Cooperative Management Fosters Stewardship of Palo Corona Regional Park

Small_photo%20e-news%20winter%202011%20collaboration%20at%20work%20pcr%20smith's%20blue%20butterfly

When the Big Sur Land Trust joined other organizations and agencies in purchasing the 9,898-acre Palo Corona Ranch in 2002, a key goal was to create parkland that balanced public access with a commitment to habitat protection for the property’s native plant and animal species, especially those which are threatened or endangered. With the Ranch’s southern acreage transferred to the State Department of Fish and Game, the northern portion (4,350 acres) was transferred to the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District (MPRPD) to become Palo Corona Regional Park. Today, BSLT, The Nature Conservancy and the Park District continue to work together to achieve important conservation goals, guided by a Cooperative Management Agreement that assists the partners in fostering and supporting MPRPD’s long-term stewardship of Palo Corona Regional Park. Through collaborative planning, fundraising, natural resource management and public education, this agreement sets forth a path to plan for and implement science-based natural resource management practices within Palo Corona, benefiting the ecological health and viability of native species and natural communities while also promoting opportunities for recreational, cultural, social and scientific activities.

The Cooperative Management Agreement builds on the 2007 Grassland Management Plan, which recommended cattle grazing at Palo Corona as an important tool to achieve conservation outcomes. Once viewed with concern by conservationists, monitored grazing is now understood to be a beneficial practice on some sites, one that can limit woody plant encroachment, increase the diversity and abundance of native plants, and facilitate fire management by preventing the accumulation of fuels that pose a fire risk. To plan for continued long-term prescriptive grazing, BSLT, the Conservancy, and MPRPD have applied to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a Safe Harbor Agreement. Safe Harbor Agreements encourage voluntary conservation efforts and offer assurance that future property use restrictions will not be imposed by regulators if those efforts prove beneficial to specific targeted species. Such a cooperative effort helps non-federal landowners like MPRPD manage land in a manner that supports the conservation of listed species, while conducting certain other land use practices such as grazing.

“A Safe Harbor Agreement establishes the criteria the Park District will need to maintain species habitat,” says Scott Butterfield, Ecoregional Ecologist for The Nature Conservancy. An ongoing study conducted at Palo Corona by Dr. Hall Cushman, Professor of Biology at Sonoma State University, has demonstrated that habitat for the federally threatened Smith’s blue butterfly can be improved with properly managed grazing. “It’s a success story,” Butterfield says. “These are really important results.” Dr. Cushman’s research helped inform the process establishing a Safe Harbor Agreement. “This agreement gives the Park District and its partners the tools and the responsibility to create, restore, and enhance habitat for threatened or endangered plants and animals such as the Smith’s blue butterfly, the California red-legged frog, the California tiger salamander, and the Yadon’s rein orchid,” Butterfield says.

Small_photo%20e-news%20winter%202011%20collaboration%20at%20work%20palo%20corona

Next on the agenda, according to Cammy Chabre, BSLT’s Conservation Projects Manager, is to turn the partnership’s collective focus toward the task of dealing with the issue of invasive species at Palo Corona. Focusing on invasive species and promoting native plants will also provide a way to look at the park as a whole. “The park is managed for its ecological properties,” Chabre says. “We want to look at a fire plan, a grazing plan, a public access plan, an invasive species plan, and then look at the property as a whole and integrate each plan’s goals and objectives into a unified management plan with the goal of enhancing or maintaining the property’s ecological value.”

“There has been a lot of planning and research,” Butterfield says, “in order to put in place a framework for now and into the future that will guide the park’s stewardship.”

Palo Corona’s ecological value is amplified by its location which links a much larger landscape of 13 surrounding protected areas in private, state and federal ownership, and by its role in fostering communication and collaboration among those landowners.

“This collaboration has been really great,” adds Chabre. “We are using science to inform the process as we actively manage the land, continuing with grazing and ranching while MPRPD proceeds with opening the property to the public.”

You can help conserve Palo Corona.