Expanding Local Outreach
Council Charts Future Course

Five years after its creation, the California Biodiversity Council is assessing its strengths and charting its course for sustaining resources and economic health into the 21st century.

During a retreat in October, the Council heard constructive criticism by non-member resources industries, environmentalists, and local government representatives that will help guide its future activities.

Council activities, such as this field trip in Oxnard, allow local citizens and Council members and staff to communicate in an informal way that helps to achieve cooperation.

The panel is exploring ways to encourage greater participation of local, grassroots, and economic interests and promote a better understanding of biodiversity principles among resources managers.

Members also are considering assembling separate bioregional councils that would help carry out the principles of the 1991 Agreement on Biological Diversity, which created the Council. Other ideas proposed at the retreat included expanding the Council's existing functions of coordination, outreach, and serving as a forum to include working on specific projects, and ensuring that the Council will outlive the tenure of its founders and charter members.

Council Chair Doug Wheeler, the state's secretary for resources, says communities across California are working to conserve biodiversity and maintain economic strength, and they need more support.

"The extent to which the Council is partnered with local governments and grassroots organizations is very encouraging," Wheeler said. "They are every bit as active in protecting biodiversity as are the state and federal agencies on the Council. But we must assist and promote local and grassroots activity to protect biodiversity.

The Council's challenge in the months and years ahead is to help communities at the grassroots level with technical, personnel, and financial support," Wheeler said.

Defining Biodiversity
Biodiversity, a word coined from the term biological diversity, is nothing new. Literally, it means the variety of living things that inhabit a particular area or region. Harvard science professor and Pulitzer Prize winner E. O. Wilson, the "father of biodiversity," defines it as "the genetic-based variation of living organisms at all levels, from the variety of genes in single species to the array of natural ecosystems."

But biodiversity at times has taken on broader meanings, including the misconception that conserving biodiversity might undermine private property rights. As applied, effective programs to conserve biodiversity benefit private property owners by improving and sustaining the natural resources values of their land.

The genesis of the Council's creation was a late 1980s task force of state and federal natural resources agencies created to carry out a legislative mandate to improve interagency cooperation on wildlife issues.

Modoc County Supervisor Nancy Huffman presented the Council's Distinguished Service Award to Chairman Doug Wheeler, left, and co-founder Ed Hastey, right, for their outstanding leadership.

Relating a bit of recent history, Ed Hastey, state director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and a founder of the Council, and who served on the task force and other forerunner groups, said the initial effort was focused on the Klamath Province of northwestern California, where demands to protect the Northern Spotted Owl were affecting resource uses.

"The folks who were most impacted had no say," Hastey recalled. "A lot of us felt there had to be a better way."
The task force modeled the Council after the multi-species, multi-jurisdictional watershed approach of the Coordinated Resource Management Planning (CRMP) program and the principles of the Wilson administration's 1991 Sierra Summit.

"Many of the recommendations are just as true today as they were then, such as reaching out to involve local communities," Hastey said. "The idea was that it was a bottom-up collaborative approach."

The California Cattlemen's Association, which has a big stake in sustaining natural resources, has shied away from participating in Council activities because its members thought biodiversity "meant everything except human beings"--a perception the cattlemen are beginning to overcome, spokesman Dan Macon said. "Sometimes that word can be a little bit scary," said Macon, a panelist at the Council retreat.

"Our members believe very strongly that resource issues are best dealt with at the local level by people most familiar with them, and that unless they take care of their resources on a long-term basis, they're not going to be around to make a living," he said.

Modoc County Supervisor Nancy Huffman, the Council's local government representative for rural northeastern California, says if people don't think they're part of biodiversity, they feel it threatens their property and use of resources.

"They're concerned that biodiversity means everything else is important and we are expendable," Huffman said. "People in rural areas who use the land realize things have to be done differently. We need to show them that there is a better way of doing things without having to get off the land."

Encouraging Local Participation
The original 10 signers of the 1991 agreement that created the Council called for developing guiding principles and policies, designing a statewide strategy to conserve biodiversity, and coordinating its implementation locally and regionally.

Chairman Doug Wheeler, standing right, presented Superior Service Awards to Council staffers at the retreat Oct. 21-22. Pictured, standing from left, are Mark Nechodom, University of California; Carl Rountree, Bureau of Land Management (BLM); Susan Cochrane, Department of Fish and Game; Joanne Cemo, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF); Chris Chrystal, Department of Water Resources; Wheeler. Front row from left, Janine Stenback, Resources Agency; Janet Fairbanks, San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG); Marc Hoshovsky, Department of Fish and Game;and Ed Hastey, state director of the BLM, who received a separate award with Wheeler. Not pictured are Mike Chapel, U.S. Forest Service; Beth Cook, CDF; and Pat Foulk, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The idea was to encourage local action, participation, and cooperation in conserving biodiversity and sustaining economic development. It was never intended to issue directives from the top down or to add another layer of government. The Council does not make rules or regulations, or engage in enforcement activities. Those responsibilities are carried out separately by the individual agencies and entities that comprise the Council.

"It's a good process for bringing together not only decision-makers but a broad cross-section of the communities of interest who have a stake in the issues we're trying to deal with," said Dave Bischel, president of the California Forestry Association, which represents about 70 percent of the state's forest products industry that uses 3.5 million acres.

Louis Blumberg, assistant regional director of The Wilderness Society urged the Council in a letter to lead bioregional planning, perhaps starting with several watersheds identified as high priority in the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP) report.

Blumberg also suggested that the Council establish local and regional advisory committees and identify areas for pilot projects where better interagency coordination could produce demonstrable results, then monitor the outcomes.

Council member and El Dorado County Supervisor Ray Nutting said the Council provides a way for rural residents to communicate with their urban and suburban counterparts. He suggested using the Internet to share concerns about environmental and economic vitality. (The Council's web site is http://ceres.ca.gov/biodiversity) "There is common ground, and we need to share that information from the bottom up," Nutting said.

Janet Fairbanks of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) says membership on the Council has helped her agency establish contacts and interact with state and federal officials involved in Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) in the region, such as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, California Department of Fish and Game, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"We have the opportunity to interact with representatives of other local governments to see first-hand how they approach biodiversity issues and how the agencies can work together with local governments to resolve issues," Fairbanks said.

Jerry Harmon, an Escondido city councilman and panelist at the retreat, said Council membership helps overcome the difficulty of inadequate communication among state, federal, and local officials and interest groups about multiple species planning.

"Local representation on the Council gives us direct access to people making policy decisions that affect the land-use planning that we do," Harmon said.

Reba Wright-Quastler, planning director for the city of Poway in San Diego County, described how the city in 1995 adopted the first Multiple Species Conservation Plan (MSCP) under NCCP, designed to protect coastal sage scrub habitat while allowing for compatible economic development.

"It is regional planning tailored to work with our property owners, land, and political constraints," Wright-Quastler said. "It's a great success and a good model because we had people at the table."

Kern County Planning Director Ted James suggested that the Council clear up the erroneous perception that biodiversity means no-growth and encourage incentives for cash-strapped local governments to support programs that protect biodiversity.

Bischel recommended that the Council promote the use of science-based strategies and solutions, educate stakeholders about workable conservation programs, and convey information to local resources managers.

Environmental activist Linda Blum, associated with the Quincy Library Group, also sees a need to improve comprehension of biodiversity and the interconnections of natural resources.

"I'm not sure that middle and ground-level managers really understand why biodiversity is a good thing," Blum said. "We need to figure out how to articulate that in ways that lay people can understand, and that resource managers can put into their decision-making process."