El Cerrito, Hillside Natural Area, French broom, Friends of Five Creeks, invasives, stewardship, volunteer

1. El Cerrito’s Hillside Natural Area
Toward Partnerships
Friends of Five Creeks

6. David Weinstein photo
Friends of Five Creeks has been:
• Mapping the area’s plants
• Developing a GPS’d plant list
• Counting rare Oakland star tulips
Trail map, wildflower slide show,
plant list on our web site.
There’s lots to learn.
We’ve barely begun lists of birds,
mammals, butterflies.
From butterflies to hawks, what does
the wildlife use and need?
Want to help?

8. The biggest threat to this urban treasure is wildfire.
French broom (yellow and cream outlines) has encroached dangerously.

9. In 1987, El Cerrito paid an excellent consultant, LSA, for a management plan.
This in many ways has been carried out. El Cerrito can take credit for keeping
this beautiful native habitat while preventing fires.
BUT the plan points out that oak forests are naturally moist and fire resistant,
with low brush in the understory. This is no longer true when broom invades.

10. Broom also makes
eucalyptus groves
more flammable.
Broom’s dense,
twiggy thickets
provide no useful
food or shelter for
wildlife.

11. Grasslands across the top and down the ridges were to be fire breaks.
This no longer works when broom invades.
Ridge grassland below trail, summer 2012

12. Ridge grassland above trail, summer 2012

13. After a neighbor and the city started, F5C began pulling broom in earnest in 2010.

15. • This has become an excellent partnership!
• Gordon White, paid by the Fire Department, chips up the carcasses. He is mowing some
areas a foot high, leaving a grip for weed wrenches while “buying time.”
• El Cerrito Trail Trekkers and El Cerrito Public Works partner on work parties and
publicity.
• More working together will achieve more:
• Volunteers can’t work where it’s too steep or poison-oak-covered. In a few areas, hire
professionals and use small amounts of herbicide.
• Seedlings sprout for years. Good maps and coordination are needed to avoid new seed.
• Mapping, recognizing, and protecting native species and habitat will be important in
some areas.

16. Other fire-prone invasives
also destroy diversity and
habitat.
• Pampas grass
• Fennel,
• Cardoon,
• Acacia,
all need attention.

17. Volunteer/Fire/Public Works partnership could help with these invasives.
• Mapping makes professional removal easier and cheaper.
• Volunteers can cut fennel, which re-grows as bushy clumps that can be sprayed
selectively with glyphosate (ongoing partnership with East Bay Regional Parks)
• Volunteers can remove small new infestations by hand, while professionals use heavy
equipment or herbicide on large ones.

18. Volunteers can cut and remove seed as a
short-term stop-gap, if professionals commit
and follow through.
Otherwise, this kind of year-after-year slog is
too disheartening.

19. Final thoughts:
• Don’t pay for a new plan! El Cerrito has a good one. Follow it , with small
sensible adjustments, e.g. for habitat.
• This natural gem needs modest ongoing management, not a big project.
Look for available resources, get folks working together, get started!
Comments? Questions?
Friends of Five Creeks, www.fivecreeks.org, f5creeks@aol.com, 510 848 9358