed is harmful to monarchs.  Leiling Tao et.al. (8) studied monarch lifespans when they fed on a variety of milkweed species.  They looked at both resistance to monarch parasite (O. elktroscirrha) infection and tolerance once infected.  They found a complex interaction between species of milkweed the monarchs fed on and the amount of mycorrhizal fungi on the roots of the milkweed.  But one result was clear:  monarchs raised on tropical milkweed (A. curassavica) lived as long, or longer than, monarchs raised on other species of milkweed.  They were less likely to be infected, and once infected, tolerated the infection well.  In short, there is nothing about tropical milkweed as a host that is detrimental to monarch survival in the presence of parasites.

Native plant advocates also speculate that tropical milkweed can disrupt the migratory patterns of monarchs because it is available when native milkweed is not available.  Given that monarchs have persisted for 200 years all over the world, using exclusively non-native milkweed and without migrating, this seems an unnecessarily pessimistic concern.  Neither native milkweed species, nor migration are essential to the survival of monarchs as a species.

Peek under the cover story

As we often do on Million Trees, we have taken a peek under the cover story being used by native plant advocates to justify the eradication of non-native plants and trees.  Once again, we find a lot of pessimistic speculation, but little evidence that eradicating non-native plants will benefit wildlife, or conversely that wildlife can only survive in native habitat.  Yes, it was a tedious journey to that conclusion and we thank you for your patience if you have persevered to our optimistic conclusion that wildlife is far more resourceful and resilient than nativism wishes to believe.

(1) Dennis Frey and Andrew Schaffner, “Spatial and Temporal Pattern of Monarch Overwintering Abundance in Western North America,” in The Monarch Butterfly Biology and Conservation, Cornell University Press, 2004.

(2) Jessica Griffiths and Francis Villablanca, “Managing monarch butterfly overwintering groves:  Making room among the eucalyptus,” California Fish and Game 101(1): 40-50; 2015. Summary also available HERE.

(3) Richard Vane-Wright, “The Columbus Hypothesis:  An Explanation for the Dramatic 19th Century Range Expansion of the Monarch Butterfly,” in Biology and Conservation of the Monarch Butterfly,Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 1993.

(4) Constance Millar, “Reconsidering the Conservation of Monterey Pine,” Fremontia, Vol. 26, No. 3, July 1998

(5) Justine I. Lyons, et. al., “Lack of genetic differentiation between monarch butterflies with divergent migration destinations,” Molecular Ecology, (2012) 21, 3433-3444

(6) Art Shapiro, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, California Natural History Guides, UC Press, 2007.

(7) Amanda Pierce, et. al., “Serial founder effects and genetic differentiation during worldwide range expansion of monarch butterflies,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Britain, 281: 2014.2230.

(8) LeilingTao, et. al., “Disease ecology across soil boundaries:  effects of below-ground fungi on above-ground host—parasite interactions,” Proceedings of Royal Society of Britain, 282: 2015.1993.

Xenophobia is Killing Our Planet

We are publishing a guest post from South Africa with mixed feelings.  We are glad to welcome another like-minded person into our effort to prevent the pointless destruction of the plants that have been members of our communities for generations, solely because they are not considered “native.”  On the other hand, we are saddened to learn that other communities are experiencing the same destruction that we are witnessing here in the San Francisco Bay Area. This guest post is an article that was published by The Witness, which the author describes as “South Africa’s oldest daily newspaper.”

Xenophobia is Killing Our Planet

Xenophobia (both human and ecological) is raging worldwide. Yet we are all Earthlings and life on Earth has always migrated. The Khoisan are the first known inhabitants of Africa, and African elephants and lions once roamed North America; America’s bison, bear and deer immigrated from Eurasia, while horses, which evolved in the States, radiated outwards, returning home to be shot as aliens.

Historically, the mass hysteria of rhetoric-spurred xenophobia has sucked reason and compassion from sections of whole countries. Propaganda supporting Hitler’s racial-purity infected Germans to hate Jews who were vilified as pigs. In Rwanda, the genocide of the Tutsi tribe began with the Hutus defaming them as cockroaches. In South Africa, foreign nationals have been slandered as lice and ticks. While in ecological warfare, exotic plants are demonized as cancers and monsters. Those brainwashed by this illogical prejudice, tend to overlook their own ancestral origins and their personal culpability about the very things they fear and denounce in more recent arrivals in our war-torn world now over-flowing with desperate refugees.

Essentially we are all settlers at any given time. Definitions of nativeness are changed at whim by invasion biologists who measure other creatures via a creed they themselves do not exemplify. ‘Alien’ plant species are destroyed country-wide, drastically disrupting ecosystems for the slightest inconvenience to native species or commercial interests. South Africa’s multi-billion rand [1 US $ = 12.64 S. African rand] Working for Water, the world’s largest ever tree-cutting campaign, is a terrifying example. Levelling countless rain-drawing trees on a planet already suffering from tree-loss-induced global warming, is tantamount to blood-letting an already haemorrhaging patient. Far from saving water, the dire rainfall deficit has devastated South Africa with widespread drought causing a conservatively-estimated R400 million  loss to livestock and crops in KwaZulu-Natal alone.

Unprecedented ferocious winds, fires, floods, heat waves, violent storms and catastrophic disasters are battering our over-populated planet, our ice caps melting faster, its creatures dying. And it is no wonder: armed with poisons, the world’s chemical corporations have dressed themselves in Xenophobia, using it as a front to motivate and mask their hugely-profitable, unceasing nature destruction. In a study published in the journal Science this year, 18 international researchers found that human abuse has so disrupted complex interactions between oceans, land and atmosphere that the earth is becoming inhospitable to life. Johan Rockstrom, professor of environmental science at Stockholm University, gravely concluded that, for the first time in human history, we risk destabilizing the entire planet.

Only enough ecosystems, essential for regulating Earth’s climate, keep our civilization from extinction, and scientists estimate we’d have to return as much as 40% of all land to nature to regain long-term stability. Britain’s James Lovelock says we can all help by letting portions of our gardens go wild. Forest ecologist at Stellenbosch University, Dr Coert Geldenhuys, explained in an article how alien infestations repair forests when indigenous trees can’t fill the pioneering role, rehabilitating the soil before dying out, allowing natives to return. This Earth-healing is harmless, sustainable and free, yet fanatics continue mutilating and polluting, with depraved indifference leaving countless creatures, (both native and alien, seen and unseen) homeless, poisoned and dying – as recently verified by scores of dead baby weaver birds strewn amid an axed casaurina forest. Yet ever more prominent ecologists the likes of David Theodoropoulos, Mark Davis, Matthew Chew, Ken Thompson and Dov Sax, see a bigger picture with the role of invasive aliens far more complex and beneficial than generally believed. Fred Pearce (author of THE NEW WILD) puts it all in a nutshell: invasives re-boot Earth’s man-damaged ecosystems to help nature withstand global warming.

AT WAR WITH NATURE, a powerful exposé by New Zealand conservationist W F Benfield (available on AMAZON) reveals that the chemical industry in league with blindly-believing invasion followers who manufacture the crises needed to justify saturating our planet with poisons, are now offering their lethal services to the uninhabited islands of other lands. They were recently enlisted to rid our own Marion Island of mice. But this ‘extinction industry’ as Benfield succinctly describes it, uses deceit, staged photographs and chemicals to do far more harm to resident wildlife than any pest explosion ever could. (Watch POISONING PARADISE on YouTube.) The shockingly inhumane poison 1080 (banned in most countries) is regularly released over New Zealand where corporate conservation plans to render the entire country predator-free. Naturally, once predators are eradicated, their prey will multiply to plague proportions – creating unending opportunities for ever-hungry chemical corporations.

Man’s agriculture is presently eating away so much of the planet’s diminishing wilderness that the European Union and United Nations called for a global shift to a vegan diet to alleviate global warming caused by livestock farming and chemical poisoning. Recently the World Health Organization finally verified a study linking Roundup to cancer after hundreds of studies with similar findings were skewed or suppressed for 30 years. This tumour-causing herbicide was also connected to a mystery kidney disease which killed up to 20,000 farmworkers labouring in extreme heat in Central America, India and Sri Lanka. Scores of Argentinean farmers are suing Monsanto over their infant children’s birth defects, including cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, psychomotor retardation, missing fingers and blindness.

Roundup leaches nutrients from the soil, damages micro-organisms, kills earth worms and stimulates unstoppable super weeds. In Australasia it has killed 3 frog species, and, according to World Health statistics, the mere careless use of glyphosate-containing herbicides sickens and kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide annually. Besides damaging the digestive tracts of animals and humans, incidences of once-rare diseases have soared since its use, linking it to Alzheimer’s, attention deficit disorder, autism, asthma and infertility. Workers spraying from backpacks are at risk simply by breathing in spray drift. Destroying harmless naturalized vegetation with chainsaws and deadly carcinogens, xenophobia, in bed with the chemical industry, is a danger to all life.

Jacaranda street trees in bloom in Pakistan. Creative Commons - Share Alike
Jacaranda street trees in bloom in Pakistan. Creative Commons – Share Alike

Pietermaritzburg’s beloved Art in the Park has to move next year because the original river-side site has been so degraded by felled trees, and everywhere gracious Jacaranda trees lining our streets stand tragically ring-barked and dying. In the decades since this merciless ethnic cleansing started, our bees have been poisoned to the edge of extinction, our butterflies, birds, rare frogs and chameleons as well as common-place insects and microscopic organisms essential to planet life, vanishing from our shrinking vegetation, while our polluted waterways and seas have vast chemical dead-zones, and scores of fish suffocate when poison-sprayed water-plants suck oxygen from the water whilst dying en masse.

Ring-barked (AKA girdled) jacaranda tree in South Africa.
Ring-barked (AKA girdled) jacaranda tree in South Africa.
Bamboo before it was killed with herbicide.
Bamboo before it was killed with herbicide.

In Pietermaritzburg, magnificent five-storey tall bamboo in the once-beautiful stream-side park behind the Beacon Hill apartment block, were recently hacked and poisoned, risking the stream and its life-forms and resident geese and ducks, as well as the city’s ground water. Helicopters dropped clouds of poisonous herbicide on dagga growing amid hill-side food crops belonging to impoverished KwaZulu-Natal villagers. In the US, tons of chemicals dumped into Lake Michigan to kill one ‘alien’ fish, killed hundreds of thousands while brain-washed con-servationists and scientists cheered. American animal advocate, Nathan Winograd, reflected that in the hopeless battle to return America to a mythical ecological state, slaughter without end has been proposed. 

Bamboo after being killed with herbicide.
Bamboo after being killed with herbicide.

The effects of removing everything arbitrarily judged to be foreign are incalculable. Migrating thousands of miles, the incredible monarch butterfly – a precious natural wonder – has dropped an astounding 90% in numbers since milk weed was killed by herbicides. The worldwide massacre of plants and creatures sometimes just miles ‘out of place’ have evoked unlikely alliances between hunters and vegans who fear Earth’s animals are being wiped out. Andrew Tyler, Britain’s Animal Aid director, believes that the growing appetite for ‘alien’ blood is driving the slaughter of animals scapegoated for human-committed environmental abuses.

America’s Agricultural Department recently revealed that since 1997 it has destroyed a staggering 27 million animals by aerial snipers, poisons and traps, to help dessert bighorn sheep, deer and pronghorn. This alien killing mania spread quickly to unwanted natives. Elk, cougar, fox, bobcats, coyotes, badgers, prairie dogs, bears, wolves, wild longhorn, burros and horses – creatures which once filled us with wonder – among those left to rot that.  Alien disdain is worldwide: mustangs are killed lest they damage native plants, Britain’s grey squirrels destroyed to bring back the red, its deer culled to protect wildflowers, Canada Geese shot for dropping scat on pathways, while South Africa’s own shameful hit list includes the endangered black Kenya rhinoceros. Are purist’s any better than rhino poachers?

This madness, instigated and exonerated by invasion biology, is done at the unknowing tax-payer’s expense. With our living green world turning into a dead planet there have been increasing calls from the public, social sciences and ecology itself, for invasion biology to end. It is the only ‘scientific’ field ever doubted, and this, as they themselves admit, via a virtual ‘cottage industry’ of critical scientific articles, and even death-wishing obituaries in well-respected publications. Many regard this unproved discipline as money-making deceptive hype, xenophobic, immoral, cruel, nonsensical, climate changing and earth endangering. An English review of the book LA GRANDE INVASION explains the inspiring perspective of French ecologist, Jacques Tassin, who adjures conservationists to reconcile man to a new alliance with the living world, including invasives, which he believes are symptoms of pollution testifying to ‘ a richness for tomorrow’.

Invasion Biology has given chemical corporations an excuse to devastate our beautiful planet on a scale never seen before. We’ve become a world at war with itself. If this anti-life pseudo-science is not abolished, Earth’s millions of life-forms are doomed. Humanity has forgotten the spirit and intelligence innate in the wild: before it is too late we should unshackle nature to help heal itself. It’s time we all denounced what we’ve unknowingly allowed to happen. Mahatma Gandhi said: ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ We should empathize with terrified foreign nationals and innocent creatures persecuted and killed through xenophobia’s ugly ethos, and remember that Christ himself identified with the alien Samaritans of this world, declaring: ‘What ye do unto the least of these my brethren, ye do also unto me.’

Gloria Keverne is a South African environmental activist and the international bestselling author of A MAN CANNOT CRY and BROKEN WINGS. In xenophobic riots in South Africa this year seven foreign-national human beings tragically lost their lives, while for decades countless trees, animals and insects have perished, poisoned and deprived of habitat by this prejudiced mind-set.  She can be emailed at glory@chrysalis-dreams.co.za.  If you agree with her viewpoint, please take a minute to thank her for defending her local landscape and wish her good luck in preventing its needless destruction.

“Drought-Adapted Eucalyptus NOT Dying by the Thousand”

Native plant advocates in the Bay Area have always had trouble convincing the public and their elected representatives that it is necessary to destroy every non-native tree in our urban forest.  They have therefore resorted to fear-mongering to convince the public that it is necessary to eradicate all non-native trees for public safety. 

Fear of fire has been effective in the East Bay where there have been fires, although claims they were caused by non-native trees are a distortion of the facts.  For the past year, native plant advocates in San Francisco have been using a variation on that theme to support their demands to destroy all non-native trees.  They now claim our eucalyptus forest is dying of drought and must be destroyed before it causes a disastrous fire.  You can read that story line in Jake Sigg’s Nature News (here) or in his recent public comments to San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council (here), which is in the process of developing Best Management Practices for San Francisco’s urban forest.

It is our pleasure to republish this post from Save Mount Sutro Forest, responding to those claims.  As usual, it is meticulously researched and documented.  We only wish to add this small bit of common sense: The drought is hard on all plants.  If the drought were capable of singling out one species of tree to kill, it would not be the drought-tolerant eucalyptus. 

Jake Sigg, retired San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (SFRPD) gardener who is considered the doyen of the Native Plant movement in San Francisco, has a widely circulated email newsletter. In it, he has been pushing the argument that thousands of eucalyptus trees in San Francisco are dying of drought, as evidenced by epicormic growth on these trees: “2015 is the year of decision, forced upon us by 20,000 to 30,000 dead trees.” He is suggesting they will be a fire hazard and that SFRPD must act, presumably by cutting down the trees. In a recent post, he published a picture of a tree covered in young blue-green leaves, and predicted it would be dead within a year.

But he’s mistaken.

Eucalyptus trees are drought-adapted, and the shedding of mature leaves followed by sprouting of juvenile leaves (epicormic sprouting) is one of their defense mechanisms. These trees survive in areas far drier than San Francisco, where fog-drip provides an important source of summer moisture.

2015-05-27 ab eucalyptus with epicormic growth wordEUCALYPTUS RESPONSE TO DROUGHT

Eucalyptus trees are adapted to drought. They shed mature leaves and twigs so they don’t lose water through transpiration (the tree version of breathing, which takes place mainly in the leaves.) Later, they can replace the lost branches and leaves through “epicormic sprouting.”

Blue gum eucalyptus trees have buds buried deep under their bark. When the tree is stressed, they may shed adult leaves and later sprout new leaves along their branches. When you see a eucalyptus tree that seems to have shaggy light bluish-green new leaves along its branches or trunk – that’s epicormic sprouting.

Here’s what Jake Sigg said in a recent newsletter: “According to arborists, the trees produce these abnormal shoots from epicormic buds when their lives are seriously threatened. In this case, the tree is expected to be dead by the end of 2015. On Bayview Hill, barring heavy unseasonal rain, hundreds of the trees will be dead this year. Yet the City continues to not see a problem.”

We asked UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Joe McBride and California’s leading expert on eucalyptus for his opinion. He’s observed this condition in trees along the edge of the Presidio forest and explains, “This response is common in blue gum as a mechanism to reduce transpiration rates in order to survive drought years.”

He continues: “I am not convinced that the trees will die in large numbers.”

bayview-hill-2010 smTHE GIRDLED TREES OF BAYVIEW HILL

As an aside, we find it ironic that Mr Sigg should be so concerned with dead trees on Bayview Hill, given that’s where nativists girdled hundreds of healthy eucalyptus trees to kill them. Two girdled trees

(This is done by cutting around the tree, thus starving it of nutrients that are carried only in the outer layers of the tree-trunk.) It’s clearly visible in the two photographs here, both taken on Bayview Hill.

EUCALYPTUS ADAPTS

In fact, one of the reasons eucalyptus is so widely planted – including in climates both hotter and drier than in San Francisco – is that it adapts to a wide range of conditions.

Eucalyptus globulus thrives in Southern California, Spain, Portugal, India – all places hotter and drier than San Francisco.

Here’s a quote from R.G. Florence’s textbook, Ecology and Silviculture of Eucalyptus Forests:

florence quoteFrom p.121 of the same book: “… they regulate their water usage in hot dry summers by closing their stomata [breathing pores in the leaves] during the day and lowering their rates of gaseous exchange. They adapt by their elastic cell structure to water stress.”

EPICORMIC SPROUTING IS IMPORTANT IN EUCALYPTUS

Mr Sigg describes “how to identify a dying blue gum” as follows: “Look for trees with thinning foliage and copious juvenile leaves (called coppice shoots) hugging the main stems. These coppice shoots are easy to see because of their blue color and tight clustering, as opposed to the adult leaves, which are 6-8 inches-long, dull-olive-colored and sickle-shaped and which hang from the ends of long branches. These coppice shoots are the give-away that the tree is in trouble and is destined to die soon…” (He later corrected “coppice shoots” to epicormic growth.)

But again, this is not actually true.

In fact, epicormic sprouting allows eucalyptus to survive not only drought, as described above, but even fire. The epicormic sprouting grows into new branches to replace the ones that have been damaged in the fire. This is from Wikipedia: “As one of their responses to frequent bushfires which would destroy most other plants, many Eucalypt trees found widely throughout Australia have extensive epicormic buds which sprout following a fire, allowing the vegetative regeneration of branches from their trunks.[4][5] These epicormic buds are highly protected, set deeper beneath the thick bark than in other tree species, allowing both the buds and vascular cambium to be insulated from the intense heat.[4]”

(The references are: [4] “Effects of fire on plants and animals: individual level”. Fire ecology and management in northern Australia. Tropical Savannas CRC & Bushfire CRC. 2010. Retrieved 27 December 2010. [5] “Learn about eucalypts”. EUCLID – Eucalypts of Australia. Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research. Retrieved 27 December 2010.)

And sometimes, dead branches and leaves and epicormic growth don’t even indicate stress – it’s part of the normal growth cycle. R.G. Florence’s book on eucalyptus says: the “mature crown of a eucalypt maintains itself by the continual production of new crown units, which die in turn. There will always be some dead branches in a healthy mature crown.” He goes on to say an “undue proportion of dead branches is an unhealthy sign” but a “reasonable proportion of death of crown units should be accepted as normal.” He also discusses the “epicormic shoots from dormant buds on the top and sides of the branch develop into leaf-bearing units of the mature crown.” (p.13) Eucalypts go through stages of development that include extensive self-thinning, particularly in younger trees. (p. 194)

Another reason for epicormic sprouts on eucalyptus is increased light. From Wikipedia, with references: “Epicormic buds lie beneath the bark, their growth suppressed by hormones from active shoots higher up the plant. Under certain conditions, they develop into active shoots, such as when damage occurs to higher parts of the plant or light levels are increased following removal of nearby plant. Epicormic buds and shoots occur in many woody species, but are absent from many others, such as most conifers.” [The Wikipedia article references the Encyclopedia Britannica.]

We have seen these epicormic sprouts in eucalyptus trees around the clubhouse in Glen Canyon after many trees were removed.

epicormic sprouts on eucalyptus when nearby trees removed

We also saw them on Mount Sutro near where 1,200 trees were removed for “fire safety.”

MISTAKING DEFENSES FOR DEATH THROES

In summary, then, epicormic sprouting does not indicate that the tree is near death. It may indicate that the tree is responding to drought (or even to other stresses like pesticide use or damage to its root systems) with defensive measures. It’s like declaring that everyone who has a fever is bound to die of it. The trees below are the same ones featured in the picture at the start of this article – one year later, they’re surviving, not dying.

Epicormic sprouting on eucapyptus 2014In some cases, epicormic sprouting may indicate nothing at all, except that the tree is going through a normal growth phase, or changed light conditions following removal of nearby trees.

LIVING WITH A FEW DEAD TREES

We asked Dr McBride if it made sense to cut down these trees. “I do not think the city would be justified in cutting trees down as a fire prevention action,” he says. “Cutting down drought-stressed trees at this point would be much more costly, sprouting would be difficult to control without herbicides, and the litter on the ground would have to be removed to decrease the fire hazard.”

“The problem as I see it is the accumulation of leaves, bark, and small branches on the ground. This material presents a serious fuel problem when it dries out sufficiently.” However, he points out that “In many eucalyptus stands in San Francisco the eucalyptus ground fuel (leaves, bark, and small branches) seldom dries to a point that it can be ignited because of summer fog and fog drip.” In dry areas, the best course is to “launch a program of ground fuel reduction by removing the litter from beneath eucalyptus stands.”

The eucalyptus-tree nest hole of the red-shafted flicker - San Francisco. Janet Kessler
Eucalyptus-tree nest hole of red-shafted flicker – San Francisco. Copyright Janet Kessler

A few trees may indeed die, with the drought or without it. If you think of a forest as a normal population, you expect to find some trees that are thriving and some that are hanging on, and some that are dying – just like in any population. And dead and dying trees are very valuable to wildlife: They’re more likely to have cavities that are suitable for nesting (and are easier to excavate for woodpeckers and other cavity-building species). They also have bugs that come to feast on the decaying wood, and that’s bird-food.

“Tending the Wild:” Our changing relationship with nature

We recently introduced our readers to a book about the land management practices of Native Americans in California, Tending the Wild:  Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources.  (1) Drawing from this valuable resource, we will describe how the relationship of humans with nature has changed several times since the arrival of humans in California approximately 12,000 years ago.  We will conclude by raising questions about our current relationship with nature, as reflected in our land management practices.

The relationship of Native Americans with nature

Basket CA Native AmericanWe will let the author of Tending the Wild speak for Native Americans, based on her extensive research of their culture and land-management practices:

“Although native ways of using and tending the earth were diverse, the people were nonetheless unified by a fundamental land use ethic:  one must interact respectfully with nature and coexist with all life-forms.  This ethic transcended cultural and political boundaries and enabled sustained relationships between human societies and California’s environments over millennia.  The spiritual dimension of this ethic is a cosmology that casts humans as part of the natural system, closely related to all life-forms.  In this view, all non-human creatures are ‘kin’ or ‘relatives,’ nature is the embodiment of the human community, and all of nature’s denizens and elements—the plants, the animals, the rocks, and the water—are people.  As ‘people,’ plants and animals possessed intelligence, which meant that they could serve in the role of teachers and help humans in countless ways—relaying messages, forecasting the weather, teaching what is good to eat and what will cure an ailment.” (1)

We emphasize that Native American culture considered humans a part of nature because this viewpoint provides contrast to modern interpretations of the relationship between humans and nature. 

Exploitation of nature by early settlers

When Europeans began to establish settlements in California in the late 18th century, they brought with them an entirely different viewpoint about their relationship with nature.  Natural resources were to be exploited and humans were the master of the natural world which was in their service.

Western pioneer ranch
Western pioneer ranch. Painting by John Olson Hammerstad, 1842-1925.

 

The first phase of European settlement was the importation of huge herds of livestock by the Spanish coming from Mexico:

“During the Mission era…grazing was among the activities that caused the greatest damage.  Coastal prairies, oak savannas, prairie patches in coastal redwood forests, and riparian habitats, all rich in plant species diversity and kept open and fertile through centuries of Indian burning, became grazing land for vast herds of cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and horses owned by Spanish missions and rancheros.  By 1832 the California missions had more than 420,000 head of cattle, 320,000 sheep, goats, and hogs, and 60,000 horses and mules…overgrazing eliminated native plant populations, favored alien annuals, and caused erosion…A great variety of alien [plant] species were introduced inadvertently during the Mission Period.  Research has shown that European forbs and grasses…were brought into California at this time, contained in adobe bricks, livestock feed, livestock bedding, and other materials.  Soon these alien [plants] overwhelmed the native species, markedly changing the character and diversity of grasslands and other habitats west of the inner Coast Ranges.”  (1)

Tending the Wild reports that during this early phase of European settlement, Native Americans were quick to adapt to the changing landscape.  They incorporated useful new plants into their diets.  Likewise, we see today new plants and animals quickly enter the food web.

 

Hydraulic gold mining in California.
Hydraulic gold mining in California.

These changes in the landscape paled in comparison to the exploitation of the land that began in 1849 when gold was discovered in California and the huge influx of Americans of diverse European descent arrived.  Here are a few examples:

  • “…by the 1870s ‘more men made their living in the broader geography and economy of farming—48,000—than in all the mines of the Sierra footholls—36,000.’ To accommodate the acreage devoted to growing crops, marshes were drained, underground water was tapped by artesian wells, streams and rivers were dammed and diverted for irrigation, and lands were fenced.  In the process huge tracts of former native grasslands, riparian corridors, and vernal pools were converted to artificial, human-managed agricultural systems.” (1)
  • “Five million acres of wetland in California have been reduced by 91% through diking, draining, and filling for agriculture, housing, or other purposes.” (1)
  • By 1900, 40% of California’s 31 million acres of forest were logged.
  • “By the early 1900s, the numbers of marine mammals, wildfowl, elk, deer, bear, and other birds and mammals had been so drastically reduced that Joseph Grinnell would write, ‘Throughout California we had been forcibly impressed with the rapid depletion everywhere evident among the game birds and mammals.’” (1)
  • Between 1769 and 1845, the population of Native Americans in California dropped from an estimated 310,000 to 150,000. Between 1845 and 1855, the population of Native Americans dropped from 150,000 to 50,000.

Romanticizing Nature

Meanwhile, in Europe and the East Coast of the US, a new view of nature was being articulated.  The Romantic movement viewed nature as an escape from the stress of urban life, a tranquil retreat from civilization.  In California, John Muir was strongly influenced by Romanticism: 

“Muir and those with similar views responded to the destruction and exploitation of California’s natural resources with a preservationist ethic that valued nature above all else but which defined nature as that which was free of human influence.  Thus while he championed the setting aside of parks as public land, Muir also contributed to the modern notion that the indigenous inhabitants of the state had no role in shaping its natural attributes.” (1)

Muir was unable to fit Native Americans into his idealized view of nature.  He wrote this account of Miwok Indians in the Sierra Nevada in 1869:

“’We had another visitor from Browns’ Flat to-day, an old Indian woman with a basket on her back.  Her dress was calico rags, far from clean.  In every way she seemed sadly unlike Nature’s neat well-dressed animals, though living like them on the bounty of wilderness.  Strange that mankind alone is dirty.  Had she been clad in fur, or cloth woven of grass or shreddy bark, like the juniper or libocedrus mats, she might have seemed a rightful part of wilderness; like a good wolf at least, or bear.  But no point of view that I have found are such debased fellow beings a whit more natural than the glaring tailored tourists we saw that frightened the birds and the squirrels.’” (1)

Sharp Park, Pacifica, CA. Photo by Erica Reder, SF Public Press
Sharp Park, Pacifica, CA. Photo by Erica Reder, SF Public Press

In this romanticized view of nature, humans are not welcome.  Humans defile the purity of nature.  This is the prevailing viewpoint today among those who consider themselves environmentalists, park advocates, and conservationists.  They advocate for “wilderness” where “humans may visit, but not remain.”  They post signs, advising visitors to look but not touch.  Their “restoration” projects put nature behind a fence.  They complain about immigration.

The condescending attitude articulated by John Muir toward Native Americans was instrumental in our ignorance of their land management practices.  Europeans considered Native Americans primitive and therefore did not expect to learn anything useful from them.  Europeans imported and grew their own food from their original homes because they were unaware of how local food sources could be grown and used.  Our knowledge of Native American culture is recent and it comes too late to ever be fully informed because those who tended the land are long since gone.  Furthermore, this new knowledge of land management practices of Native Americans is not well known, certainly not among native plant advocates who are attempting to re-create a landscape which was created by methods they do not understand.

Redefining ecological “restoration”

The author of Tending the Wild admires Native American culture as well as the landscape that was created by their land management practices.  Therefore, she concludes her book with a proposal that we adopt their land management methods:

“What then, should be the goal of ecological restoration?  Restoring landscapes and ecosystems to a ‘natural’ condition may be impossible if that natural condition never existed…Restorationists must at the very least acknowledge the indigenous influence in shaping the California landscape.  This chapter advocates an additional step—using indigenous people’s knowledge and methods to carry out the restoration process, to return landscapes to historical conditions and restore the place of humans in this continuing management.”  (1)

In our previous post, we described some of the land management practices of Native Americans, particularly the importance of setting fires.  Adopting these management practices for ecological restorations would require us to make a permanent commitment to setting fires.  Fires pollute the air, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and endanger lives and property.  Therefore, this is surely not a proposition that can be reasonably applied to our densely populated urban parks.  The maximum population of Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans is estimated to have been 310,000.  The population of California was estimated to be over 38 million in 2013.  Land management practices that were appropriate for a human population of only 310,000 are not appropriate for a population of over 38 million.

Furthermore, the land management practices of Native Americans were useful for their culture.  They tended the landscape in order to feed, clothe, heal, and house themselves.  If that specific landscape is no longer useful for those purposes, why would we consider it an ideal landscape?  In what sense would it be superior to the landscape that occurs naturally without setting fires or intensively gardening our open spaces?

A more realistic paradigm is needed

We believe a more sustainable paradigm for managing nature is needed.  Although we won’t presume to define this new paradigm, we will suggest some parameters:

  • Humans are as much a part of nature as any other animal. Therefore, conservation goals must accommodate the presence of humans.  However, humans must respect plants and animals as equal partners in achieving conservation goals.
  • Since we live in a free society, we must assume that human populations will grow in proportion to the choices of humans. And since we are a nation of laws, we must assume that immigration will occur as allowed by our laws.  Conservation goals must be consistent with the realities of human population density.
  • Conservation goals should look forward, not back. Goals should reflect the changes in the environment that have already taken place and anticipate the changes that are expected in the future.
  • The distinction between native and non-native species should be only one of several criteria to determine whether a species “belongs here.” If plants and animals are sustaining themselves without human subsidy, we should acknowledge and appreciate the functions they perform in the ecosystem.  This approach will reduce the use of herbicides, now being used to eradicate plants perceived to be “non-native,” in our parks and open spaces.
  • Conservation goals should be realistic within the confines of available resources and in competition with other priorities.
  • There are pros and cons to every change we make in the landscape. Whenever we alter the landscape, if our land management methods damage the environment by using pesticides, killing animals or destroying their food resources and homes, contributing to greenhouse gases, restricting recreational access, etc., we must have solid evidence that the benefits to the environment will be greater than the damage we foresee.  If there is no net benefit, we should leave it be.

Can you add to or suggest revisions of this list of a new conservation ethic?  Surely there are as many opinions as there are readers of Million Trees.  We would like to hear your ideas.

 

 

  1. M. Kat Anderson, Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources, University of California Press, 2005 (This is the source of most of the information in this article.)