by Douglas P. Wheeler
Chairman, California Biodiversity Council
California's rivers and streams vary greatly. For instance, in the north, where
the bulk of the state's water supply originates, mountain streams deliver vital
snowmelt through a network of rivers to the major water systems. But in the
south, where water is all the more precious for its scarcity, desert rivulets dry to
trickles in summer heat and swell to gushing rivers in winter downpours.
Riparian habitat, whether forest or grasslands alongside rivers and streams, is essential to fish and wildlife and to sustaining biodiversity. It is the richest breeding and wintering ground for birds in the western United States.
Unfortunately, over many decades many of these life-sustaining riparian areas have been developed, altered, or otherwise destroyed and neglected. So great is the decline that only 5-10 percent of the state's original riparian habitat still exists today.
But the picture is brightening. A number of cooperative programs are underway among local, state, and federal government agencies and private interests to protect, restore, and enhance riparian habitat.
A law that Governor Wilson initiated and signed in 1991, SB 906, marked the pivotal point in this gradual turnaround. It created the Riparian Habitat Conservation Program that expanded the power of the Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) in the California Department of Fish and Game. This program launched a statewide inventory of riparian resources and enabled the WCB to develop partnerships with government agencies and private organizations to conserve valuable riparian habitat.
The riparian resources inventory is coordinated with the Rivers Assessment Program conducted cooperatively by the Resources Agency, the National Park Service, and the University of California with local and private participation.
Despite pressure of growth and development, the inventory determined that the condition of riparian habitat has remained stable along many of the state's rivers in recent years, and may even improve by the turn of the century. This was a most hopeful result.
In addition to taking stock, the program helps the state buy and restore riparian habitat. In 1992, the WCB bought as its first project 145 acres at the headwaters of the Santa Margarita River in San Diego County. It is a key ecological reserve managed under a plan designed by The Nature Conservancy, landowners, and affected local governments.
So far, the WCB has approved and helped fund at least 29 riparian land acquisition projects to protect more than 7,000 acres, a 124-acre habitat restoration project on the Sacramento River, and four major habitat studies.
Last fall, 13 federal, state, and private organizations signed an unusual cooperative agreement, the Riparian Habitat Joint Venture of the California Chapter of Partners in Flight, to conserve, increase, and improve riparian habitat for the benefit of California's native and migrating birds.
This joint venture is the kind of coordinated statewide effort that is required to improve riparian habitat on a wide scale, and it reinforces our other efforts to protect biodiversity and strengthen environmental and economic values.
Douglas P. Wheeler is California's Secretary for Resources.