BLM

True or False: National Monument Designation Will Confer Additional Natural Resource Protection to Cotoni Coast Dairies?

 

-Part 1-

Our government designates National Monuments in order to protect them, but would a National Monument designation for Cotoni Coast Dairies really better protect these lands? An informed answer requires an examination of the protections already in place, the language of the monument designation, and how the public and US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) follow through after monument designation. Today we will examine the first two of those three subjects with a subsequent essay that will cover the last subject.

Through decades of public effort, natural resource protections in place at Cotoni Coast Dairies were already very strong when the BLM took possession in 2014. The owners before BLM – the Trust for Public Land (TPL) – created two sets of deed restrictions that incorporated private and public funders’ interests as well as protections imposed by the California Coastal Commission. These deed restrictions require future managers to accommodate public recreation without sacrificing protected endangered species or endangered species habitat. The restrictions also prohibit mining, commercial timber production, and use of off-road motorized vehicles. The TPL and the California Coastal Commission both have standing to enforce these deed restrictions in perpetuity. Since these restrictions serve to protect the Cotoni Coast Dairies property’s natural resources in most of the ways Federal National Monument status normally affords, the question is: what additional natural resource protections might National Monument status afford?

Interestingly, National Monument designation doesn’t necessarily guarantee any specific types of natural resource protection. Those that exist are entirely subject to the discretion of Congress or the President. There are different regulatory guidelines for Congress versus the President in establishing National Monuments. Congress has constitutional authority to declare an area a National Monument; the Constitution allows Congress to make whatever rules it wishes for such land. For example, Congress can allow off road vehicles and commercial timber production on National Monuments, or Congress can prohibit human visitors, altogether. Alternatively, the Antiquities Act of 1906 allows Presidents to designate an area as a National Monument. The President is limited by the Antiquities Act which requires the size of the Monuments is ‘smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.’

In 2015 two US Congresswomen and both US Senators from California co-sponsored a measure to add the Cotoni Coast Dairies property to the California Coastal Monument. The proposed addition lacked any substantive natural resource protections and ultimately failed to motivate sufficient support to make it to a floor vote. In accounting for the omission, aides to both the House and Senate sponsors have directly claimed that such language was ‘inappropriate’ because the representatives believe that Congress should not exert political influence on federal agencies’ land management decisions. In keeping with this policy, other Monument legislation in California from this era has contained little natural resource protection language.

As early as February 2016, in the wake of the failure of the California proposal, Congressional proponents met with the Obama administration on numerous occasions to urge designation of Cotoni Coast Dairies as a National Monument via an Executive Order under the Antiquities Act. We know little about what if any natural resource protections those Congressional offices lobbied for in their negotiations with the President, because this information is not available to the public. But when Congressional designation of National Monuments failed in the past, subsequent Presidential Antiquities Act proclamations of Monuments have had a regrettably mixed record of inclusion of natural resource protection language.

No discernible pattern exists –not one informed by policy or ‘pragmatism’– to account for the variable inclusion of natural resource protections in Presidential National Monument declarations. Most often, local grassroots conservation efforts motivated Presidents to designate lands as National Monuments. In most of those designations, grassroots organizations proactively provided Presidents with the information necessary to inform specific natural resource protection language in their Monument proclamations. This language often provided for protections above and beyond the federally listed species protected on federal lands by including mention of state-listed, rare, and unusual species.

The following Presidential Antiquities Act proclamations declaring National Monuments all had language protecting natural resources above and beyond what would have been protected had these areas not been declared Monuments:

  • Carrizo Plain
  • Berryessa Snow Mountain
  • Giant Sequoia, and
  • the Pt. Arena Stornetta boundary enlargement of the California Coastal National Monument (of particular relevance).

Presidential Antiquities Act proclamations for these Monuments each called out protections for a number of rare or state-listed species not otherwise protected on Federal lands (Appendix 1). Here is a tally of the numbers of non-federally listed plants and animals in these proclamations:

  • Carrizo Plain National Monument – 8 plants, 3 mammals
  • Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument – 17 plants
  • Point Arena-Stornetta Unit, California Coastal Monument – 1 plant, 4 animals
  • Giant Sequoia National Monument – 3 animals

On the other hand, some Presidential monument proclamations had little or no such language. For instance, the proclamations creating the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto and Fort Ord National Monuments did not include mention of any specific non-federally listed species.

When non-federally listed species and other natural resource protection language is included in Antiquities Act proclamations of National Monuments, land managers must explicitly manage for those resources. If no natural resource protection language is included in proclamations the managers need never exceed baseline practices of natural resource protection. In my next post I will provide details on how land managers for the above listed Monuments adjusted their management to account for National Monument status, answering in the main the ‘what happens when’ question. For our purposes here suffice it to say that natural resource protection language in Monument designations has correlated with additional protection of those natural resources.

The nut of our position is this: Cotoni Coast Dairies is already largely protected in the ways that National Monument status would confer. If National Monument status is meant to increase protection of Cotoni Coast Dairies –as advocates for Monument status have suggested– the only sure way is if the President’s proclamation includes specific natural resource protections.

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Appendix 1: Recent, Antiquities Act created Californian National Monuments and the sensitive natural resources that the Presidential proclamations protected.

Monument Species Listing Status
     
Carrizo Plain San Joaquin (Nelson’s) Antelope squirrel State of California Threatened
Pale‐yellow layia

Carrizo peppergrass

Lost Hills saltbush

Temblor buckwheat

 

 California Rare Plant Rank 1B
Hoover’s woolly‐star

Forked fiddleneck

 California Rare Plant Rank 4 “Watch List”

 
Pronghorn antelope

Tule elk

 

 Unlisted
Berryessa Snow Mountain

 

 Indian Valley brodiaea

Red Mountain catchfly

 

 State of California Threatened

 
Bent flowered fiddleneck

Brittlescale

Brewer’s jewelflower

Snow Mountain buckwheat

Coastal bluff morning glory

Cobb Mountain lupine

Napa western flax

 

 California Rare Plant Rank 1B
Purdy’s fringed onion

Serpentine sunflower

Bare monkeyflower

Swamp larkspur

Purdy’s fritillary

 

 California Rare Plant Rank 4 “Watch List”

 
Musk brush

MacNab cypress

Leather oak

 

 Not listed
Point Arena-Stornetta

 

 Humboldt Bay owl’s clover

 

 California Rare Plant Rank 1B
Black oystercatcher

Yellow warbler

Black-crowned night heron

Brown pelican

 

 Not listed
Giant Sequoia Great gray owl

 

 State of California Endangered

 
Northern goshawk

 

 State of California

Species of Concern

 
American marten

 

 Not listed

 

Unbalancing Act: park planners threatening wildlife by appeasing the masses

Here on Santa Cruz County’s North Coast, parks managers aren’t using the normal tools to help them balance recreation and wildlife conservation.  There are numerous proposals for new wild land park access points, trails, campgrounds, parking lots and the like.  Meanwhile, miles of unplanned, ‘illegal,’ uninvited trails from dozens of ad hoc trail heads proliferate, unheeded.

To manage parks correctly, parks managers would normally go through a planning process that includes understanding the current situation, planning for specific goals, and monitoring to see if they got it right.  Park planners start with studying both the wildlife (types, distribution) and likely recreational visitors (expectations).  The results of these studies inform a ‘carrying capacity analysis’ – how many of what kind of human recreational use can occur in a particular area of conservation land without too deleteriously affecting a given set of natural resource goals.  The analysis details thresholds of acceptable change, which sets in motion a monitoring program so that managers can adjust visitor use accordingly.

Limiting wild land visitor use to protect wildlife is a lot like hunting and fishing regulations that have been succeeding well in restoring game species.  Fishing and hunting regulations require good information on how many fish or game can be caught while maintaining or increasing a population.   Regulatory agencies set the regulatory limits of “take” and monitor both the amount of animals reported to have been killed as well as the populations of the animals still alive, adapting regulations on a regular basis to maintain healthy populations.  Hunting and fishing regulations can change yearly. Sometimes, there are moratoriums on “take” of a certain species.

Despite the parallels in theory and efficacy, in actual practice there is divergence between hunting/fishing and management of park visitors, especially here in Santa Cruz County.  Whereas hunting and fishing regulations are widespread and accepted in U.S. culture, Santa Cruz County’s wild land recreation culture hasn’t experienced controls of visitor use, with a couple of exceptions.  The endangered snowy plover and elephant seal both have seasonal closure, prohibiting recreational visitation to the beaches that are critical to their survival:  two of umpteen species protected on a miniscule percentage of our park land.  This is not for want of policies that mandate better park management.

There are many policy mechanisms obligating wild land parks managers towards more effective recreational visitation management.  For instance, California State Parks is required by law to perform a carrying capacity analysis (Pub. Resources Code 5019.5) for all of their parks.  And yet, such analyses have yet to be implemented using modern biological or sociological principles.  Instead, State Parks’ plans contain arbitrary zones grading from high to low recreational use radiating out from the most convenient park entrance.  Likewise, BLM is required to balance recreational and environmental goals and to monitor and adjust visitor use as necessary.   Santa Cruz County Parks and all other parks managers must protect sensitive park locations by limiting use to interpretative activities under the California Coastal Act.  Despite these regulations, between the disinterested public and “slippage” in agency interpretation/implementation, we see little evidence of professional management of recreational use in Santa Cruz County’s precious parks.

What you can do

Each and every time a new access proposal comes forward, ask the organization responsible what they will be monitoring to assure that recreation isn’t causing too much wildlife disturbance.

Wildlife conservation and wild land recreation are conflicting goals

We called her Bella, member of a North Coast coyote pack.

Wild land recreation conflicts with healthy wildlife populations, endangering future generations’ ability to enjoy the nature we currently experience and the services that ecosystems provide.  Wild land recreation here refers to both active (mountain biking, hiking, horseback riding, etc.) AND passive (wildlife viewing, meditation, walking, painting, poetry) types of recreation.  The severity of impacts from these activities on wildlife vary depending on the numbers of people and the species of wildlife.  Here, I focus on vertebrates, though we should be concerned with invertebrates, as well – some of what follows applies to the many species of endangered insects in our wild lands.

Santa Cruz County’s wild lands support diverse vertebrate wildlife – many have been declining due to habitat loss and fragmentation.  Wild land parks are important to the survival of especially wide ranging carnivores such as  American badger, ring tailed cat, gray fox, bobcat, long tailed weasel, and puma.

These predators are essential to supporting wild land ecosystems and the services those ecosystems provide including the water we so rely upon.  If future generations are to enjoy the beauty of redwood and oak forests maritime chaparral and coastal scrub, and coastal prairies and wetlands, all depends on these predators.  Widespread and poorly planned wild land recreation is posing increased threats to these predators in Santa Cruz County.

The impacts of wild land recreation on wildlife have been well and extensively scientifically documented, including in our region.  The diversity and abundance of wildlife decline in parks with recreation as opposed to parks without recreation.  With more recreation, these impacts increase.  Deer flee 200 yards when approached by recreational mountain bikers in parks.  Bobcats and badgers decline in recreational parks and especially den only far from recreation.  While some species of birds become accustomed to recreation, others do not and will not forage or nest close to recreational visitors in parks.  A frog very like our California red-legged frog has been shown to decline in proximity to recreational use of parks.  In sum, because of the wealth of evidence, wild land recreation has recently been recognized as one of the greatest and growing threats to wildlife across the entire world.

WHAT TO DO

If you care for future generations’ ability to enjoy what we have today, speak up against the widespread proliferation of recreational access to wild land parks.  There are many such proposals in Santa Cruz County, right now.  If you consider giving to private, not-for-profit land trusts, consider giving only when they have proven that they are setting aside lands for wildlife, primarily.  If you or your friends recreate in wild lands, stay on marked, planned trails- not the miles of unmarked, ad hoc trails created mostly by mountain bikers in our State Parks.