by Jonathan Wittwer
BLM’s Contractor Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewards (formerly Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz) is working on the first nine miles of trails on the northern section of the property, which BLM expects to open by the end of 2022. FONC’s main concern at this point is that this is happening without the required and promised prior inventory and documentation of the existing wildlife population and habitat/corridor locations (known as a “Baseline”). FONC made substantial efforts to get this to occur prior to trail construction disturbance and will continue its efforts (working with others) to get a Baseline documented prior to opening. Unfortunately, BLM’s current position is that “formal monitoring protocols for each species discussed in the Proclamation is not recommended or proposed.” BLM is attempting to foist its own obligations onto others to fundraise for Baseline inventories and future monitoring. For most wildlife, monitoring is “Subject to Availability of Funding" despite BLM’s “general assumption” made in the adopted Resource Management Plan Amendment that “Funding and personnel would be sufficient to implement any alternative described”, including specifically “to facilitate the analysis of potential impacts and common to all resources.” If you have knowledge, training, or skills and can volunteer to work with a team to document portions of a Baseline, please contact FONC. Santa Cruz Sentinel March 25, 2021 Hannah Hagemann https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2022/03/25/crews-cut-trails-at-to-be-opened-santa-cruz-north-coast-national-monument/ DAVENPORT – On a recent Tuesday morning, a dozen people armed with shovels, backhoes and rakes marched from coastal terraces – that overlook the shimmering Pacific – inland to the redwood forest.
The Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship crew has been on the ground at the Cotoni-Coast Dairies unit of the California Coastal National Monument since December. Here, volunteers and staff have cut into forest floor overgrown with fern, blackberry brush and poison ivy to build what will become the first section of public trail on the property. The nearly 6,000 acre national monument – which was historically stewarded by the Cotoni Tribe – hasn’t been open to the public in modern history. It’s also home to iconic California species – mountain lions, coho salmon and red legged frogs. The stewardship coordinates and funds most of the trail work at Coast Dairies, in a partnership with the Bureau of Land Management. The groups aim to open up some 4 miles of trails to recreators by the end of 2022. “Typically we’re playing catch up on trails, or using old roads – they get beat up,” said Ben Blom, BLM Central Coast field manager. “The fact we’re building a world class trail system from scratch is exciting and kind of unusual.” Creating such public access has been decades in the making. The vast property of coastal prairie, redwood forest and riparian shrubland has a storied history. It was formerly tilled by dairy farmers and owned by the Coast Dairies Land Co. – which at one point considered developing the land into a luxury home site. But after years of planning, community meetings and coordinating, two first trails could open as soon as November. Inaugural trails Coast Dairies is set to open in two phases, according to Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship Superintendent Garret Hammack. The stewardship plans to build 46 miles of trails, broken up into northern and southern access points. While the south side of the property will be open to hikers and horseback riders, the northern section – which encompasses 19 miles – is targeted to bikers and hikers and will open first. So far, the stewardship has fundraised around 7 miles of that trail building work. “To make the funding for this project happen quicker, the way to do it was just fund it ourselves,” Hammack said. “I think there’s the community push because people really want to see it happen.” Stewardship staff and volunteers are currently building out roughly 4 miles of trail that is slated to open later this year. One of those trails is targeted for families, as well as bikers and hikers of all levels. It will also be wide enough for adaptive bikers, who commonly ride recumbent bikes or e-bikes. “There are a lot of people who reach out to us about [wanting] more trail networks that will accommodate their needs and we’re finding this community coming out of the woodwork more and more and growing and feeling empowered, which is fantastic,” said Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship Communications Manager Katy Poniatowski. A second trail – with a single-track feel – will likely appeal to those more advanced mountain bikers and hikers. The groups also plan to eventually create a trail system that would link Coast Dairies to the adjacent San Vicente Redwoods, where a new “ridgeline to shoreline” thru-hike is in the works. Trail work partnerships The stewardship relies on its volunteers, Poniatowski said, but also sees trail building as a way for people to cultivate relationships with nature. In addition to hosting weekly volunteer meetups, the group also hosts “dig days” to attract larger weekend crews. On one section of trail, crews are shoveling dirt, storing it in buckets and carrying it out, rather than dumping it. That extra step protects watershed health and vulnerable coho salmon. “It’s hard work – we’re trying to do it right the first time, balancing all these competing interests and uses of the property and natural resources,” said Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship Trails Planning Director Drew Perkins. To BLM Central Coast field manager Blom, the partnership is a win-win. “It’s good from a financial perspective, but fundamentally I think it’s really important that the community has ownership of these trails, and what better way to create that sense of stewardship than the community actually building it?” Blom said. The BLM plans to preserve and manage half of Coast Dairies – some 3,000 acres – which will be off limits to recreators. The work includes keeping track of 149 grazing cattle, which visitors may see wandering from time to time. The impacts of that grazing, Blom said, were critical in preventing serious wildfire from spreading onto the property during the 2020 CZU August Lightning Complex. The agency will also continue to collaborate with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band on stewardship activities at Coast Dairies, such as igniting prescribed burns, which reduce overgrown vegetation and the risk of wildfire. As the community eagerly awaits, stewardship volunteer Rod Evans said the trail building work is rewarding, particularly during an inaugural mountain bike ride. “It’s just fun working on the stuff you’re going to ride, to come back and say ‘I did that’,” Evans said. by Gray Hayes
March 13, 2022 https://greyhayes.net/2022/03/21/recreation-vs-conservation-in-natural-areas/ We face a quandary for which there are many solutions: the northern region of Santa Cruz County is one of the nation’s top biodiversity hotspots which is increasingly facing one of the largest threats to biodiversity – recreation within conservation areas. Globally, the coast of California is recognized as one of the most important crisis areas where natural areas tourism impact overlaps with critical conservation areas called biodiversity hotspots. Biodiversity Hotspots Biodiversity hotspots have been scientifically catalogued in precise ways to direct conservation funding and activities. These areas have particularly high numbers of species limited to small geographic areas, correlating with large numbers of endangered species. Areas with numerous endangered species in different groups receive higher hotspot scores: Santa Cruz County has many endangered species in three groups: ‘herptiles, arthropods, and plants,’ and so is one of only two counties in the nation to receive the highest hotspot score. Similarly, with a larger lens than county boundaries, the San Francisco Bay Area, including northern Santa Cruz County, is recognized as one of the top three biodiversity hotspots in the country. The rationale for using biodiversity hotspot indices for conservation prioritization is so widely accepted that this measure has become the focus of the most funding of any other conservation initiative, a total of $750 million up to 2010. Our region has long benefited from such largesse, including the generous funding to set aside areas like the BLM’s Cotoni Coast Dairies and POST/Sempervirens Fund’s San Vicente Redwoods conservation areas. And yet, purchasing of land for conservation purposes only begins the process of conservation, which will last many lifetimes. Fortunately, there are many strong protections in place for these areas that help to guarantee that they will long be managed primarily for biodiversity protection. Wildlife Protected at Cotoni Coast Dairies There are a host of guarantees for biodiversity protection at the Cotoni Coast Dairies property. In 2017, Obama’s presidential proclamation making the property a part of the California Coastal Monument there are protections for such a breadth of ‘Objects of the Monument.’ Monument designation carries with it mandates for very careful planning, inventory, and adaptive management to assure natural resource protection. In addition, the property has been designated as part of the most protected lands in the Country: National Conservation Lands. In addition, BLM maintains and regularly updates lists of ‘special status’ plants and animals to guide protections on their lands. For those interested in mandates for BLM management for biodiversity on National Monuments, I encourage perusal of their Manual 6220. Using one ‘Object of the Monument’ as an example, the 6220 Manual requires that BLM inventory the dusky footed woodrat on the property and, in collaboration with experts at its National Conservation Lands Office, include in its property-wide science plan specifics about how managers will monitor and adaptively manage the property to assure the species’ protection. Regulations protecting biodiversity on the nation’s highest value conservation lands well reflect the majority of citizen’s interests in protecting wildlife, even if it means personal sacrifice. This is good news for conservation in natural areas because of the natural conflict between recreation and conservation. Recreational Use is Contrary to Wildlife Protection There has been much published about the negative impacts to wildlife of recreational use in natural areas, but here are a few illustrations of types of negative impacts. The following species are listed as “Objects of the Monument:” gray fox, bobcat, and mountain lion. Predators such as these three species are well recognized as extremely sensitive to recreational use in natural areas, leading to decreased density and abundance of these types of animals. Researchers working in the Santa Cruz area have noted that mountain lions are substantially sensitive to noises from humans, which reduce their use of recreational areas and lead to changes rippling through the rest of the wildlife community, including increased numbers of mice and potential increased frequency of Lyme disease. But, mammalian predators aren’t the only types of wildlife to be disturbed by recreational use. The Monument Proclamation also calls out protection for Wilson’s and orange-crowned warblers, downy woodpecker, tree swallow, Cooper’s hawk, and American kestrel. Burrowing owl, golden eagle, tricolored blackbird, and white-tailed kite are also listed as protected on BLM’s special status animals list for California. Some bird species have been shown to be especially ‘flighty’ in the face of recreational use, requiring study and specific trail design to adequately buffer distances to avoid impacts. While the effects on specific species varies, some species can be negatively affected by the mere presence of humans, so, unless specific studies can ascertain effects, scientists suggest that avoiding new trails in natural areas is the best measure for conserving sensitive birds. Grassland birds, such as the burrowing owl, are particularly sensitive to recreational disturbance, perhaps because it is so difficult for these species to hide. There are also studies that would suggest care must be taken to avoid recreational disturbance to species like the California red-legged frog, deer, and native plants. BLM’s Dilemma BLM managers of Cotoni Coast Dairies face the many dilemmas of managing land for conflicting visitor uses alongside the conflict between recreational access and nature conservation in an especially sensitive ecological area. The varying types of recreational users run the gamut from mountain bikers who use trails for the physical thrill of staying upright with speed and obstacles…to more scenery- and/or exercise-oriented mountain bikers and hikers…to more passive recreational users such as wildlife viewers…to photographers and painters…to restorationists…and scientists of natural history. Each user group conflicts with the next and the ones further apart with their expectations conflict even worse. I have not seen a plan by BLM to accommodate or monitor such conflicting uses, which will lead to what is called displacement, mainly of families with children and more passive natural areas users. Instead, BLM managers have shown a personal and strong affinity with the mountain biking community, which is also the agency’s closest ally in advocating for and developing recreational trails designed for their use on the property. On the other hand, BLM managers have turned away from engagement with passive users such as wildlife viewers, restorationists and scientists of natural history. Without welcoming this engagement which would have made up for their professed lack of such capacity, BLM managers are now moving forward with little understanding of the distribution and abundance of species, including those protected by statute. The evident BLM managerial-mountain biking community conflict of interest should be a great concern of those of the public who are concerned with biological conservation. The Collaborative Management Solution We should be advocating for an alternate way forward where BLM public engagement staff serve as facilitators of solutions-based approaches to the conflicts between users and between recreational use and natural resource conservation. The first step would be for BLM to adhere to its policy requiring a science plan informed by a baseline inventory of the Objects of the Monument and other special status species; this plan would include a carrying capacity analysis and an adaptive management framework to assure protection of the resources. All of those steps could be done collaboratively with scientists and volunteers as is outlined in BLM’s policy guidance. There have been offers for substantive financial resources to assist with this planning. Instead of hiding its scientific studies as it does now, BLM would proudly share what science it has gathered on a public interactive website. Once completed, the science plan could then be the focus of collaborative management of the property including all interested parties working together with the common goal of conservation of biological diversity while providing recreational access to the maximum extent possible. We are lucky to have a coalition of many groups working to make this vision real, including: Rural Bonny Doon Association, Friends of the North Coast, Sempervirens Fund, and Davenport North Coast Association. Your support of those organizations will help greatly. |
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