1. Coalition Building in the Conservation Movement

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1. Coalition Building in the Conservation Movement

📅 DateThursday, February 5
📍 AreaHall A
⏰ Time10:30 am – 12:15 pm
Video Recording
Californians across regions and cultures have personal and powerful connections to our state's remarkable natural landscapes. Seasoned advocates will share tips for finding common ground and strategies for building diverse partnerships for conservation success.
SESSION CHAIR
Krystian J. Lahage
Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT), Joshua Tree, CA, United States

Krystian Lahage
Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT)
Krystian Lahage is MDLT’s Public Policy Officer, responsible for managing the organization’s engagement with elected officials and development of policy strategies. Krystian comes from the public sector where he most recently served as a Legislative Affairs Manager for the County of Orange, responsible for policy concerning public lands, water, and infrastructure. In that role, he helped lead development of the county’s first climate action plan. Krystian has also served as U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Senior Field Representative for Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties and co-led her California wildfire taskforce. Krystian is an avid desert lover and can be found camping with his dog Jezebel when he is not catching up on the latest current events.

1.1 Kuushaaw: Blue-eyed Grass Connects the People to the Birds

Laurie Egan-Hedley1, Andrew Meyer2

1Barona Cultural Center and Museum, Lakeside, CA, United States.
2San Diego Bird Alliance, San Diego, CA, United States

Description
The Barona Cultural Center and Museum and the San Diego Bird Alliance have partnered on several projects in the last five years that focus on native plants and birds; these projects have brought us together and helped us share and align our goals and perspectives. The Barona Center is San Diego County’s first museum on an Indian reservation dedicated to the perpetuation and presentation of the local Kumeyaay Native culture and has recently created the Sinyohow Haawaakm ‘Aaknach and Nya’waap Illyuw Uuchyuwp films that bring to life the traditional teachings and oral histories of the Barona people. The San Diego Bird Alliance defends the region’s birds, unique biodiversity, and threatened habitats through advocacy, education and restoration. Through seed libraries, seed packets with multiple names, native pollinator gardens, an advocacy project to change the City of San Diego flower, a native plant scavenger hunt, perspective-sharing for professional development, school field trips, curriculum development and other projects, we are constantly improving our understanding of each other’s voices. Through these projects, both groups have built respect and learned to communicate needs with each other and have been able to share some aspects of the of Native American Kumeyaay culture and ‘Iipay Aa language as it connects people to plants and birds. Our organizations will co-present on the projects we’ve created, the partnership we’re building and the lessons we’ve learned so far.
Presenter Bios
Laurie Egan-Hedley
Barona Culturel Center and Museum
Laurie was born and raised in southern California and has enjoyed a life-long passion of learning about local history. This passion has shaped her 30-year career in the museum field, the last 17 at Barona Cultural Center & Museum as Director/Curator. Laurie enjoys teaching students about Native history and ethnobotany. Laurie holds a Bachelor of Science from UC Riverside in Anthropology, and a Master’s in Anthropology and Museums Studies from CSU Chico.
Andrew Meyere
San Diego Bird Alliance
Andrew’s favorite bird memories involve Oystercatchers on Anacapa Island, Auklets and Albatrosses on the Aleutian Islands and Short-eared Owls at Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge. Andrew has an undergraduate degree from SUNY Binghamton, a Masters in Geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and many years of biological field work. He worked for the Hudson River Estuary Program for several years on and now is honored to work for birds and other wildlife.

1.2 Floristics on the Frontlines of Extinction at the California-Nevada Border: A Flora of the Amargosa River Headwaters, Nye and Esmeralda Counties, Nevada

Chloe Novak

California Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, United States.

Description
Like most political boundaries, the California state line is permeable to biogeography, abiotic factors, and anthropogenic impacts. Our understanding of and ability to protect California’s extraordinarily diverse flora is greatly enhanced by attending to its continuity and connectivity with neighboring floras for which comparatively little data and conservation resources are currently available. Preliminary results from an in-progress floristic inventory of one such neighboring area, the Amargosa River headwaters in southwestern Nevada, demonstrate the importance and urgency of filling botanical knowledge gaps in a context of rapid industrialization that threatens intact desert ecosystems along and beyond California’s eastern border. From its source in the xeric uplands of Pahute Mesa (NV) through its terminus in Death Valley's Badwater Basin (CA), the Amargosa River supports rich biodiversity, unique habitats, and endemism hotspots in North America’s most challenging desert ecoregion. By contributing the first comprehensive vascular flora of its headwaters, my research aims to directly inform land management and conservation efforts while providing novel insights into the biodiversity and biogeography of the Mojave-Great Basin transition zone. Through cooperative efforts with diverse stakeholders, relevant findings to date—including Nevada state records of plants previously thought endemic to California, new occurrences of rare plants, and the addition of over 100 minimum-rank taxa to the documented flora—have translated into significant conservation actions for plants threatened in both California and Nevada. This presentation will highlight how collaborations across borders, sectors, and scales are critical to addressing the interrelated challenges of the extinction crisis, climate change, and environmental justice.
Presenter Bios
Chloe Novak
California Botanic Garden
Chloe Novak is a masters student at the California Botanic Garden specializing in floristics and plant conservation in the Mojave and Great Basin deserts. With a background in political science, her botanical research and applied conservation interests are informed by the historical and political contexts that influence the diversity, abundance and distribution of plants, from colonization to climate change. She is currently conducting a floristic study of the headwaters of the Amargosa River in Nye and Esmeralda counties, Nevada—an area with rich biogeographic influences but little historical documentation of its flora that is facing unprecedented conservation threats from large-scale mining and other extractive industries.

1.3 One Completely Human Approach to Exploring Ecology on 10 Acres in the Santa Monica Mountains: How Everyday Citizens Commit to Lives of Stewardship.

Emily Lacy1,2, Dominic Ciccodicola1, Ru Moyers1

1Little Sycamore Canyon, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
2Lincoln County Soil and Water Conservation District, Newport, OR, United States

Description
This is the story of how we, of modest means, sought the unlikely acquisition and stewardship of headwaters habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains, one hour outside of our homes in Los Angeles. After the 2018 Woolsey Fire, the land at Little Sycamore Canyon in all its vast beauty and rugged terrain, expressed a sense of deep history and intrigue, sounding echoes of a distant past. Guided by principles of conservation, advocacy for native plants, and merging interests in design, art, and science, an interdisciplinary land project was formed. The land is now planned to be preserved in perpetuity, and is meant to offer new methods for how conservation can operate in this century. Botanical surveys, conservation easements, trust agreements, mission statements, landscape architecture, state and federal agency outreach, research and education on indigenous practices , habitat restoration, infrastructure, engineering, and land management, have all been a part of our roadmap. We seek to demonstrate that this path is possible and inspire others to join in the pursuit. With specific examples from our own journey, we will outline some of the people and relationships that are needed to succeed in a project like this and the unique - and mundane - ways we have discovered to establish them. The spirit of our work and our day-to-day actions are well within the reach of anyone who wants to honor with care the lands that surround us. We began with small, very personal steps, long before the reality of owning land was even possible in our lives. The impacts, collaborations, and community we've grown, amount to more than we ever imagined. The resilience of native plants now speaks through us, extending the protection of this land beyond our lifetimes..
Presenter Bios
Emily Lacy
Little Sycamore Canyon
Emily Lacy is a Land Partner of Little Sycamore Canyon, and celebrates notions of our shared ecological heritage as a Conservation Professional, with a background in the arts, landscape architecture, and the nonprofit space. She has worked extensively to restore ecosystems and advocate for native plants through habitat restoration in a range of environmental conditions across California and Oregon.
Dominic Ciccodicola
Little Sycamore Canyon
Dominic Ciccodicola is a Land Partner of Little Sycamore Canyon, Producer/Director for Film and Television, and a Clown. Originally from Detroit, MI where his appreciation for overgrown lots likely comes from, he has carved out a unique existence rooted in creative work and caring for people and the world around him.
Ru Moyers
Little Sycamore Canyon
Ru Moyers is a Key Collaborative Partner of Little Sycamore Canyon. She works thoughtfully in the fields of architecture and design to address issues of equity, utility, sustainability, history, and gender.

1.4 Conservation Genomics of Lithophragma maximum (Saxifragaceae), the San Clemente Island Woodland Star

Caitlin M Hazelquist1, Dr. C Matt Guilliams1, Annie M Ayers1, Dr. May B Roberts1, Nicole Desnoyers2, Dr. Kristen Hasenstab-Lehman1

1Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, Santa Barbara, CA, United States.
2Naval Base Coronado, San Diego, CA, United States

Description
Lithophragma maximum Bacig. (Saxifragaceae) is a State and Federally Endangered perennial herb that grows along four kilometers of cool North-facing canyons on San Clemente Island. Populations are small, isolated, and threatened by historical grazing and altered fire frequency. The species is reliant on winter-spring rains for leaves and inflorescences to emerge from a small woody caudex, and seeds require a cold snap to germinate. Understanding the baseline genetic trends for rare plants like L. maximum helps inform its stakeholders of sites most at risk, and guide decisions on whether or how to conserve them. We sampled 11 sites, representing all known watersheds where the species occurs. We used double digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing to develop a dataset of single nucleotide polymorphisms for population genomics analysis. All sites exhibit very low genetic diversity, with moderate levels of inbreeding. There is little evidence of gene flow across watersheds. Individuals within demography plots were genotyped to inform ongoing monitoring and breeding efforts. Larger sites exhibit greater clonality than smaller populations. Considering our findings, we recommend crossing plants from different watersheds to create new populations in suitable canyons. Sites with few plants could be augmented with genetic material from other watersheds to create more resilient populations. Continued partnerships between Navy land managers, US Fish and Wildlife, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, with active implementation of our recommendations by the Soil Ecology and Restoration Group, as part of the Navy’s botany program, should improve the long-term genetic health and outlook for the species..
Presenter Bios
Caitlin M Hazelquist
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
Caitlin earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from California State University San Bernardino and is a conservation genetics laboratory technician at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. She works on phylogenomics, population genomics, and barcoding and metabarcoding projects that are often centered around the California Channel Islands and California native plants. She is especially interested in island and scrubland plant communities, and the intersections between ecology, functional traits, and population genomics.

1.5 Coordination and Collaboration are Key to Protecting Rare and Sensitive Vegetation Communities in San Diego County

Emily E Perkins1, Sarah McCutcheon1

1U.S. Geological Survey, San Diego, CA, United States

Description
San Diego County is home to many rare and sensitive vegetation communities. Over such a vast landscape, protecting these plants requires a large degree of coordination and collaboration between groups. The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) established and funds the San Diego Management and Monitoring Program (SDMMP) to coordinate regional management and monitoring of sensitive habitats and rare species on conserved lands in western San Diego County. SDMMP coordinates with partners to implement priority objectives and relies on partner participation to achieve regional management and monitoring goals. Since 2008, this successful collaboration of over 100 entities has regionally monitored 65 species; monitored and/or mapped 8 vegetation communities; and modeled, assessed, and mapped 8 threats and stressors. The value of these partnerships is exemplified in two key projects. First, the Rare Plant Inspect and Manage framework has unified the collection of over 2,600 surveys through a common protocol and data management system. Second, a landscape-scale vegetation monitoring program of coastal sage scrub and chaparral is providing insights on changes in species composition and functional cover through a statistical framework that allows for the detection of small but meaningful changes across many landowners. Coordinating data collection across the region allows for analyses of species and population trends over time and provides a better understanding of the association between habitat and threat covariates and population dynamics. The mutually beneficial relationship between SDMMP and partners is critical to the success of the regional program and progress in meeting conservation targets.
Presenter Bios
Emily E Perkins
U.S. Geological Survey
Emily is a geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey and GIS manager with the San Diego Management and Monitoring Program (SDMMP). She received her Master's in Geography from San Diego State University. Her work focuses on spatial analysis, GIS and database management, and website management for SDMMP.

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Special thanks to Esri, our 3-time Giant Sequoia Sponsor, for making this movement stronger than ever!

Valley Oak

Manzanita

CNPS Sacramento Valley

Buckwheat

AECOM

California Invasive Plant Council

California Native Bee Society

EBMUD

H.T. Harvey & Associates

Judy and Robert Fenerty

Kleinfelder

Moulton Niguel Water District

PSOMAS

Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

California Poppy

ASCENT

Barona Band of Mission Indians

Carol Witham

Inland Empire Resource Conservation District

Land Trust of Santa Cruz County

Linda and David Chipping

Vern Goehring

Northern California Bontanists

Stillwater Sciences

East Bay Regional Parks

Northern California Botanists

Rutherford and Bransfield

Wildlife Conservation Board

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The mission of the California Native Plant Society is to protect California’s native plants and their natural habitats, today and into the future, through science, education, stewardship, gardening, and advocacy.

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