[APWG] Need to budget for weeds when buying public lands

[Craig Dremann]

Dear Craig B. and All,

Happy Earth Day!

The old idea of buying native ecosystems as public land to protect it
from
development, was the usual routine from the late 1800s to date, in the
USA.

That view of public land purchases remained the same for over a
century, until in the last few years.

In the last few decades, new weeds have been invading those public lands
and destroying the very ecosystems that billions of dollars of
taxpayer's money had been invested, to protect
those public natural resources for perpetuity.

For example, the State of Florida decided in the last decade, that
buying land to protect
it from development was not an adequate strategy, and they have budgeted
money to
convert 3% of the upland weed infested areas on State lands per year,
back
to local native ecosystems.

There are more details about the Florida 3% a year plan, under Item 3 at

http://www.ecoseeds.com/juicy.gossip.fifteen.html of my web page, that
the
"War on Weeds is Over".

All I am suggesting, is when our public land managers are purchasing
land, please set aside, at least the same amount of money as the price
of the land, to
manage the weeds and the native ecosystems.

For example, if the local Open Space district here in California
managing Russian Ridge, could have budgeted a few hundred dollars per
acre per year, thirty years ago when they purchased the
property, they could have gotten ahead of the new weed infestations as
they invaded.

If the Board had planned ahead of the weeds, a couple of thousand acres
could now be a pristine example of California native ecosystem
understory, like what I show at my web page
at http://www.ecoseeds.com/wild.2008.html

Instead, Russian Ridge is quickly becoming one gigantic weed-patch,
because of a lack of vision from the past, plus the lack of desire to
obtain the necessary funds today.

We must never settle for destroyed natural resources or weed-infested,
ruined native ecosystems, and like the State of Florida, include the
necessary
weed management and ecological restoration costs, as part of our public
lands
acquisitions.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, Redwood City, CA (650) 325-7333