April Fundraising Letter

Please read our April 2013 Fundraising Letter - and consider making a genreous donation to support our important ongoing work!

WHY OPEN SPACE

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” 

This is a quote from John Muir, which to me says it all. Let me elaborate.

          San Bruno Mountain Watch is working hard to  save more open space around the mountain. What is open space?  We have to consider the context in which we live -- a Bay Area definition might be different than a Montana definition. In this context, anything green and open, from playing fields to community gardens to relatively natural landscapes, qualifies as open space.  But its got to have plants on it instead of buildings or blacktop. Here’s why we need more.

            First, about the bread. Nature feeds us all, houses us all, sustains us all.  We know this intellectually, but many of us live as if it’s not true.  We go to the grocery store for our food, and more or more often it’s pre-processed for us because we are so busy. We get water out of a tap or plastic bottle without thinking much about it, and we often don’t think about beathing air unless the air is obviously dirty.

            It is open spaces – farmlands, parks, wild lands, even the boulevards, that help supply us with the food, air and water we need, then filter out and recycle the waste.  In science classes, these natural functions are called “ecosystem services.” For example: 

•all plants produce oxygen and consume CO2 and in  the process produce sugar, starches and proteins;

•trees also remove pollution, as do many other plants; and

• open spaces support other members of the web of life that our lives are connected to and dependent on.

            Now about places to play in.  Play is a key way that kids, and adults too, get exercise and learn about the world. Open spaces provide outdoor places to play, exercise and learn. Obviously, walking, running or playing outdoors benefits our bodies. 

            What is less recognized is the fact that being in nature is good for our brains.  Studies show that time in nature increases mental acuity.  We all know this, and people often take walks to “clear their minds.” The patterns we see in nature are very complex.  A walk in the woods automatically engages all our senses, even some we don’t commonly acknowledge exist.

            Everyone needs beauty and places to pray in.  Finally, we all know deep inside that being alone in nature gives us a chance to “center” and reflect on our individual human journeys.  We get to leave behind the world of man, its concerns and its issues.  The beauty we find in nature helps us to do this, and it is so important.  Sometimes we think of this as getting some solitude that we sorely miss, but it is not really that: nature is nothing if not alive, and we benefit from being surrounded by and reminded of all this it is other life.  Nature provides us with spiritual moments.

            In the Bay Area, we need access to open space close to where we live.  If my arguments for open space are true, then we need to have open space close by and accessible to a variety of people, old and young, adventuresome and timid, fit and out of shape.  Our collective connection to nature has steadily weakened as we have entered an increasingly busy, high-tech touch screen world.  We sometimes forget that computer screens present a virtual world, not a real one.  A beautiful picture from San Bruno Mountain can be inspiring, but it is not the same as going on to the mountain.

             Unless we get back in touch with nature, I am afraid we will continue letting the earth unravel as we stare at our smart phones and computer screens, distracting ourselves from a connection to the rest of life.

The following quote expresses how I feel and came via Jake Sigg’s newsletter.

 “...My heart is moved by all I cannot save:

so much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot with those

who age after age, perversely,

with no extraordinary power,

reconstitute the world.” 

         Adrienne Rich

For more nature poetry, check out our website at http://www.mountainwatch.org/schooleys-poetry/

July 2012 Newsletter

Check out the July 2012 Newsletter to see what Mountain Watch has been up to lately.

Remembering Mary Baird

Please visit our Nursery Updates Journal to find a page dedicated to Mary, her life and her contributions to Mountain Watch.

Save the Daly City Dunes

© 2010 Margo BorsThe Daly City Dunes on the western end of San Bruno Mountain are the last remnant of an ancient dune system formed 80 to 125 thousand years ago, when the North Peninsula was an island and water lapped at the base of the mountain.  It is very rare and endangered, but the heart of it is privately owned by folks who now want to put eight houses on the site. 

Houses already cover a good portion of the dunes, leaving this rare dune remnant which is about 10 acres in size.  The development plan would fragment what is left and make much of the remainder vulnerable to more building.  

This is a precious rare dune, composed of sandy deposits laid down during the Pleistocene era, that is unique on the San Francisco Peninsula.  The San Francisco dunes are made of sand from a later era. Naturally, as a rare ecosystem, it also hosts a very rare and sensitive community of dune plants that exist only in a few other locations in the GGNRA, where they are carefully tended. San Francisco Lessingia © 2012 SBMWThis community includes some very endangered plants, the San Francisco Lessingia, the San Francisco Spineflower and a miniature dune suncup.  The Lessingia is on the Endangered Species list, and preservation the Daly City dunes is an important feature of this plant’s recovery plan.

For members of San Bruno Mountain Watch, the reasons to save this unique feature of San Bruno Mountain are obvious. These include: Reserving our local biodiversity leads to a healthier ecosystem; open spaces and native landscapes provide a sense of wellbeing; and future generations should be able to enjoy as much of this biodiversity as possible. San Bruno Mountain is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspot, and this dune is a very unique and fragile feature of the mountain.

We hope to convince the owners of the threatened parcels of our point of view.  It would be a great gift, a legacy gift, to the people of Daly City and the Bay Area, were they to work with us to preserve this rare and endangered area.

In the meantime, we also need to convince everyone else of the dune’s value.  Daly City, along with the land-owners, will ultimately have to decide whether or not they are preserved.  You can help by giving city officials your opinion.  Read more here about what you can do right now.  Then please watch for more information about the dunes coming soon to this website.

(We now have pages addressing all issues relating to the Daly City Dunes, so please check them out to learn about the dunes and what you can do to help save them.)