Community Foundation releases Biodiversity Action Plan

 SANTA ROSA – Calling Sonoma County one of the most diverse
places for native fauna and flora in America, the Community
Foundation Sonoma County has just published an in-depth action plan
aimed at keeping what we still have in the way of the natural
world.
More than 50 scientists, biologists and other individuals from
dozens of environmental and public agencies took part in coming up
with the 75-page document, the Biodiversity Action Plan: Priority
Actions to Preserve Biodiversity in Sonoma County.
Despite the changes brought to the county’s natural landscape by
farming and other modern industry, Sonoma County is still blessed
with places with native habitat and the wildlife that comes with
it, according to Robert Judd, Community Foundation vice president
of programs.
But, he said, because of continued development, much of that
faces destructive alteration.
“The Action Plan is important because Sonoma County is one of
the most biologically diverse places in the United States. Here, we
all enjoy the benefits of living in one of the 34 biodiversity ‘hot
spots’ in the world. However, as the report mentions, human actions
are rapidly altering the environment and placing Sonoma County’s
biodiversity at risk.” Judd said, “Ultimately Sonoma County’s
biodiversity supports the very things and quality of life that we
all consider to be so special about the place where we live. The
Action Plan will help us to identify what exists here; to observe
climate-caused changes to our habitats, and to prioritize actions
that will help sustain that which is essential to our quality of
life here.”
Mediterranean ecosystems like those found in Sonoma County, the
action plan says, are in fact second only to tropical rainforests
in terms of measured biodiversity.
With 1,603 square miles, comprising 1.01 percent of the state —
and with four mountain ranges — the area provides a home to some
2,210 native plant species, 22 of them listed as endangered.
There are six threatened animal species and some 20 species
unique to the county, while about 195 invasive plant species are
found here, about 8 percent of the total number of plant species,
according to the report.
Additionally, it said, only 15 percent of the county is in some
protected status.
Because of its coastal geography, varied topography,
paleobotany, and microclimate diversity, the report says, Sonoma
County comprises a near-complete sampling of northern California
habitat diversity, from chaparral, grassland, savannah, and forests
to beach-dune and near-shore marine environments.
Together these habitats provide critical “ecosystem
services.”
“Chief among these services,” says the report, “is plentiful,
clean drinking water. Residents also expect protection from
seasonal flooding, pollination of our gardens, the annual return of
salmon, surrounding scenic beauty, and almost unlimited access to
local water sources for irrigation of vineyards and other
agriculture. In addition to fundamentally sustaining people and
wildlife, natural ecosystems also satisfy our innate need to be
immersed in the outdoors.”
“Sonoma County’s biodiversity is rooted in its large variety of
habitats defined by many different soil types, microclimates, and
topography,” said Dr. Christina Sloop, a scientist with the San
Francisco Bay Joint Venture, who has worked with the Laguna de
Santa Rosa Foundation in the past.
“Unique habitats make for a unique flora and fauna,” she said,
“in many cases found nowhere else on Earth.”
The study says significant impacts have been made to the
county’s natural systems, for example, by construction of Warm
Springs Dam which obliterated the town of Skaggs Springs and
important indigenous sites as well as cutting off spawning
tributaries to the Russian River, large scale logging, radical
modification of streams and wetlands, the introduction of hundreds
of non-native plants and animals and the massive reduction of
salmon and steelhead.
According to the summary, the county is in real need of
long-term, steadily funded and science driven program to accomplish
biodiversity preservation by setting measurable goals for wildlife
and habitat recovery, track real time threats to the ecosystem and
prioritize conservation actions to sustain local biodiversity.
To accomplish that the action plan suggests “educating the
community; implementing an overarching ‘vital signs’ monitoring
framework; promoting conservation; protecting land through
acquisitions and easements; conducting a regional climate change
vulnerability analysis for species and ecosystems and coming up
with a county-wide cost analysis of both restoration and
development projects.”
“I think this plan is significant in that it represents a
remarkable collaboration and consensus of dozens of groups engaged
in preserving biodiversity in the county,” said Sonoma Land Trust
Conservation Director Wendy Elliott.
“In some ways,” she added, “the conversations between
scientists, land managers, conservation planners, and others that
occurred along the way were just as important as the final report
as we will be working together to implement the plan.”
“The BAP acknowledges that preserving the County’s biodiversity
is directly related to our quality of life,” Elliot said.
As for their part in the push toward a wildlife rich
environment, Elliot said the trust’s “core work is about protection
of land and its resources, from unique pockets of biodiversity like
Pitkin Marsh to large forest and range landscapes such as the
Jenner Headlands.”
She said in the future the trust would focus our acquisition
efforts primarily on protecting large diverse landscapes,
connecting protected properties, creating habitat corridors and
anticipating the consequences of climate change on the land.”
Elliot added that familiar conservation issues such as habitat
fragmentation and invasive species threats will be exacerbated in
the face of climate change.
“We have been and will continue to forge relationships with the
science community so that we can apply the best available science
and stewardship practices to managing our lands and adapting our
management practices,” she said.
Judd, meanwhile, said the action plan was created by scientists
and is intended to be a resource for other scientists and technical
experts as well as land managers, policy makers, funders of
sustainable land use practices and “and you and me who, as
responsible citizens, can help conserve this invaluable natural
heritage that we have inherited.”
Leaders and contributors to the plan include representatives
from groups and agencies ranging from The Sonoma County Water
Agency, the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, the Climate Protection
Campaign and Sonoma State University and to the California
Department of Fish and Game, the California Native Plant Society,
the California State Water Resources Control Board and Marin’s
Audubon Canyon Ranch near Bolinas.
Also included were the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation
and Open Space District, the Sotoyome Resource Conservation
District as well as the cities of Windsor and Santa Rosa.
Judd said the action plan, although just recently released and
largely unknown to the public at large, is already in use.
“There already is a group that is using the plan to inform its
work in responding to the effects of climate change in Sonoma
County,” he said. “Representatives of about 20 organizations,
including natural resource managers, policy makers and scientists,
have formed a coalition known as the North Bay Climate Adaptations
Initiative.”
Judd said the coalition is using the information in the plan as
a central part of its work to help it create solutions to climate
adaptation for the area’s ecosystems and watersheds.
He added the NBCAI is also working with public officials on both
the county and local level to ensure that climate adaptation into
county planning and policy.
Members of NBCAI’s policy group he said “are already involved
with Sonoma County’s new Regional Climate Protection Authority and
are active in the RCPA’s coordinating committee. Other contacts
with local planning boards will also occur over time.”