Who We Are, Mission and History
An educational non-profit organization

The members of San Bruno Mountain Watch have been working diligently for over thirty years to help protect and preserve San Bruno Mountain as the largest and richest remaining example of the native Franciscan bioregion, elsewhere destroyed by the spread of San Francisco and its neighboring cities in the urbanized northern San Francisco Peninsula. Close to one of the Bay Area's main airports and surrounded by five large suburbs and towns, the mountain shelters a remarkable number of rare and endangered species, including three butterflies and at least 15 plants, as well as other wild animals rarely found so close to cities. The mountain has been described as a natural classroom, "maybe the best place in the United States for the average person to find and observe an endangered plant or animal in the wild.² The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has described it as an "ideal site for biology classes and research" and a "prime location for continued ecological and evolutionary investigations."

The Ohlone Indians who once lived here left behind three shellmounds associated with their villages. These features - of great interest and value since they contain household remains, discarded artifacts and tools, and often human burials - are the main material legacy of this fascinating, vibrant, and extremely long-lived culture. The mountain's shellmounds are virtually the last such undisturbed sites in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Mountain Watch recently secured permanent open space protection for the largest and oldest one. Nevertheless, San Bruno Mountain's unique biological, archeological and cultural heritage, including its present role as an open space and recreational treasure for the public, remains truly at risk, endangered by the region's rapid suburbanization and its associated impacts, particularly the spread of noxious, invasive weeds.

San Bruno Mountain Watch maintains an extensive archive of documents and artifacts relating to all facets of the mountain's history both in its immediate local context and in its wide ranging significance. Slideshows, guided walks, stewardship work parties, and celebrations are organized in an ongoing effort to interest the public in caring for this treasure. Mountain Watch also scrutinizes local land use policies and government / agency decisions to block further destruction and to fight for the expansion of existing natural resources. We publish a newsletter and educational materials (also republish out-of-print works) about the mountain and its endangered habitats. SBMW also issues white papers and flyers on events and issues important to regional and national endangered species preservation.

Some current Mountain Watch members actually spearheaded the original fight to save the mountain, leading to the creation of parklands totaling 2,200 acres under the administration of the State of California and San Mateo County. Subsequent cooperative efforts have added to this protected territory. However, the park plans excluded most of the privately owned hillside areas; these were slated to be sacrificed for development despite being large habitat centers probably essential to the mountain's endangered species. Despite the establishment of the parks, San Mateo County, the State of California, and the mountain's four neighboring cities do little to educate the public about this unique resource -- a deficiency that SBMW remedies -- and have repeatedly allowed encroaching real estate developments to threaten the integrity of natural communities, thus eroding the site's value as a nature and endangered species preserve.

SBMW has given high priority to fighting the San Bruno Mountain "Habitat Conservation Plan" (HCP) which authorizes destruction of endangered species habitat to enable development. Passed in 1982 to address non-federal lands hosting endangered species, this amendment to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) was first used on San Bruno Mountain and allowed developers to proceed with construction that had been stopped due the presence of such species. In exchange, developers were to dedicate portions of their properties for parks and to restore degraded habitat. This HCP has served as a model for the roughly 500 other HCPs either implemented or in the works in the U.S.

Two decades later, clear signs indicate that the HCP amendment to the ESA is not safeguarding endangered species, neither on San Bruno Mountain nor nationwide. There has never been a comprehensive peer review of the San Bruno Mountain HCP as administered by its Trustees. While the rare species certainly exist today on the mountain, their longterm prospects remain tenuous, especially given the increasing spread of invasive, displacing weeds. SBMW volunteers, well versed in the plant and animal life of the mountain, have gathered evidence and publicized the ongoing results of their informal review of the lofty promises and often dismal results of the nation's first Habitat Conservation Plan. If the problems of the San Bruno Mountain HCP and of HCPs in general are effectively revealed to the public and to government agencies, there may be a chance to thwart this serious threat to rare and endangered species nationwide. The issue is especially timely now as the US Fish & Wildlife Service considers the issuance of a "take permit" that would allow the destruction of severely imperiled Callippe Silverspot butterflies and their habitat. Mountain Watch is collaborating with other dedicated stakeholders to stop this amendment and to press for adoption of significant improvements to the HCP. Meanwhile, the ESA itself, as one of the nation's strongest environmental laws, faces assault by exploitative industries, their congressional allies, and a decidedly hostile Washington administration.

San Bruno Mountain Watch has worked closely with other groups, including the California Native Plant Society, with whom we have worked on three additions to the mountain's list of rare and endangered species. We are affiliated with the California Endangered Species Coalition, a federation of environmental organizations working on the reauthorization and strengthening of the Federal Endangered Species Act. We have worked with the Trust for Public Land and The Archeological Conservancy to preserve the Ohlone Indian shellmounds on the border of Brisbane and South San Francisco.

San Bruno Mountain Watch remains tenacious in its defense of the mountain, applying dedication and expertise to studying it, to teaching others about its unique values, and to preserving its integrity and ensuring its future.

2007 Volunteer Board of Directors
David Schooley, Founder and President
Lewis Erick - Buchner, Treasurer
Del Schembari, Secretary
Gina Dettmer, Student Representative
Virginia Anderson
Terry O'Connell
Maryane Razzo
Paul Bouscal
Robert Carillo
Jo Coffey
Philip Batchelder


Staff
Ken McIntire, Executive Director