Leo
03-09-2003, 05:13 AM
Here's an interesting story from the NY times.. Those silly tree-huggers are even fighting among themselves.. <arghh>..
I still can believe that we let Cali have so much influence over the rest of the country (CARB, gun laws, etc..)
What are the odds of ATV's running on these dunes.. LOL..
------------------- story -------------------
AN FRANCISCO, March 6 — From the city's hilltops, the trees of the Presidio form luxurious green plumage against winter's crystalline skies.
When the United States Army planted this urban forest — now a 1,480-acre national park — on ridges and wind-swept sand dunes in the 1880's, it imbued the trees of what was then a military post with deep symbolism. Maj. W. A. Jones, the landscape engineer, wrote that soaring Monterey cypress, eucalyptus and other trees would make the base appear imposing and "indirectly accentuate the idea of the power of government."
San Franciscans take their history and horticulture seriously. So it is probably not surprising that a philosophical tempest has erupted over a draft plan by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, now under review, that suggests removing 3,800 trees to re-establish the sand dunes that once blanketed the landscape. The dunes are immeasurably older than the trees and are home to an endangered species: the San Francisco lessingia, a delicate bell-shaped yellow flower that flourishes in wind-swept sand.
Although large swaths of the city were once sand, the mere suggestion that dunes replace trees, even for an endangered species, has stirred deep emotions and pitted tree-hugger against sand-hugger, as the two camps call each other. When the draft plan was unveiled last year, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote of "sand-hugging zealots" and a future of sand "hurling across a barren landscape."
Environmentalists have scorned the eucalyptus trees as a troublesome invasive species. This prompted outrage from Leland Yee, a city supervisor.
"Plants and trees without the proper papers to show their pre-Mayflower lineage are called `invasive exotics' and are wrenched from the soil to die," Mr. Yee, now a member of the State Assembly, fumed in an op-ed piece he wrote for a community newspaper last year. "How many of us are `invasive exotics' who have taken root in the San Francisco soil, have thrived and flourished?"
The San Francisco lessingia, an annual in the aster family, is found in only two places: the Presidio and a hillside below a housing development in nearby Daly City. It thrives in "disturbed" terrain, specifically drifting sand.
The dune recovery plan, written by Peter Baye, a coastal plant ecologist who has since left the Fish and Wildlife Service, recommends expanding Lobos Creek Valley, a dune area resurrected in 1997 with $1 million in city funds and hundreds of volunteers.
Creating the "new" 13 acres of dunes involved chopping down 19 trees. In exchange, the number of lessingia plants, which bloom in late summer, rose from about 600 to more than a million.
The draft plan calls for increasing the lessingia habitat by removing more "wind obstacles" (translation: trees). The trees, on the hillside above the dunes, include stands of Monterey cypress, their wind-sculptured limbs and fanning branches a symbol of the Northern California coast.
They are among the Presidio's 120-year-old trees, coastal varieties with a relatively short life span that are starting to die or blow over.
"We are at a crossroads," said Mr. Baye, now an independent ecologist in Annapolis, Calif. "Do we want the trees to come back up as volunteers" — spreading willy-nilly without planting — "or do we want to consciously re-landscape parts of the Presidio?"
Interpreting the historic landscape — the largest open space in San Francisco, with glorious views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean and the bay — has posed thorny problems for landscape architects.
The Presidio is a national historic landmark, the forest a distinctive feature. Many trees were spaced too close together by the Army, increasing competition among them and making them susceptible to wind. Many trees, especially the eucalyptus, have spread beyond their original location.
About 500 of the roughly 100,000 trees in the park have already been taken down to open up historic vistas and lake views and encourage more plant and wildlife diversity.
To Joe McBride, a professor of forest ecology at the University of California at Berkeley, the Presidio's forest is as important as its buildings, which are considered among the country's most significant collections of 19th-century military architecture. "Historic vegetation is another way of informing people about the past," Mr. McBride said.
William Shephard, a lawyer who often in-line skates in the park, said that even "stunted" cypress trees are beautiful from a distance. "People love to walk through them, even if they are runts," he said. "I like having a place to go when I'm not spending 60-hour weeks in my office. It's important to the mental health of people in San Francisco to have our greenscape, our trees."
Chris Nagano, chief of the endangered species division for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, said the agency was reviewing public comments and a final plan would be released later this year.
Terri Thomas, natural resources program director of the Presidio Trust, which administers most of the park, described the Presidio as "a palimpsest of layers, each with its own history."
"The question is not whether to save the lessingia or the forest," Ms. Thomas said, "but how to save both."
Sharon Farrell, a plant ecologist and director of the Aquatic Outreach Institute, a nonprofit educational organization, said that compared with trees, dunes suffer from bad public relations.
"The very word can incite fears of blowing sands," Ms. Farrell said. "We're raised to believe that trees are good. We don't plant tiny lessingia annuals in school."
I still can believe that we let Cali have so much influence over the rest of the country (CARB, gun laws, etc..)
What are the odds of ATV's running on these dunes.. LOL..
------------------- story -------------------
AN FRANCISCO, March 6 — From the city's hilltops, the trees of the Presidio form luxurious green plumage against winter's crystalline skies.
When the United States Army planted this urban forest — now a 1,480-acre national park — on ridges and wind-swept sand dunes in the 1880's, it imbued the trees of what was then a military post with deep symbolism. Maj. W. A. Jones, the landscape engineer, wrote that soaring Monterey cypress, eucalyptus and other trees would make the base appear imposing and "indirectly accentuate the idea of the power of government."
San Franciscans take their history and horticulture seriously. So it is probably not surprising that a philosophical tempest has erupted over a draft plan by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, now under review, that suggests removing 3,800 trees to re-establish the sand dunes that once blanketed the landscape. The dunes are immeasurably older than the trees and are home to an endangered species: the San Francisco lessingia, a delicate bell-shaped yellow flower that flourishes in wind-swept sand.
Although large swaths of the city were once sand, the mere suggestion that dunes replace trees, even for an endangered species, has stirred deep emotions and pitted tree-hugger against sand-hugger, as the two camps call each other. When the draft plan was unveiled last year, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote of "sand-hugging zealots" and a future of sand "hurling across a barren landscape."
Environmentalists have scorned the eucalyptus trees as a troublesome invasive species. This prompted outrage from Leland Yee, a city supervisor.
"Plants and trees without the proper papers to show their pre-Mayflower lineage are called `invasive exotics' and are wrenched from the soil to die," Mr. Yee, now a member of the State Assembly, fumed in an op-ed piece he wrote for a community newspaper last year. "How many of us are `invasive exotics' who have taken root in the San Francisco soil, have thrived and flourished?"
The San Francisco lessingia, an annual in the aster family, is found in only two places: the Presidio and a hillside below a housing development in nearby Daly City. It thrives in "disturbed" terrain, specifically drifting sand.
The dune recovery plan, written by Peter Baye, a coastal plant ecologist who has since left the Fish and Wildlife Service, recommends expanding Lobos Creek Valley, a dune area resurrected in 1997 with $1 million in city funds and hundreds of volunteers.
Creating the "new" 13 acres of dunes involved chopping down 19 trees. In exchange, the number of lessingia plants, which bloom in late summer, rose from about 600 to more than a million.
The draft plan calls for increasing the lessingia habitat by removing more "wind obstacles" (translation: trees). The trees, on the hillside above the dunes, include stands of Monterey cypress, their wind-sculptured limbs and fanning branches a symbol of the Northern California coast.
They are among the Presidio's 120-year-old trees, coastal varieties with a relatively short life span that are starting to die or blow over.
"We are at a crossroads," said Mr. Baye, now an independent ecologist in Annapolis, Calif. "Do we want the trees to come back up as volunteers" — spreading willy-nilly without planting — "or do we want to consciously re-landscape parts of the Presidio?"
Interpreting the historic landscape — the largest open space in San Francisco, with glorious views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean and the bay — has posed thorny problems for landscape architects.
The Presidio is a national historic landmark, the forest a distinctive feature. Many trees were spaced too close together by the Army, increasing competition among them and making them susceptible to wind. Many trees, especially the eucalyptus, have spread beyond their original location.
About 500 of the roughly 100,000 trees in the park have already been taken down to open up historic vistas and lake views and encourage more plant and wildlife diversity.
To Joe McBride, a professor of forest ecology at the University of California at Berkeley, the Presidio's forest is as important as its buildings, which are considered among the country's most significant collections of 19th-century military architecture. "Historic vegetation is another way of informing people about the past," Mr. McBride said.
William Shephard, a lawyer who often in-line skates in the park, said that even "stunted" cypress trees are beautiful from a distance. "People love to walk through them, even if they are runts," he said. "I like having a place to go when I'm not spending 60-hour weeks in my office. It's important to the mental health of people in San Francisco to have our greenscape, our trees."
Chris Nagano, chief of the endangered species division for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, said the agency was reviewing public comments and a final plan would be released later this year.
Terri Thomas, natural resources program director of the Presidio Trust, which administers most of the park, described the Presidio as "a palimpsest of layers, each with its own history."
"The question is not whether to save the lessingia or the forest," Ms. Thomas said, "but how to save both."
Sharon Farrell, a plant ecologist and director of the Aquatic Outreach Institute, a nonprofit educational organization, said that compared with trees, dunes suffer from bad public relations.
"The very word can incite fears of blowing sands," Ms. Farrell said. "We're raised to believe that trees are good. We don't plant tiny lessingia annuals in school."