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Nature in the City News
Biodiversity in the General Plan:
The Rose
Since Fall, 2007 Nature in the City has been participating in the Mayor's Open Space Task Force, the 3 products of which are: a 100-Year Vision; an immediate Action Plan; and an Update of the Recreation and Open Space Element (ROSE) of San Francisco's General Plan.
The Planning Department produced a new Draft Recreation and Open Space Element that needed a lot of work. Nature in the City in cooperation with California Native Plant Society, Golden Gate Audubon Society, Kids in Parks, Mt. Sutro Stewards, Planet Drum Foundation, San Francisco League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Urban Watershed Project, and the Visitacion Valley Greenway, submitted a wholesale rewrite of Objective 4, which we entitled, PROTECT THE BIODIVERSITY, NATURAL HABITATS, AND ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY OF ALL OPEN SPACES, AND NATURAL AREAS OWNED BY THE CITY AND IN ITS JURISDICTION.
The rewrite we submitted included the following policies:
Policy 4.1 - Preserve all native and naturalistic habitats and natural areas.
Policy 4.2 - Restore remnant natural ecosystems, native habitats, natural areas and watershed lands.
Policy 4.3 - Protect and restore sensitive and special-status species, habitats, and natural resources.
Policy 4.4 - Require the inclusion of environmentally sustainable design principles into all open space construction and renovation, in order to maximize native wildlife and plant habitat in developed and naturalistic areas.
Policy 4.5 - Develop public and agency awareness and understanding of local biodiversity and natural habitats.
Policy 4.6 - Improve the management and stewardship of San Francisco's natural environment by implementing a combined watershed and ecosystem approach, and foster local community ecological stewardship in cooperation with management agencies.
Compare these with their initial draft, the current ROSE (scroll to the bottom of the page for Policy 2.13 - Significant Natural Areas), and the next new Draft ROSE that they present this week, which, according to the Planning Department is much new and improved.
The Planning Department is shopping around this 2nd new draft ROSE to the various public input venues including:
PROSAC tonight!
and the Recreation and Park Commission this Thursday, May 7th
According to Sue Exline of the Planning Department,
the Planning Commission will agendize the ROSE on May 14th.
Natural Areas Plan
The Planning Department has finally published the Initial Study for the Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan (SNRAMP). The FINDING of the Initial Study is that an Environmental Impact Report is required.
In compliance with CEQA, the City is holding PUBLIC SCOPING meetings on:
Tuesday, May 12, from 6:30 to 9:30 pm at the County Fair Building at 9th Avenue and Lincoln Way, and
on Thursday, May 14, from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm at Pedro Point Firehouse in Pacifica (1227 Danmann Avenue).
Written comments on the Initial Study will be accepted until May 26, 2009, and should be sent to Bill Wycko, SF Planning Department, Natural Areas Management Plan, 1650 Mission Street, Suite 400, San Francisco, CA 94103.
Of course, Nature in the City, in collaboration with many other local environmental organizations, has been tracking the SNRAMP for years. Check out our Natural Areas webpage for the most recent history.
One week from today is the first of the two meetings, and that morning, we will send out suggestions for comments. Our broad initial concerns and ideas are the following:
1. Include a maximum possible ecological restoration alternative for SFRPD's 31 Natural Areas, so that the public has the opportunity to understand the potential for a biodiverse urban ecological future, and how that future would affect people and our environment.
2. The management framework of MA1s, MA2s and MA3s presents some real problems; it promulgates a less than holistic management approach for the natural areas. Regardless of the relative value of different pieces of our natural areas, they should be managed with coherence, continuity and consistency for wildlife, rare plants, and ecosystem processes.
3. Include the 3 management alternatives for Sharp Park, i.e., golf, less golf and no golf. No golf should be the maximum possible ecological restoration alternative for Sharp Park, while the others should certainly optimize ecological and endangered species management and restoration by presenting the golf course as the most ecologically-sustainable in California.
SF Supervisors Committee Vote Unanimously for Endangered Species
On Thursday, April 30, San Francisco Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi, Sophie Maxwell and Eric Mar, who constitute the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, recommended, 3-0, the Sharp Park Ecological Restoration legislation to the Full Board!
If you have a moment, please send an email thanking three of our environmental supervisors for their historic vote on behalf of federally-listed endangered species, our fragile, but beautiful coast and our childrens' chances to connect with nature where they live.
Then today you can monitor the vote at the Full Board, at which we're hoping for a veto-proof 8 votes.
Sharp Park has received some great media lately. Check out the articles and letters below:
San Mateo County Times Insider: Sharp Barbs Exchanged Over Sharp Park
CBS 5: Uncertain Future For Golfers At Sharp Park
SF Gate City Insider: Sharp Park Golf Course Decision Up To Board
San Francisco Examiner: Sharp Park Might Be Returned to Wetlands
San Mateo County Times: Sharp Debate Over Sharp Park Golf Course
KQED Perspective
Dominik Mosur's Letter to the Editor
Green Hairstreak Butterfly Article!
A new article was just written about the Green Hairstreak and will be published in the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon which should be out tomorrow or Thursday. If you don't get these papers (or you want a sneak peek!), you can read it here.
Some corrections are needed for this article. The Green Hairstreak Walk is on SATURDAY, May 9, our website is natureinthecity.org, Liam O'Brien (with an 'e'), and Mike Belcher. Be aware there may be others!!
Mission Blue Relocation Completed
From Nature in the City Steering Committee member and local lepidopterist, Liam O'Brien, April 28:
"I was asked to be one of the netters on San Bruno Mountain today that selectively brought in 8 more female Mission Blues (Plebejus icariodes missionensis) to be move by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife to augment the remaining population on Twin Peaks. It was an honor to be a part of Stuart Weiss's Creekside Science and Lisa Wayne's Natural Areas Program teams. Everyone was focused and doing some GREAT keying in the field. We could only take every fourth female observed. Only 22 allowed on the permit and we found the remaining 8 in six hours.
Two years ago, I volunteered early mornings with the egg monitoring of this species with Natural Areas Staff on Twin Peaks. Lisa Wayne was gracious enough to listen to an impassioned volunteer (me) that something was off. The fates had me running into David Kelley, of USF&W while monitoring the Langes Metalmark, another endangered out at Antioch Dunes. A "Mission Blue Summit" was arranged last winter were we asked that something already with the Recovery Plan was implemented: that the Twin Peaks population, already acknoledged in 1976 as 'too far away for them to fly their on their own,' be augmented. Stuart Weiss was hired. Much ground work has been done by the magnificent NAP. staff to better the habitat up there, and the permit was written...and we did it. Thrilling to the core to be a part of a group of people that just...tried...to make things better for our most famous butterfly."
A Sphinx on Sutro?
From Craig Dawson, Nature in the City steering committee member and leader of the Mt. Sutro Stewards, April 22:
"Dan had a small crew doing trail work tonight and I stopped by to observe. I was digging out a huge clump of pampas grass and after removing the debris I observed something moving on the ground. It was the largest moth I'd ever seen. Dan and I took some pictures, but it looked like the one pictured, a Sphinx Moth.
It was the size of a hummingbird with a good 4" wingspan."
Beautification Award Nominations Wanted!
Nominate a project for San Francisco Beautiful's Beautification Awards! Nominated projects must be located in San Francisco and visually or physically accessible to the general public. Due date for nominations is June 1st.
Special consideration will be given to those projects that reflect this year's theme, "Saving Our City: Beauty Has a Place." We are looking for beautification projects that happen due to creative thinking and collective efforts - even in the face of resource shortages (both financial and natural) and some urban planning policies that threaten neighborhood character. These beautification projects take many forms and happen everywhere - schools, parks, stairways, neighborhood historic districts and streetcar lines. These projects often start with a few people who have a vision and then a community force builds around them.
Click here for more information.
Bay Area Early Detection Network Coordinator Needed
The Bay Area Early Detection Network is seeking an early detection Coordinator. For the right candidate, the position is a rare opportunity to revolutionize invasive plant management in the Bay Area --and beyond!
Click here for more information.
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Mountain Lake, Brian Hildebrand |
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Bayview Hill, Cheri Garamendi |
| Wednesday May 6 |
| Alcatraz Gardens Presidio Park Stewards @ Lobos Creek Valley California Native Plant Society @ McLaren Park, Visitaction Overlook Redwood Creek Presidio Nursery |
| Friday May 8 |
| Alcatraz Gardens Presidio Plant Patrol @ Dragonfly Creek |
| Sunday May 10 |
| Haight-Ashbury Native Plant Nursery |
| Thursday May 7 |
| Crissy Field Landscape Lands End Stewards |
| Saturday May 9 |
| Quail on the Presidio Herons Head Marsh Area A Landscape & Maintenance Presidio Park Stewards @ Crissy Field Oak Woodlands Lands End Stewards Friends of McLaren Park Colma Creek Redwood Creek Friends of Edgehill Mountain |
For more information, contact info, and directions to natural areas go to the Community Calendar on the Nature in the City website.
Farms in the City
At our recent TALK, Transition City, we had a great speaker panel of city farmers and local food and water activists. Below are links to their websites, check 'em out!
The Greywater Guerillas
Ghost Town Farm
Institute For Urban Homesteading
SF Permaculture Guild
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Northern Spotted Owl, WildCare |
Protect Northern Spotted Owls!!
Northern Spotted Owls survive in the wild by the thinnest of margins. Only 560 pairs remain in California's old-growth forests.
Yet the California State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection is considering legislation that could put the very industry that endangers these birds in control of their conservation!
Nature Owned by the City
SFPUC
"For those of you who’d like to get outside this spring, we have five simple words: Your watersheds are calling you.
The SFPUC-owned Alameda and Peninsula Watersheds are remarkable islands of rare and endangered species in a crowded Bay Area. Now is the time to visit. Wildflowers are in bloom, the hillsides are green, and the views are gorgeous. "