Welcome to Santa Cruz CNPS
The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) is a statewide non-profit organization of amateurs
and professionals with a common interest in California's native plants. CNPS seek to increase
understanding and appreciation of California's native plants and to preserve them in their natural
habitat through scientific activities, education, and conservation.
The chapter meets every other month on the second Monday of the month at the
Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, 1305 East Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz.
Contact Santa Cruz County CNPS at P. O. Box 1622, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 or contact a club officer (see Club Officers page).
The chapter welcomes all: from the botanists and defenders of the environment to the casual
nature lover. Contact any club member (click Club Officers link, above) to find out
more about the club. Attend a meeting--you will learn something new!
Please Write A Letter To Save Santa Cruz Tarplant
Deadline Extended! Send letter to the
California Coastal Commission
725 Front Street, Suite 300, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060.
State that your comments are RE: Arana Gulch Master Plan.
Your letter to the California Coastal Commission could play a big role in saving the Santa Cruz Sunflower, (as Grey Hayes has called it) Holocarpha macradenia.
As you know, CNPS and Friends of Arana Gulch sued the City of Santa Cruz to stop its plan to build a paved bikeway bisecting Arana Gulch destroying tarplant habitat, changing hydrology, fragmenting historic subpopulations, and making the best management option-grazing-much more difficult to do and less effective.
Well, we lost as you may have heard. The only way to stop the destruction now is to make our concerns known to the Coastal Commission. Some in favor of the bikeway have characterized the opposition as NIMBYs. Our letters will show that much of the opposition is because the entire Arana Gulch greenbelt was designated as Critical Habitat for the tarplant by the USFWS in 2002. Critical Habitat plays a legally mandated role in the Endangered Species Act by providing areas for expansion which could lead to future recovery of a species. It also protects essential features such as hydrology and the habitat for species essential to pollination or seed dispersal.
Your letters are needed to present the science and to show the Commissioners that many in our community do not agree with tarplant destruction. Please send a letter right away to the California Coastal Commission, 725 Front Street, Suite 300, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060. State that your comments are RE: Arana Gulch Master Plan. If you have credentials such as a degree in botany or related discipline or experience, mention that in your letter.
The EIR for the project stated that the bikeway will cause "significant and unavoidable impact" to the tarplant that violates ESHA protection. The impacts will not be mitigatable to a less than significant level. The EIR failed to adequately address potential adverse impacts from hydrologic changes from the paved bikeway. The tarplant is dependent on a specific hydrologic regime, and paving could result in either dewatering or overwatering of adjacent tarplant habitat. Further, the EIR inadequately addresses the effects of fragmenting the four historic tarplant subpopulations. Fragmentation could prevent successful restoration.
The Coastal Commission meeting on this subject will likely occur early in 2010.
We need to make our CNPS voices heard. After you have written to the Coastal Commission, consider writing a letter to the editor of a local paper. Many local County advisory bodies such as the County Bike Committee have endorsed the plan. Some local "environmental" groups such as Save Our Shores and the Arana Watershed Council have also endorsed the plan that would include a bikeway directly through the middle of ESHA.
Arana Gulch was acquired by the City of Santa Cruz in 1994. During the 1990s, CNPS members assisted the City in various disturbance regimes. Since 1999, however, the City has failed to implement any significant management actions for the tarplant. Resulting thatch buildup has become a significant threat to the long-term viability of this tarplant population. The City is now tying management of the tarplant habitat to approval of the destructive bikeway. This destruction of ESHA is even more tragic given the likely possibility that the County of Santa Cruz will soon purchase the railroad right of way which could be the site of a County-wide bikeway just one quarter mile from the proposed bikeway through tarplant habitat.
For more information contact Vince Cheap, vince@sasquatch.com, 477-1660.
Write the Coastal Commission today. Thank you.
Statewide CNPS Chapter Newsletters
At the link below you will find a clickable chapter map which lets you
access the latest newsletter from each CNPS chapter. Check it out:
Chapter Map
An Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plants
of Santa Cruz
County, California
We have published "An Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Santa Cruz
County, California" and are selling copies at $10.00 each.
Click here for order form.
-- Janell Hillman, Santa Cruz Flora Committee
Petition to the President and Congress
of the United States of America
To Renew Support for the Endangered Species Act
Click here to print out and sign petition.
Native Plant Propagation -- VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY!
Looking for an opportunity to make a difference, and to learn about growing native plants? The Plant Propagation group needs you now! Enjoy the company of a small group of friendly, native plant lovers learning and helping to propagate a wide variety of native plants, many of which will be sold at at the twice-yearly CNPS plant sales, or auctioned off to benefit the SC Native Plant Society. This is a wonderful opportunity to have fun, meet a few great new people, and learn a lot about native plants, or contributing gardening skills you already have. No experience required. Meet usually on the third Sunday of each month at 9am at Suncrest Nursery, east of Watsonville. For info and directions, contact Mike Luther at 831-688-3897; or Denise Polk at 831-685-3235.
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