The Friends of Los PeÑasquitos Canyon Preserve. "Los PeÑasquitos"
means "little cliffs" in Spanish.
Mission
The Friends are dedicated to protecting, interpreting, and helping to
manage open space park lands in the north city area of the City of San
Diego. These lands include Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve, Carmel
Mountain Preserve, the Del Mar Mesa Core Preserve, Black Mountain Open
Space Park, and Pacific Highlands Open Space. A critical part of our
mission is to keep these open space parks connected through a system
of wildlife and trails corridors for wildlife and people.
History
The Friends were founded in 1984 by veterans of the San Diego Ecology
Center based in Peñasquitos Canyon to protect
the old Rancho Peñasquitos land grant lands from imminent development
and to conserve these lands as an open space park.
Who is involved?
The Friends have no staff, but depend entirely on volunteers, as has
been the case from the Friends' beginnings. The Friends are a community-based
organization, with the majority of its dues-paying members from the
communities adjacent to the Preserve, including Rancho Peñasquitos,
Mira Mesa, Torrey Hills, Del Mar Mesa, Del Mar, and La Jolla. Scouting
organizations regularly participate in Friends' interpretive walks,
weed control projects and native plant revegetations. Scouting organizations,
church groups, and the general public number in the hundreds of people
who volunteer in Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve each year. Numerous
school classes and scout groups are led on interpretive nature hikes
by Friends interpreters. School and scout groups also volunteer to help
with revegation projects, planting native plants in restoration areas.
Every member of the Friends' Board of Directors has lived or currently
lives in the communities surrounding the Preserve.
Projects
The Friends have led and continue to lead all of the interpretive nature
walks in the Canyon since before its inception. These walks occur about
twice a week and are open to the public free of charge. Several hundred
people a year attend the Friends walks. Such nature walks were used
before formation of the Preserve to acquaint the public with the canyon
and to enlist their help in protecting it.
Other activities of the Friends include wildlife surveys conducted
on a quarterly basis by the Friends Tracking Team. These surveys involve
dozens of volunteers and more than a thousand volunteer hours.
The Friends also conduct yearly surveys of endangered plants in the
Preserve, including the Willowly monardella and the San Diego thornmint.
These surveys have identified threats to these species such as off-trail
incursions and invasive weeds, both of which have been effectively dealt
with. Dozens of volunteers help with these surveys and work related
to these species. The Friends have one of the longest and best data
sets on both these species, data sets that have been shared with and
published as part of the City of San Diego's Multiple Species Conservation
Program annual reports and shared with academic researchers.
The Friends also help protect the cultural resources in the canyon,
including the three adobe ranchs houses in the Preserve, including the
second oldest standing residence in the County of San Diego.
The Friends also carry out erosion control projects in the Preserve,
including one such project to protect the endangered Willowly monardella
plant.
Goals
The long term goal is to preserve a viable system of core nature preserves
connected by viable wildlife corridors in all of the north city area
of the city of San Diego. This interconnected system has been part of
a stratregic Plan of the Friends since the late '80s when the Friends
and their supporters first mapped the wildlife corridors of the north
city area and helped make those corridors a reality in the Future Urbanizing
Area Planning for the north city and the current Multiple Species Conservation
Plan.
A long-term goal of the Friends has been to provide a model for other
"Friends" groups in the political fight to save open space
lands and their subsequent management. Another long-term goal has been
to champion the participation of citizen-based volunteer groups in all
aspects of open space preservation, from acquistion to interpretation
to management of the resources. Another long-term goal is to improve and help implement the City and
County's habitat plans.
Implementing the Natural Resources Management Plan for the preserve,
a plan the Friends contributed to, especially the restoration components,
is a long-term goal, having already passed the 10-year mark.
Why we joined the Conservation Resources Network
CRN represents an opportunity to collarobate with other organizations
to share our and their knowledge in acquiring, interpreting, and managing
open space lands. It is also an unprecedented opportunity to help the
non-profit community support the upcoming Transnet ballot measure which
will include the monies necessary to adequately fund the Multiple Species
Habitat Plans and to position this same non-profit community to be eligible
to directly apply for and receive these funds. CRN can make it possible
to take the non-profit land trusts and "Friends" advocacy
groups to a much higher level of functioning.
How are we unique?
The Friends pioneered the involvement of volunteers in managing the
natural and cultural resources in City of San Diego open space parks.
Volunteers took the lead in controlling invasive plants and revegetating
degraded agricultural lands with native plants in partnership with the
City's Parks and Recreation Dept. The Friends also took the lead in
surveying endangered plants and animals in the Preserve, identifying
threats to these species and helping to deal with these threats. The
Friends also developed an evangelical outreach to other volunteer groups
to encourage them to take part in the management of invasive plants
and restoration of degraded land with native plants.
The City of San Diego's Multiple Species Conservation Program used
the Friends efforts as an example of the role volunteers could play
in implementing its habitat conservation plans.
The Friends are the first local group to develope a tracking team to
do quarterly wildlife surveys, training volunteers from all of the county.
The Friends' Track Team spun off the county-wide San Diego Tracking
Team which is helping to train similar teams for other Friends' groups.
Peer review of Tracking Team data has led to acceptance of this data
in making policy decisions, such as the successful closure of Sorrento
Valley Road in Peñasquitos Lagoon, the acceptance of wildlife
corridors, and the identification of corridors to be retrofitted for
at least one County highway. This data has been published as parts of
wildlife corridor studies funded by the California Dept. of Fish and
Game.
The Friends felt so strongly about the importance of preserving natural
lands from invasive weeds that they supported the establishment of the
California Exotic Pest Plant Council (now the California Invasive Plant
Council, Cal-IPC). Cal-IPC is an association of land managers and volunteers
from all over California at every level of government. Mike Kelly, president
of the Friends at the time, became a charter member of the new non-profit,
an elected member of its Board of Directors for 12 years, and its president
for two terms.
The Friends partnered with the City of San Diego in obtaining riparian
restoration grants and between these grants and more than 12 years of
Friends volunteer efforts, have restored more than 90% of the riparian
corridor in the Preserve, including the removal of more than 5,000 eucalyptus
and palm trees, giant reed, salt cedar, cape ivy, and other invasive
plants and restoring cottonwoods to the canyon preserve.
The Friends have also partnered with the San Diego Chapter of the California
Native Plant Society to organize educational conferences on such topics
as Invasive Plants and Restoring Native Grasslands.
Wish List
Board development. Youth educational program development. Membership
campaign development.
Contact for more information:
Brian Swanson, president.
Tel: 760-739-5451
Fax: 858-271-1425
BSwanson@sempra.com
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