SCRP Guide Fall 2009

Cal Student Habitat Restoration Leader Handbook Restoring Biodiversity on U.C. Berkeley’s Watershed Lands Tim Pine Tyler Grinberg Lindsey Sanders First Edition Fall 2009 0 Table of Contents Introduction……………………….……………………………………….2 Chapter 1: A History of the East Bay Watershed Lands…….……4 Chapter 2: Aquatic Life in Strawberry Creek………………….…...7 Chapter 3: Native Plant Identification……………………………..10 Chapter 4: Non-native, Invasive Plant Identification……………17 Chapter 5: Invasive Plant Management Techniques………………25 Chapter 6: Native Plant Propagation and Reintroduction………28 Chapter 7: Recruiting and Organizing Restoration Volunteers for the Strawberry Creek Restoration Project…………..30 Chapter 8: Ensuring Future Management and Stewardship of Restored Areas………………………………………….…32 Appendix A: Restoration Event Checklist………………………….33 Appendix B: Tool Supply List………………………………………..36 Appendix C: Useful Reference Material……………………………37 1 Introduction Imagine. The sailing vessel you are on emerges from a thick bank of fog and suddenly, brilliant October sunshine floods the white capped waters in front of you. Your gaze now rises to the eastern shore line where you see golden hills dotted with islands of shrubs undulating upward to a green fringed ridge-top covered in tall forests. Across the tableau are sinuous green corridors spaced every mile or so that draw the eye down the hillsides and back to the shore line tinted emerald by the nearly continuous carpet of lush marsh vegetation. The skies are full of life; flocks of birds of all shapes, colors and sizes wheel above you and off into the distance. Yours are among the first foreign eyes to take in this vista and the time is mid-16th century. Now it is 1959. Your vantage point is the same but the view is starkly different. A brown and stinking haze nearly obscures the East Bay hills. The factories, buildings and homes are hard to make out across the grimy and oil streaked waters of the Bay. There are gulls wheeling here and there overhead but not much else in the way of visible bird life. The shoreline ahead is marked by columns of smoke rising from refineries and heavy industry; the smell of petroleum, garbage and sewage reaches your nose. Homes and business cover the hills now from north to south, and, but for patches of green here and there across the landscape, the most notable landscape feature is the mountain of garbage rising on the Berkeley waterfront and the grid of boulevards and streets that crisscross the hills beyond. If you were able to travel back in time to join the crew of a European sailing vessel that was among the first to sail to what is now the San Francisco Bay’s “East Bay” you would gain an appreciation for the wildness and rich diversity of life that once existed in this confluence of fresh and salt water, and temperate climate, and located at the crossroads of a multitude of migrating species. The biodiversity that once existed in California’s post-Pleistocene central coast was amongst the richest of all temperate habitats in the world. That diversity existed in relative post glacial equilibrium for the better part of 10,000 years while at the same time supporting a tribal existence of native hunter-gatherers. These early “Californian” inhabitants reaped the benefits of a wide variety of foods and building resources and, located in the temperate climate of the Central California coast, their culture flourished for thousands of years. While humans have always strived to influence their environments to improve their survival odds, the degree to which they were able to do so was for eons limited by the slow pace of migration and even slower exchange of technological advantages. Thus it was the ability to cross the great oceans of the planet by sailing ship, in pursuit of resources and riches, which proved to be the triggering event in the rapid change in California’s natural habitats. The large influx of European settlers to California, beginning primarily with Spanish settlement in the late 1700’s, also marked the start of permanent habitat conversion and loss due to introduced organisms, and destructive land uses; a loss of biodiversity that continues in California to this day but one that reached a modern low point by the mid 20th century. It is from that nadir that we are now trying to heal. The science, and art, of restoring damaged natural habitats is a relatively young discipline. For until recently, the bulk of human work sought to tame the natural world, to extract all the riches 2 that could be had, and to re-make our surroundings into something less wild and seemingly safer. We have seen now that the planet is not an infinitely deep well to be drawn from with no consequence. We have also seen that the planet is not a bottomless waste pit into which we can through our detritus without end to have it disappear, out of sight and mind forever. The truths have become all too apparent and the alarm we feel over disappearing resources, species, and livable space is startling. However, there is a way forward. In the last four decades, humans have learned a great deal about healing ecosystems and undoing damage. We have proved we can restore at least some measure of what was lost. It is a difficult task; it requires desire, political will, education and financial resources but it can work. Give the natural world a chance to heal itself by putting back the basis of the food chain that existed before, and often the healing will sustain itself— sometimes within the span of a human life or in many cases, even less time. Today, with dire news of global evidence of our past mistakes becoming painfully apparent, there is a strong desire among many humans to take action to heal our immediate surroundings in a way that returns an almost instantaneous result for our efforts; both visible and sensual, in a way that voting for tougher environmental regulations or changing our personal behaviors is not. The strong desire for hands-on action finds no better outlet than restoring natural habitats within your own surroundings. The restoration of natural habitats is an endeavor that returns an almost immediate benefit to those who engage in the hard work of undoing the mistakes of past generations, and, with nurturing, provides a gift to the future of almost immeasurable value. This handbook is intended to give guidance to those of the UC Berkeley community who wish, through the expenditure of their own sweat and determination, to make a difference immediately, to take back some of what was lost over the last several centuries of human influence from the lands now called University of California at Berkeley. Through this written resource, we hope you gain some of the whys and wherefores of natural habitat restoration, some techniques, and some methods that will help your efforts to restore lost habitats be as enjoyable and as effective as can be. 3 Chapter 1: A History of the East Bay Watershed Lands Excerpted from the Guide to East Bay Creeks: For most of the East Bay's human history, life revolved around local creeks as sources of water, food, and many other needs. Hunting, fishing, cooking, and drinking all depended upon a healthy watershed. But in the 20th century, Bay Area cities began importing water from the High Sierra, and the local creeks came to be seen as more of a nuisance than a necessity. People lost their intuitive connection to the watersheds they inhabit. Only recently has a deliberate effort begun to reawaken understandings once so obvious they needed no articulation. The original East Bay residents, the Ohlone Indians, situated their villages near the mouths of creeks. In part, this was because of the abundant shellfish beds and other food sources located there. You can still find traces of that past in the piles of shells the Ohlones left near the shore. Shell Mound Avenue in Emeryville bears the name of a shell mound that existed at the mouth of Temescal Creek well into the 20th century. Further upstream, the creeks were good places to wait for game, and the Ohlones fished for steelhead and salmon. They sometimes dammed creeks to irrigate small pieces of land. During spring and summer, the Ohlones gathered acorns in the hills and used creek water for leaching and cooking acorn mush. When creeks quit flowing during the dry season, the Ohlones dug wells along their banks. They also built sweatlodges along creeks, working up a sweat in the heated huts and then plunging into the water to cool off. One such lodge gave Temescal Creek its name, temescal being derived from an Aztec word for sweatlodge. When the Spanish built their missions in the late 1700s, they brought cattle and other livestock, which made the biggest single impact on the landscape before urbanization. Livestock caused enormous damage to creeks because cattle gather there for shade and water. Grazing denuded the banks, then trampling destroyed the streambed contour, eliminating shelter for fish. On the hillsides, grazing brought the decline of native bunchgrasses and led to erosion. The damage grew worse after Mexico's independence. Lands were granted to the Peralta and Vallejo families, who worked their ranchos for profit and greatly increased herd sizes. 4 Another landmark transformation of the East Bay followed the discovery of gold in 1848, shortly after the United States took California from Mexico. In one year, San Francisco boomed from 500 residents to 25,000. To build the new city, a logging frenzy followed in the San Antonio Forest, which once marked the headwaters of Redwood and San Leandro creeks.

Load more