CNPS Conservation Conference Proceedings

UC Santa Cruz Arboretum
September 8, 2007
8:30 am to 5:30 pm

Partnerships in Plant Conservation

Preventing Invasion from Horticulture Stock

Speaker: Angel Guerzon, California Horticultural Invasive Prevention Partnership, (Cal-HIP)

SUMMARY: Angel Guerzon  from the California Horticultural Invasive Prevention Partnership (Cal-HIP) spoke on the concerted efforts made by this campaign headed up by a group called Sustainable Conservation (terrikempton@suscon.org) to halt the production, distribution, and sale of invasive plants.  They meet 4x/year with growers, agencies, nurseries and others to alert them to the huge problem (California currently spends $85M/yr to combat invasive plants and we know that they aren't getting the job done).  They have developed a list of the worst plants, a second list of species for research, a brochure, website (PlantRight.org), and curricula for master gardeners. They are funding research on how to look for the potential for invasiveness in plant species. Thanks to their efforts the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers endorsed the St. Louis Declaration in 2006 which is a set of voluntary codes of conduct for nursery professionals.

Conservation of the Santa Cruz Sandhills:  Protecting California's Imperiled Biodiversity Hotspot in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Speaker: Jodi McGraw, Sandhills Alliance for Natural Diversity

SUMMARY: Jodi McGraw of the Sandhills Alliance for Nature (www.santacruzsandhills.com) reported on the efforts of this group to save the Santa Cruz sandhills and their rare flora and fauna.  The sandhills are disjunct outcroppings of  Zayante marine sand found only in Santa Cruz county.  The sand formed in the Miocene 15MYA and is characterized by its coarseness, low moisture, and low carbon content.  Two important communities occupy these biological islands:  Sand Parkland which is dominated by Ponderosa pine forest with only 20% canopy and rich understory and Sand Chaparral which has scattered Pondersoa pines, shrubs, and open areas of low-growing annuals and herbaceous species.  These communities have high concentrations of coastal species (coast dudlyea, sea pinks, coastal sagewort) though they're 10 miles inland and also disjunct montane species like Ponderosa pine and Calyptridium.  The area supports a high potential for subspecies and ecotypes as well as a number of rare plants (silverleaf manzanita, the federally endangered Ben Lomond spineflower and Santa Cruz wallflower, Ben Lomond buckwheat, Santa Cruz monkeyflower, and Santa Cruz Cypress).   There are also rare fauna including the Santa Cruz kangaroo rat, Western whiptail, Coast horned lizard, and the federally endangered Mt. Hermon June beetle and Zayante band-winged grasshopper.  The roadrunner has been extirpated from this area.  40% of the 6,000 acres of habitat has been destroyed largely through sand quarries and residential development.  Less than 250 acres of Sand Parkland remain.

SAND has used a combination of techniques for conservation.  Like our own East Bay PPAs, they've set up priorities and ranked sites. They've surveyed and mapped the sand parkland habitat and overlap with known occurrences of the beetle and grasshopper and related this to parcel numbers and created the Zayante Sandhills Conservation Bank which is a mitigation bank.  In addition they're working with the Land Trust of S.C. County, utilitizing the county's Sensitive Habitat Ordinance and a programmatic HCP.  Dynamite group.

FULL PRESENTATION (PDF, 8.9Mb)

Tejon Ranch – Overview, threats, context for conservation, and actions that CNPS can take

Speaker: Ileene Anderson, Center for Biological Diversity

SUMMARY: Ileene Anderson from the Center for Biological Diversity (formerly Conservation Analyst for CNPS) presented the efforts of a coalition (CBD, Audubon, CNPS Kern Chapter, Chumash Council  of Bakersfield, NRDC, PCL, and Sierra Club--www.savetejonranch.org) to try to save Tejon Ranch, the largest remaining undeveloped open space in the state. TR is a publicly traded company that owns more than 200,000 acres of land at a biogeographic crossroads.  At this junction the TR is bounded by and includes portions of the Great Central Valley that is characterized largely by oak savanna and grasslands (this land contains the greatest diversity of oaks--8 species and lots of hybrids), the Tehachapi in the Southern Sierra Nevada characterized by pine and fir, the Mojave Desert with expansive grasslands, and southern chaparral  from the Transverse Range.  There are at least 20 plants and animals that have state or federal protection and 61 other rare plants--some of these include Striped Adobe lily, Bakersfield cactus, Tejon poppy and others.  It's critical habitat for the California Condor and the San Joaquin kit fox, and the fully protected Blunt-nosed leopard lizard. Much of the ranch is still unexplored.  Five planned projects currently threaten the TR: a proposed national cemetery, a power plant, an industrial complex and two separate huge housing developments.    The coalition would like to see the area become a national or state park.  They've designed bumper stickers (Condors not Condos) and a beautiful color map and brochure that is a knock-off of the National Park Service maps that accompany your entry to any national park. They'd like CNPS chapters to sign on to the coalition and participate in individual letter-signing at the web site.  CBD will be litigating over the proposed projects.

FULL PRESENTATION (PDF, 6.9Mb)

Planting Natives: Implications for genetic pollution

Genetic Pollution and the Use of Native Plants in Restoration and Landscaping

Speaker: Deborah Rogers, Director of Conservation Science, Center for Natural Lands Management (www.cnlm.org); and Conservation Geneticist, Genetic Resources Conservation Program, University of California

SUMMARY: Deborah Rogers, a conservation geneticist with the non-profit Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM, www.cnlm.org), spoke about issues relating to genetic pollution resulting from planting natives.  She spoke about closing the gap between landscaping and genetic restoration and the risks associated with planting natives in the wild:  potential for invasion, vectors for disease, and genetic pollution.  It is difficult to detect or even develop guidelines to detect genetic contamination: rarely is sufficient information available and most of it is based on neutral genetic markers (not the adaptive portions of the genome), the risk of contamination is context dependent, there are different spatial scales of adaptation for different traits, what we know of adaptation is for past environments so difficult to know the future, and it's difficult to determine adaptive genetic variation for threatened or endangered species.  She related 3 case studies in which CNLM was called in to consult. Here are two.  Case One:  Muir Woods--some memorial trees of unknown genetic origin were planted in the groves--are they a source of contamination?  Unlikely problem since they are few and the naturally-occurring trees are many and will likely swamp any genetic contamination.  Case Two:  Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  Accidental introduction of a non-local subspecies of Camissona cheiranthifolia (beach primrose) is becoming both invasive and is also hybridizing with local subspecies.  Conclusion was to continue efforts to remove the non-local species.

When do genetically appropriate plants make a difference?  The following are indicators of genetic contamination risk: large landscaping project, close to native populations, sexually compatible with native populations, wind-pollinated species, limited genetic diversity of clonal material from distant or unknown source population.   The most vulnerable populations (thus high priority for great care in restoration) are those areas or species with more genetic structure, heterogeneous habitat, isolated populations, low gene flow (gravity-dispersed seed or insect-pollinated), high polyploidy.

Additional resources:

• Fact Sheets on Genetic Conservation
  
• Genetically Appropriate Choices for Plant Materials to Maintain Biological Diversity
  
• Genetic erosion: no longer just an agricultural issue
  

FULL PRESENTATION (PDF, 4.5Mb)

The discussion session was used to explore the issue and identify additional information needs and address whether CNPS’s existing guidelines (http://www.cnps.org/cnps/archive/landscaping.php) need updating?

Chaparral Management Issues

Chaparral Ecology and Fire

Speaker: Max Moritz, Assistant Cooperative Extension Specialist in Wildland Fire and Adjunct Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley

SUMMARY: Speaker Max Moritz, U. C. Berkeley, discussed his journey towards answering the question of if vegetation stand dynamics, specifically age, have an influence on catastrophic fires (>4000 ha).  His study system was in the Southern portion of the Los Padres NF, and areas around Santa Barbara.  He had a 100 year spatial data set of fires in this area, and therefore could determine ages of different stands when they last burned (up to 100 years old).  From here, he hypothesized that the burning of older stands would more likely produce catastrophic fires.  In fact, no correlation was found in most of his "landscape areas" (or areas).  In only one area was fire size correlated with stand age, and the rest were anomalous.  He looked into a number of factors until he tuned to the Santa Ana winds and their drastic effect on fire.  In the one area where there was a significant correlation between fire size and stand age (very near Santa Barbara) the landscape was rarely affected by Santa Ana's.   Also notably, chamise in most catastrophic fires had a less than 70% water weight, which was a sort of a threshold of ignition for this shrub.  He concluded that the environmental condition that contributes most significantly to catastrophic fires in chaparral is timing of extreme winds, not stand age. Moritz also promoted the notion of “Living with Fire” as a key approach to improved planning and readiness for wildfire events in chaparral systems (http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/livingwithfire/default.html).

FULL PRESENTATION (PDF, 6.2Mb)

Fuel Management in Chaparral

Speaker: Ernylee Chamlee, Chief, Wildland Fire Prevention Engineering, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

SUMMARY: Ernylee Chamlee, Chief of Wildland Fire Prevention, explained the current state of affairs for Cal Fire.  About 95% of their calls end up in putting out fires 5 ac and less.   The ones that most people hear about are the catastrophic ones.  Ernylee voiced two major factors in saving structures/houses: 1) have a defensible space around the house (100 ft) and 2) have a fire proof house - i.e. fire-safe materials, proper upkeep of home, etc.  A higher percentage of structures were saved as fires got larger, and notably, homes with fire safe materials were able to resist one of the leading causes of ignition: flying embers getting trapped in flammable spaces.  Also notable, "your home is only as safe as your neighbors".  Ernylee was very interested in working with CNPS to better understand how we could work together and avoid the big fires.  The single best thing to prepare for fires, because they will happen, is to properly protect your house with fire-safe materials and design. 

FULL PRESENTATION (PDF, 7.5Mb)

Chapter Perspective on Chaparral Management for Fuel Reduction

Speaker: Betsey Landis, LA/Santa Monica Chapter

SUMMARY: Betsey Landis, LA/Santa Monica Chapter superwoman, was a great follow up to the two previous speakers because she divulged the difficulties with the implementation element to the battle for a safe wildland urban interface (WUI).  She investigated the LA City fire department guidelines and found many glaring problems with definitions, plans of action, species lists, instructions on how to landscape, and where to landscape, etc.  The harsh reality of all of this is that fire policies can be difficult to write and implement and often one city department is completely in conflict with another. 

FULL PRESENTATION (PDF, 2.3Mb)

The discussion session was used to explore the issue and identify additional information needs. The next steps for action regarding the development of a CNPS policy were discussed.

SUMMARY: A discussion ensued about the potential to take on fire management in California.  Ernylee Chamlee reported that about 5 million people live in a WUI in California.  The management of these lands for fuels, plants, vegetation types, and safety will be an enormous issue for our state.  Notably, it was also communicated that all general plans (regarding fire) need to be updated by 2010, which allows for organizations and individuals to get involved in the process.  The question was posed as to whether we, CNPS, should have a policy statement regarding fuels management and "living with fire".  The discussion ensued talking about what that policy might involve, how specific it will be, what will be the goal and distribution of the document, and who will be responsible for bringing it to fruition.  Sue Britting announced that CNPS will probably be taking on a new full-time staff position entitled "Conservation Director".  An estimated 35% of the this person's FTE time would go towards supporting this goal.