You can make a difference to the hurt being caused by climate chaos and the great extinction event, in your town or your city! How? Reuse, repurpose, and recycle this information.
This is the letter for week 45 of a weekly climate strike that went on for 4 years in front of San Francisco City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story. For an annotated table of contents to see topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile…
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
Insects are facing mass die-off events worldwide.1 Insects are the base of the food web, but they aren’t the only group of species dying from this human-caused extinction event.2, 3, 4 How do we save our food web? A biosphere is only strong if it’s rich in diversity and deep in numbers.5, 6, 7 To save the food web we start by preserving and enriching SF’s biodiversity. We make space for life in SF now.
That’s why this week’s letter is about BIO HIGHWAYS.
What’s the problem?
Insects aren’t the only group of species that needs to be able to move, to find food and mates, to migrate, to hide, to rest, to roam, or to have a home. What works for insects will work for other species as well.8 So this letter is focusing on the nuts and bolts of bio highways.
What is a bio highway?
A bio highway is a corridor, tunnel, bridge, trail, series of linked parks and greenways, crossing, ecoduct, underpass, overpass, corridor, or wildlife viaduct that provides habitat and safe passage through areas (usually cities or freeways) that humans have made uninhabitable and deadly.
Where do we have bio highways in CA?
LA9
the Presidio Tunnel Tops10
Where do bio highways exist outside CA?
•Banff, Canada11
•London, England12
•Florida, United States13
•Sydney, Australia14
•Oslo, Norway15
•Cape Town, South Africa16
•Nashville, Tennessee17, 18
•the Highline Park in New York City, New York19
•the Sabine Promenade in Houston, Texas20
•Richmond, Virginia21
•European Green Belt22
What does the law say about bio highways?
Internationally, the Migratory Bird Treaty23 and the Pacific Salmon Treaty24 create multinational bio highways, so SF constructing city bio highways directly contributes to these efforts.
Federally, a Presidential Memorandum issued June 2014 directed DOT to improve pollinator habitat on all land owned or controlled by the federal government, to increase pollinator habitat along roadways, and to work with state DOTs to promote pollinator-friendly practices and corridors. The Federal Highway Administrations approach was to support native plantings and integrated vegetation management practices to reduce pesticide use and mowing.25
At the state level, the Wildlife Crossings Guidance Manual from Caltrans is a good guide to creating bio highways using off-the-shelf solutions and resources specific to CA.26 California law regarding animals can be found here.27 CA laws of interest for bio highway construction include Fish & Game Code 2050-2115.5, Fish & Game Code 4700, Fish & Game Code 2850-2863, and Fish & Game Code 5000-5062.
At the city level, the Environment Code Chapters 1 and 12 are applicable. The Park Code will require expansion, and the Planning Code Article 1.2 on “Dimensions, Areas, And Open Spaces” will require additions and amendments, especially as regards rooftops, setbacks, yards, sidewalk sun access, streetscapes, and bird-safe buildings.28
Why Do We Need Bio Highways?
I am a bicycle commuter. Every week, I ride by animals killed in the roads of SF — near Laguna Honda, in Golden Gate Park, up on Twin Peaks, near Ocean Beach, sometimes even downtown. This is a crisis that we can quickly and fairly cheaply do something about if we act now!
How do we make bio highways in SF?
There are multiple resources with explicit how-to instructions and links to yet more information. These resources include, but are not limited to:
- “Removing and mitigating barriers to wildlife movement” from CorridorDesign29, a group of wildlife biologists and GIS innovators dedicated to using available tools to stop biome fragmentation and animal road deaths.
- The CA Wildlife Conservation Board30 has numerous programs and grant opportunities. These include HERP (Habitat Enhancement and Restoration Program), a granting program that has wildlife corridors and fisheries enhancements as part of its agenda, and that grants money to public agencies31, The Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Rescue Program32, the Oak Woodlands Conservation Program33 (which is relevant currently from the north side of Golden Gate Park to the Presidio, and should be extended), the California Riparian Habitat Conservation Program34 for the few surface streams we have and for resurfacing our creeks and streams, and the Stream Flow Enhancement Program (Proposition 1)35 especially for habitat restoration projects.
- The Las Pilitas Nursery has loads of details on creating habitat for CA native pollinators.36
- ARC: Animal Road Crossings is a group reconnecting wild areas and restoring safe passages.37 They have a massive site full of information in addition to multiple examples of their on-the-ground work.
To successfully create linked wildlife zones in SF, we need to copy a number of tactics and innovate some of our own. Specifically:
- We need pollinator stations on rooftops that cross the city in every direction.
- We need green connections between all the parks in SF, and to create new parks where necessary to link the network.
- We need to be planting natives in massive numbers citywide.
- We need to decrease road speeds as well as the number of vehicles on the roads.
- We need to be closing more roads to vehicular traffic.
- We need to create tunnels under roads and/or bridges or pathways above roads throughout the city. We need to do the same with train tracks, and on major bike commute corridors (especially in the Panhandle).
- We need to drastically reduce light pollution in SF: from buildings, in parks, and on bridges.
- We need to resurface streams and creeks that have been covered.
- We need to restore shore and interior wetlands.
And a reminder:
You should already be starting on: massive native tree plantings, blackwater recycling, all electric and clean energy transportation, getting rid of plastics, switching to all local carbon-neutral or carbon-negative energy, and resilience and self-sufficiency.
There are only 43 weeks left.38, 39
FOOTNOTES
1. Damian Carrington. “Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’”. The Guardian. 10 February 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature.
2. Damian Carrington. “Earth’s sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warm”. The Guardian. 10 July 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn.
3. The Current Mass Extinction. Evolution, PBS. 2001. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html.
4. Halting The Extinction Crisis. Center for Biological Diversity. Accessed 2 March 2020. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/.
5. CJA Bradshaw. “More species = more resilience”. ConservationBytes.com. 8 January 2014. https://conservationbytes.com/2014/01/08/more-species-more-resilience/.
6. Tyson Strandt, Natalie Verdiel, Marisa Mendonca, Nic Bernard, and Pandy Duplessis. How Does Biodiversity Affect The Resilience Of An Ecosystem. Salmon In The Tree. 7 april 2016. https://biol1210.trubox.ca/2016/539.
7. Greentumble. Why Is Biodiversity Important to Ecosystems? Greentumble. 3 August 2018. https://greentumble.com/why-is-biodiversity-important-to-ecosystems/.
8. Sarah Holder. Animals Need Infrastructure Too. Citylab. 31 July 2018. https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/07/wildlife-crossings-bridges-tunnels-animals-roads-highways-roadkill/566210/.
9. “World’s largest highway overpass for wildlife on track in California”. CBS News. 21 August 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/worlds-largest-highway-overpass-for-wildlife-on-track-in-california/.
10. Tunnel Tops / The Presidio, San Francisco. The Presidio. 2020. https://www.presidio.gov/tunnel-tops#.
11. Starre Vartan. “How wildlife bridges over highways make animals—and people—safer”. National Geographic. 16 April 2019. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/04/wildlife-overpasses-underpasses-make-animals-people-safer/.
12. Charlotte Edmond. “London is planting a giant bee corridor to boost insect numbers”. World Economic Forum. 16 May 2019. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/london-is-planting-a-giant-bee-corridor/.
13. Richard Conniff. Green Highways: New Strategies To Manage Roadsides as Habitat. YaleEnvironment360. 10 June 2013. https://e360.yale.edu/features/green_highways_new_strategies_to_manage_roadsides_as_habitat.
14. B&B Highway: Bed & Breakfasts for Birds & Bees. FoodFaith Australia. 12 April 2019. https://www.startsomegood.com/BandBHighway.
15. Agence France-Presse. “Oslo creates world’s first ‘highway’ to protect endangered bees”. The Guardian. 25 June 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/25/oslo-creates-worlds-first-highway-to-protect-endangered-bees.
16. Insect Highway Project. Communitree. Accessed 1 March 2020. https://communitree.in/our-work/projects/insect-highway-project.
17. Margaret Renkl. Tennessee Makes Way for the Monarchs. The New York Times. 16 September 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/opinion/tennessee-wildflowers-nature.html.
18. Pollinator Habitat Program. TDOT. Accessed 1 March 2020. https://www.tn.gov/tdot/environmental-home/environmental-highway-beautification-office/beautification-pollinator-habitat-program.html. NOTE: email contact information for program point person on site.
19. High Line. 2000-2020. http://www.thehighline.org.
20. Sabine Promenade. Buffalo Bayou Partnership. 2020. http://buffalobayou.org/visit/destination/sabine-promenade/.
21. Friends of the James River Park. Accessed 3 March 2020. https://jamesriverpark.org. Note: this is a white water rafting river flowing through the heart of Richmond, Virginia.
22. Josh Lew. “10 important wildlife corridors”. Mother Nature Network. 4 September 2015. https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/10-important-wildlife-corridors.
23. Migratory Bird Treaty Act. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. 26 September 2018. https://www.fws.gov/birds/policies-and-regulations/laws-legislations/migratory-bird-treaty-act.php.
24. The Pacific Salmon Treaty. Pacific Salmon Commission. 2016. https://www.psc.org/about-us/history-purpose/pacific-salmon-treaty/.
25. Environmental Review Toolkit. U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Accessed 1 March 2020. https://www.environment.fhwa.dot.gov/env_topics/ecosystems/pollinators.aspx.
26. Robert J. Meese, Fraser M. Shilling, and James F. !uinn. Wildlife Crossings Guidance Manual. California Department of Transportation. March 2009. https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/files/content/projects/CA_Wildlife%20Crossings%20Guidance_Manual.pdf.
27. Animal Legal & Historical Center: California Statutes. Michigan State University College of Law. 2020. https://www.animallaw.info/statutes/us/california.
28. Article 1.2 Dimensions, Areas, And Open Spaces. eLaws. 2020. http://sf-ca.elaws.us/code/plco_art1.2.
29. “Removing and mitigating barriers to wildlife movement”. CorridorDesign. 2007-2013. http://www.corridordesign.org/designing_corridors/linkage_designs/mitigating_barriers/.
30. wcb.ca.gov
31. Habitat Enhancement and Restoration Program. California Wildlife Conservation Board. 2020. https://wcb.ca.gov/Programs/Habitat-Enhancement.
32. Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Rescue Program. California Wildlife Conservation Board. 2020. https://wcb.ca.gov/Programs/Pollinators.
33. Oak Woodlands Conservation Program. California Wildlife Conservation Board. 2020. https://wcb.ca.gov/Programs/Oaks.
34. California Riparian Habitat Conservation Program. California Wildlife Conservation Board. 2020. https://wcb.ca.gov/Programs/Riparian.
35. Stream Flow Enhancement Program (Proposition 1). California Wildlife conservation Board. 2020. https://wcb.ca.gov/Programs/Stream-Flow-Enhancement.
36. Bert Wilson and Celeste Wilson. California Native Insect Polliinators; Creating a Pollinator Habitat. Las Pilitas Nursery. 1992-2014. https://www.laspilitas.com/insects/california-insect-pollinators.htm.
37. ARC. https://arc-solutions.org.
38. Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting. United Nations. 28 March 2019. https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm. See the action timeline in the report.
39. Paula Murray. “We’ve 10 years to save the seas or life on earth will become impossible”. Express. 23 December 2018. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1062990/environment-plastic-pollution-Sir-David-Attenborough-seas-earth.