To better understand this linkage between land and ocean, the California Biodiversity Council chose Monterey for its spring Local Biodiversity Forum and meeting March 27-28. The two-day gathering of resource managers focused on efforts to conserve ocean and terrestrial biodiversity, reestablish native plants, reduce pollutants, and restore more freshwater to a drying land.
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The Local Biodiversity Forum examined linkages between land use and the health of Monterey Bay and described efforts to overcome problems confronting the region's marine and terrestrial biodiversity.
How Land-Use Affects the Ocean
Inland from Monterey Bay and across the Salinas Valley lies fertile
farmland that grosses $2 billion a year in crops, making Monterey the
nation's leading vegetable-producing county. This climatically blessed
region, which comprises 2 percent of California's farmland, produces 10
percent of the state's yearly agricultural output.
Like other agriculturally rich areas of California, Monterey County stands to benefit from "Freedom to Farm" provisions of the 1996 federal Farm Bill signed into law April 4 that will help protect prime farmland from development. The program provided matching federal funds for state and local programs that conserve threatened farmland.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Richard Rominger, addressing the Council, confirmed that Governor Wilson's budget proposal of $1 million for a new program to create partnerships with local governments and nonprofit groups for farmland conservation would qualify for matching funds.
"Our goal is continually to be responsive to you, our customers and partners in conservation, and to be more efficient in assisting with preservation and enhancement of biodiversity," Rominger said.
Attacking Pollutants
A downside of agricultural and other urban activities is the flow of
pesticides, storm drainwater, waste oil, sewage, toxic waste, and other
pollutants into rivers, streams, estuaries, and ultimately, the ocean.
"We're looking at a little bit of pollution from many different sources that drain into the ocean from densely populated urban areas, heavily agricultural watersheds, pockets of industrial areas, and marinas," said Holly Price, director of an interagency water quality protection program for the 5,000 square-mile area of the ocean designated the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Eleven watersheds from Marin County to San Luis Obispo drain into the sanctuary.
Twenty-seven local, state, and federal agencies and organizations are partners in the water quality program, which seeks the cooperation and collaboration of growers, ranchers, boaters, and other land-use stakeholders. The program, now in its first year, has begun to monitor regional pollution sources and integrate information gleaned from 150 different programs. It's a work-in-progress, and improvement is not yet measurable.
Ocean Agenda
To help improve and protect ocean water quality along the entire
California coast, the state Resources Agency is creating an "Ocean
Agenda" for coastal and marine resources that will recommend ways to
sustain healthy ocean resources and an ocean-dependent economy.
The Ocean Agenda will seek to acknowledge the important ecological linkages between land and sea and recommend actions to coordinate, manage, conserve, and enhance California's ocean resources. The draft agenda proposes creating a cabinet-level state ocean council to serve as a forum for consensus-based management solutions directed at widely varying needs, such as watersheds miles from the coast and marine species thousands of feet beneath the surface of the sea.
Fishing and Biodiversity
Marine scientists, seeking to learn the extent to which fishing
effects ocean biodiversity, are studying fish inside and outside three
biologically diverse protected areas in nearshore waters off Big Sur that
are home to eight species of rockfish unique to the area. By measuring
fish size, density, species, and numbers in fished and unfished areas and
comparing the differences, the researchers can determine the effect of
fishing. Fishing is prohibited in the protected areas under study --
Hopkins Marine Life Refuge, Point Lobos, and Big Creek Marine Ecology
Research Reserve -- but just outside their boundaries, well-equipped
commercial fishing boats capable of catching 500 pounds a day from a
single multi-hooked fishing line.
Nicole Crane, refuge manager for Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, who is conducting the study, told the Biodiversity Forum she is working with commercial fishing groups to gain their cooperation and assistance in gathering data, and avoiding protected areas.
Cleaning the Filters
Coastal wetlands -- nature's filters -- also are degraded by
contaminants from human activities and land-use.
"The few remaining marshes are precious gems," said Steven Kimple, a California Department of Fish and Game biologist who manages the National Estuarine Research Reserve at Elkhorn Slough, a 7-mile inlet and coastal wetland off Monterey Bay at Moss Landing.
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Elkhorn Slough has a 2,500-acre pickelweed marsh and tidal flat that provides habitat to nearly 700 species of migratory and native shore birds, fish, and invertebrates. At least six species of Slough residents or vistors -- sea otters, peregrine falcons, Santa Cruz long-toed salamanders, clapper rails, brown pelicans, and least terns -- are listed as rare, threatened, or endangered. Harbor seals, sea otters, and sharks swim from the ocean into the calmer reaches of the slough to forage for food.
Manmade alterations in the harbor at Moss Landing have increased tidal action and erosion in Elkhorn Slough that hacks three feet a year from the levees, and eventually will reduce the size of the marsh, changing its wildlife composition from wetland to marine, and decreasing its biodiversity.
Bringing In Freshwater
As elsewhere in semi-arid California, there is great demand in
Monterey County for more freshwater to sustain and enhance biodiversity.
Ecologist John Oliver, of the Moss Landing Marine Lab and the Watershed
Institute at California State University Monterey Bay, says the land has
been heavily "ditched, diked, and drained" so as to nearly deplete the
historical freshwater corridors.
"We are approaching a desert," Oliver told the Biodiversity Forum. Restoring wet corridors on farmland is difficult because growers are reluctant to give up their land, and there aren't programs to purchase it for such purposes. But since 93 percent of the land in the watershed is privately owned, successful efforts to increase fresh water must involve local landowners.
Oliver encourages farmers to breech ditches and recreate wet corridors -- a form of mini wetland that recharges groundwater, help controls flooding, and increases biodiversity, particularly with the planting of native grasses, bushes, and trees. So far, Oliver estimates, the work he is involved in has helped to create about 100 acres of wet corridors in the Monterey Bay area.
Oliver and Monterey County Planning Commissioner Louis Calcagno, a local farmer and panelist at the council meeting, suggest creating a federal tax credit incentive to encourage restoration of privately owned wetlands and wet corridors.
"If we don't come up with something fast, we're just going to keep destroying our wetlands, and none of us will be better off in the end," Calcagno said.
Returning to Natives
Native plants and grasses, which work better with the soil and
biodiversity than "exotic" vegetation brought from elsewhere are making a
comeback in Monterey County. Mark Stromberg of the Hasting Natural
History Reservation encourages landowners to replace European grass
with perennial native grasses whose deep roots protect soil from erosion.
Perennials produce more seeds than shallow-rooted annual grasses that
live only one season, and provide forage for grazing later in the year,
Stromberg said.
Two other native plant proponents, Laura Lee Link and Bruce Stewart of the Watershed Institute, said the "Return of the Natives" planting project brought Monterey County schoolchildren out of the classroom and into the greenhouses and gardens to grow and plant more than 20,000 native grasses and flowers this year.
"Education is the single most important tool for retaining the biodiversity we already have," Stewart said.
The Native Plant Society and other conservation groups are working throughout California to promote the planting of native vegetation and removing of exotics.
Restoring Fort Ord
Preserving open land offsets the effects of encroaching development
by protecting habitat for plants and wildlife that otherwise might become
threatened or endangered.
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The Army will transfer 15,000 undeveloped acres with considerable botanical value at Fort Ord to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to protect as open space and rare plant reserve. Compatible recreational uses will be permitted, such as equestrian, hiking, and mountain bike trails.
California State Parks and the University of California Natural Reserve System will acquire another 2,000 acres to protect as habitat.
A Habitat Management Plan (HMP) developed by the BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers, State Parks, and the California Department of Fish and Game will safeguard rare and special status plants, rare native California perennial grasslands, coastal vernal pool wetlands, and wildlife, including bobcats, deer, and mountain lions.
"The Fort Ord Habitat Management Plan makes good biological and political sense, and it incorporates common sense," Steve Addington, the BLM's Fort Ord project manager told the Biodiversity Council. "The plan sets aside large biologically sustainable habitat areas to be managed by natural resources agencies and allows other areas to be developed to meet the goals of habitat protection and economic recovery."
Participants in a Coordinated Resource Management Plan (CRMP) team to implement the plan are the BLM, State Parks, Fish and Game, Fish and Wildlife Service, the University of California, Department of Defense, Monterey County Board of Supervisors, California State University Monterey Bay, the City of Marina, and the California Coastal Commission.
The Fort Ord CRMP team functions as an interagency group of local, state, and federal governments that have joined to share resources and staff to help implement the HMP.
Components of the plan, currently in various stages of completion by a 20-member crew from the national service program AmeriCorps, include closing of certain roads and trails, controlling erosion, eliminating exotic species, and restoring vegetation, including the endangered sand gilia.