Make room for Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes
Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network
April 8, 2001
By Marilyn Bauer
Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge in California is a recent addition to America's 40-year-old animal and habitat protection system, and its manager, Chris Barr, believes in management without boundaries.
Working with a diverse group of agencies and private individuals, Barr is leading an effort to conserve one of the largest coastal dune areas in California and one of the few remaining relatively intact ecosystems of its type and size in the western United States.
Barr believes "it takes a village" to make a difference. He is even loath to take credit for the success of the California Condor Reintroduction Project, which he headed from 1987 to 1993. During that time, the condor population increased from 27 to 130.
He says he applied what he learned from that "high-profile" project to the sleepy town of Guadalupe, California, where he's mobilizing local troops to save the dunes and the endangered snowy plover.
Chris Barr doesn’t think hell is other people. In fact, his mantra may be the more, the merrier. As manager of the nation’s newest wildlife refuge spread along 2,553 miles of living dunes on the central coast of California, he has worked closely with government agencies, local residents, farmers and even an archeologist who's raising money to excavate the yet-intact sets from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 film, "The Ten Commandments."
"It's all about partnerships. Everyone working together for a common goal," said the 33-year-old Barr at his office in downtown Guadalupe. "If you get past all the arguing, all the hype and misconceptions about endangered species, and work with people on the ground and in the community, you get ideas and innovations that make conservation a reality. And that's what we've got down here. We're managing the resources so we can have public uses, our farming heritage and wildlife protection at the same time."
A graduate of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, Barr managed refuges in Santa Cruz and Monterey before directing the California Condor Reintroduction Program in Ventura County. During his tenure, the condor population increased five-fold, with 14 founder lines and no genetic abnormalities.
"We used to hide in a pile of sticks and leaves, and in front of us to bait the bird would be a stillborn calf," Barr remembered. "The stench would bring the condors and we'd jump out and grab their legs out from under them."
Barr has also devoted time and effort to National Wildlife Refuge Week. Along with working partners Ed Griggs of the Center for Natural Lands Management and Karen Wood, executive director of the nonprofit Dunes Center, Barr organized hikes into the refuge, coordinated presentations and scheduled video screenings.
"Education is key," he explained. "People don't know they shouldn't bring their dogs out during nesting season because dogs can trample plover eggs. We have a video we are showing this week, in both English and Spanish because our community is predominantly Spanish, that shows the sand-colored eggs the birds lay on the beach. I'm excited about taking people out to the refuge. And there are people who have lived here their whole lives who have never been out to the dunes."
With its new designation as home to the nation's newest wildlife refuge, Guadalupe is banking on increased tourist traffic.
"We get a lot of bicyclists coming through here. This is a very popular route," said Wood.
The town stands to see an in increase in eco-business with the dunes in the spotlight. The Duck Stampers, as they are dubbed — visitors to all of the country's wildlife refuges who collect stamps from each location in a passport book with a duck logo — will now have a new location to visit.
Numbering 500 (with an additional 3,000 waterfowl production areas) and encompassing more than 92 million acres of lands and waters, the national refuge system spreads across every state and several U.S. territories. The lands comprise a stunning array of landscapes and provide lifelines for millions of migratory birds and sanctuaries for rare and endangered species.
"It is the only national system of lands designated to protect wildlife for future generations," Barr explained. "Other agencies like the Forest Service, National Parks System and the Bureau of Land Management have a more public-use mandate."
The Guadalupe-Nipomo refuge was established in August when the Nature Conservancy donated the 2,553-acre Mobil Coastal Preserve to fish and wildlife. It the only refuge on California's central coast and an important part of the largest coastal dune area in the state.
The refuge is also one of the few remaining intact ecosystems of its type and size in the western United States.
"This strategic foothold in the rapidly dwindling resource of California coastal property will help insure that future generations will be able to see this unique environment in its natural state," said Michael Spear, operations manager of the Forest Service's California-Nevada operations office in Sacramento.
The refuge is home to more than 200 species of migratory and resident birds and a number of federally listed endangered and threatened species, including the western snowy plover, California least tern, California red-legged frog and southern sea otter. In the wetland areas, the endangered Gambel's watercress and marsh sandwort grow. Black bears, bobcats, coyotes and deer roam the dunes, which constantly shift and reshape in the high winds.
Outer refuge boundaries were also established, expanding the protected area to 8,330 acres. This land includes the adjacent Guadalupe oilfields, where Unocal is currently conducting a federally mandated oil spill cleanup; Guadalupe Dunes County Park managed by the CNLM; and the Oso Flaco Lake Natural Area managed by the federal parks system. The outer boundary allows the refuge easy purchase of these lands should their owners decide to sell or donate.
"Thank goodness for our cattle ranchers," Barr said, returning to his partnership spiel. "They've maintained these breeding habitats. The farm fields make a great buffer for the dunes; they retard trespassing and poaching. It's just a great partnership. By protecting our farmers and understanding their needs and learning the agricultural history of the area, we're also working to protect the dunes.
But Barr's first order of business — to eliminate non-native plants overrunning the dunes — is, in part, habitat destruction wrought by farmers. He says invasive European beach grass, Veldt grass and ice plant were planted by unknowing farmers to stabilize the dunes and provide forage for cattle.
"It's like a wildfire going through the dunes taking over native species," Barr said.
"This is a perfect example of why we have to manage the coastal dune area as an ecosystem," Griggs said, referring to the 18-mile seaside stretch of land from Pismo Beach to Point Sal.
Eradicating plants in one area to have them proliferate in another is counterproductive, they found. High winds blow seeds down the coast, priming them for proliferation in virgin territories.
"We need to take a more holistic approach to land management," Barr said. "We need to pool our resources and to find our commonalties. If we don't, we'll be less effective. No one can do it alone — not one person, not one agency."Barr is working with the San Luis Obispo Land Conservancy and California Conservation Corps, experimenting in non-intrusive ways of removing exotics and maintaining the dunes and their native plant life.
"It's tedious work," he said. "Very labor-intensive. But the veldt grass has been taking over a foot a year. And only 10 percent of the coastal dune scrub community is left."
Barr is also working with Unocal, which must remove invasive plants as part of its cleanup.
And then there is John Parker, archeologist and Cal Poly professor working with the DeMille Foundation to raise $70,000 to excavate the "The Ten Commandments" set. His is no mean feat. The set is 500 tons of elaborately-styled faux-Egyptian statuary designed by Art Deco leader Paul Irbe.
Although debris is visible from the main road into the preserve to the south of the refuge, it was a cryptic clue in DeMille's posthumously published autobiography that led film buffs to the site.
"If a thousand years from now, archeologists happen to dig beneath the sands of Guadalupe, I hope they won't rush into print with the amazing news that Egyptian civilization ... extended all the way to the Pacific Coast."
Barr is hopeful that, a millennium from now, the dune system will have survived.
After a recent day of work, Barr sat in the front booth of La Imperial Mexican Restaurant on Guadalupe's main street, listening to a rousing street performance of a mariachi band playing to celebrate La Chiquita grocery store, not National Wildlife Week. But he remained sanguine. Smiling, he said, "This is a community with a lot of heart."