Thank you, supporters — we met the Schulz match!

In 2009, Jean Schulz pledged an extremely generous $2 million matching gift to the Land Trust’s recently launched Redwoods to the Bay campaign. Thank you, Jean, for kickstarting our Redwoods to the Bay campaign and to each of you who helped us meet this match! With everyone’s support, we are already more than two thirds of the way toward meeting our $18 million campaign goal! We all want the Sonoma County that our children, their children and their grandchildren will experience to be every bit as beautiful and ecologically healthy as what we see around us today. For this, private donations are more vital than ever. We are grateful to our supporters for helping to protect the scenic, open and natural lands we love … forever!

Protecting the remaining coastal prairie

The California Coastal Commission considers coastal prairie an “Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area” that is protected under the California Coastal Act. The Sonoma Land Trust’s Estero Americano Preserve is one of five project sites of the Coastal Prairie Enhancement Feasibility Study (CPEFS) undergoing treatment of Holcus lanatus (velvetgrass) to determine effective strategies for controlling the exotic plant. As cattle grazing is the primary tool at the Estero Americano Preserve for coastal grassland management, the CPEFS group has installed six grazing “exclosures” to compare velvetgrass levels in grazed versus ungrazed plots. The other project sites — Bodega Marine Reserve, Bodega Head State Park, Bodega Pastures, OceanSong and OAEC — are utilizing control methods, such as mowing, sheep grazing, herbicide and hand-pulling to treat the invasive grass. Data will be collected over five years to track velvetgrass treatment success rates.

Read more about coastal prairie restoration efforts

Out and about in June, June, June!

June was a month filled with special and significant events involving your Land Trust:

June 20 found us up at Sonoma Mountain Ranch celebrating the groundbreaking of the North Slope Trail with all of the partners and individuals who have made protecting land on Sonoma Mountain a priority. Local author Jonah Raskin wrote a poem for the day entitled, “Saving the Mountain.”

Read “Saving the Mountain”

The evening of June 20 found SLT staff and volunteers at the KRCB studio answering phones for their Travel and Leisure Auction — and helping them to exceed their fundraising goal!

The 50th anniversary of the founding of Jack London State Historic Park was celebrated on June 27 and the Land Trust was delighted to be there! Pictured here is SLT board member Margaret Spaulding at the SLT display.

CCC crew tackles invasive plants at Glen Oaks and Estero Americano

Through a partnership with the Marin-Sonoma Weed Management Area, a California Conservation Corps (CCC) crew visited Glen Oaks Ranch and the Estero Americano Preserve during an unusually storm week this past April. At Glen Oaks Ranch, the CCC crew searched for and removed several hundred Spanish broom plants from the “forever wild” conservation easement area and Stuart’s Creek riparian zone. Left alone, the burgeoning population of broom along this well-developed and diverse riparian zone would have unrelentingly expanded, displacing native species and altering ecological processes. The crew also removed exotic Italian thistle from the coastal prairie grasslands of the Estero Americano Preserve, which is home to a rich assemblage of native perennial grasses and forbs.

Bodega Marine Reserve water quality study of the Estero Americano

UC Davis Bodega Marine Reserve students Gwen Miller and Katherine Faick are currently utilizing SLT’s Estero Americano Preserve for kayak access to monitor water quality indicators and fish growth rates at several monitoring sites along the tidal estuary. The study involves analysis of temperature, nutrients, salinity, dissolved oxygen and pH levels to track estuary health. Whenever possible, the Sonoma Land Trust makes its preserves available for academic research. For more information about the projects, please email Miller or Faick.

July 2010

Welcome Kara!

SLT is very happy that Kara Doolin has recently joined our staff as an intern. Kara is an environmental studies and planning graduate from Sonoma State University who is embarking on a career in conservation. During her six-month appointment with us, Kara will be helping to conduct top-priority stewardship activities on our preserves, such as rare plant monitoring at Pitkin Marsh, noxious weed control at Glen Oaks Ranch, and volunteer workday coordination. Her talents are most welcome!

Got Construction Skills? Join the Go-to Gang!

The “Go-to Gang” is kicking into gear this summer and fall with cabin repair, fence upgrade, trail clearing and other exciting projects on SLT properties that require tools, brains and brawn! If you have some tool know-how and time, we can sure use your help! The Go-to Gang was founded a decade ago to address land management needs on SLT properties by an eager group that “goes” out to projects in need of a hand. For the latest GTG schedule of projects, more information or to volunteer, click here.

Protecting biodiversity
on our lands

Nonnative biological invasions significantly impact our local biodiversity. The recently launched Bay Area Early Detection Network (BAEDN) aims to build an effective means of facilitating rapid response to invasions for the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. SLT has been compiling data on the noxious weeds (such as this distaff thistle) found on our preserves and contributing to BAEDN’s online occurrence reporting database, which will be used by researchers, technical experts and land managers to learn about new threats and coordinate control efforts. SLT is determined to utilize these significant databases and tools to limit pernicious invaders and protect biodiversity!

Working together on climate change adaptations

In one of the broadest collaborations of Sonoma County environmental organizations to date, the North Bay Climate Adaptation Initiative (NBCAI) is gaining momentum. NBCAI formed on the realization that no matter how well we do in lowering greenhouse gas emissions from here forward, some level of change is and will continue to occur to which we will have to adapt as a community. Climate change will affect human constructs and natural ecosystems and we need to adapt our planning accordingly. NBCAI is focused on understanding, educating and implementing activities that make it possible for people and native biodiversity to adapt to what may be significant changes. SLT staff are proudly a part of this forward-thinking collaborative.

For more information, visit NBCAI

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