Taking the long view on our local quality of life
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Ventura Land Trust, a local nonprofit with the mission to protect the land, water, wildlife, and scenic beauty of the Ventura region for the benefit of current and future generations. This is a time for us to reflect upon the work we are doing and look ahead to the next 20 years. As stewards of 3,877 acres of open space, we’ve made a big promise to protect this land in perpetuity, a promise we do not take lightly.
Ventura County’s scenic beauty illustrates an incredible story of biodiversity and resilience. Biodiversity refers to the health of an ecosystem and how well it is functioning. California is a “biodiversity hotspot,” one of the 25 most biologically diverse places on the planet, and the only one recognized in North America. Ventura County is a particularly brilliant cradle of diversity within this hotspot.
We reside along the Pacific Flyway, a major migratory bird route. Monarch butterflies overwinter in our trees. The Ventura River and Santa Clara River drain massive watersheds, providing life-giving water to wildlife and habitat for freshwater species, including endangered steelhead trout, Western pond turtles and red-legged frogs. More than one third of the native plants in California are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else; Ventura County has 11 endemic plant species.
Biodiverse habitats are stronger and more resilient, but the wild, open spaces essential to biodiversity are at risk. The notion that land is only as valuable as the wealth that can be extracted from it has led us to disregard the natural services that intact open space provides. Open space breaks up heat islands and fights climate change. Healthy, native plant populations can sequester massive amounts of carbon. Their preservation is a lot like setting up a multitude of banks in which we can deposit the carbon circulating in our atmosphere.
Unpaved surfaces allow for water infiltration and recharging of aquifers, and reduction of urban runoff. Connected open space gives wildlife the habitat and genetic fluidity they need to thrive. From an economic standpoint, healthy open space increases adjacent property values and boosts tourism. And it’s good for us: our physical, mental, and emotional health benefit from time spent in nature.
As our region grapples with big societal and economic issues — how to provide adequate housing, where to derive water, how to move everyone around — we must strike a balance between economic growth and the preservation of the quality of life, if not life itself.
This is where Ventura Land Trust and other open space organizations come in. What does that look like in practice? It means identifying land prime for conservation. It may be untouched or lightly touched by humans and have native habitat worth protecting or restoring. Ideally, it’s contiguous with other open space, providing corridors through which wildlife can pass. And for public preserves, it provides opportunities for recreation.
This work is challenging: land acquisition in Southern California is expensive, and ecological restoration and installation of trails and parking are similarly costly. Protecting land, especially along our preserves’ wildland-urban interface is complex, with our responsibilities ranging from annual brush clearance to securing preserve boundaries, managing recreational users, removing nonnative and invasive vegetation, and repairing habitat damage from previous and neighboring landowners. The habitats we protect — coastal sage scrub, oak woodland, and riparian communities — may have been badly treated by humans over the past few centuries: altered, overharvested, overgrazed, misunderstood, and exploited.
By preserving open space, and providing opportunities for people to recreate there, Ventura Land Trust is making our community stronger and its members healthier. Please join us in this effort.
Melissa Baffa is the Executive Director of Ventura Land Trust. Visit www.venturalandtrust.org to learn more.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Taking the long view on our local quality of life
