Plant Identification Outing, Barton Flats Visitor Center, Highway 38

August 24, 2003 -

 

From Sheila McMahon

 

CNPS Members! Take advantage of this oppotunity to get acquainted with the flora of the Barton Flats area and meet some like-minded new friends. Riverside/San Bernardino Chapter of CNPS and the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association Forest Service Volunteers will meet at 3:30 PM at the Barton Flats Visitor Center on Highway 38. We'll go for a short walk and then the Native Plant Society experts will help identify the plants we collect. If you'd like to picnic before the meeting, there are tables available for lunch.

 

Bring many friends, and join us for what should be an interesting and enjoyable outing!

 

Barton Flats Visitor Center, Hiway 38,  is on the way to Big Bear, past Angelus Oaks, on the south side of the road. Barton Flats Picnic Area is just west of the Visitor Center.

 

Contact: Sheila McMahon, 909-683-8850

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden:

Three Summer Field Trips

 

Montane Flora Of Southern California

 

This summer we are heading to the higher elevations of our Southern California mountains to explore and study the unique flora of each range. Our instructors will lead us to floristic hot spots and discuss work being done to protect rare and endangered montane species. Transportation provided by RSABG.

 

San Gabriel Mountains

Saturday, June 28

Rick Fisher, San Gabriel Mtns. Chapter, CNPS

Code: SU03BOT100A

 

San Bernardino Mountains

Saturday, July 19

Lorrae Fuentes, Director of Education, RSABG

Code: SU03BOT100B

 

San Jacinto Mountains

Saturday, August 16

Katie Barrows, Associate Director, Coachella Valley Conservancy

Code: SU03BOT100C

 

All trips are 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

$65 ($79 nonmember)

Limit: 12 participants each trip

 

For Information & Registration, call RSABG

909-625-8767

Conservation in Riverside County

 

From Alison Shilling, Conservation Chair

 

The Multispecies Habitat Conservation Plan for Western Riverside (the HCP) is more or less complete. By the time you read this, the Board of Supervisors will have voted on it, and it seems quite likely that they will approve it. Final comments from scientists and the public were submitted over the last three months, and presumably considered for the final document. A working group to iron out some last problems met in May.

 

There are some gaps in the scientific data that formed the basis of the HCP, but it is arguable whether the time and money that would have to have been spent filling these in would have been worth the delay. It is quite possible that some conservation organizations, as well as some in the development community, will file suit over certain aspects of the plan, and this in turn might delay implementation. However, there are indications that the broad outlines will be adhered to, as two recent developments show.

 

First, there has been for a long time a need for an off-highway vehicle park, since DeAnza Park was closed in 1994. A committee has been meeting over the past year to consider a new location, most probably in the Badlands, and the mitigation that is being proposed is the purchase of a corridor between the San Jacinto Wildlife Area and the San Bernardino mountains – one proposed in the HCP. (However, there are concerns that the location of the OHV park is too near the Wildlife Area, and surveys are still necessary to ensure that a viable corridor con still be located with the OHV park nearby.)

 

Second, a group of landowners with parcels in the San Jacinto floodplain have taken the initiative to propose the setting aside of some 2700 acres of plain to form a riparian corridor (which would hopefully preserve some endangered wetland plants there). This again is fulfilling requirements of the HCP.

 

Other ongoing efforts, such as the clean-up of the Arundo in the Santa Ana river, will also help in realizing the HCP and while it would be nice, for wildlife and habitat lovers, to put a complete halt to all development from today, the grim reality is that, IF the HCP can be enforced and managed, it will probably be as much as we could expect.