Many efforts underway to help Cambria’s forest

Efforts to conserve, rejuvenate and restore Cambria’s landmark Monterey pine forest are happening on so many fronts these days, it can be tricky to keep track of them all.

Participants range from local and county governmental agencies and owners of properties large and small to nonprofits (such as the county FireSafe Council and Cambria FireSafe Focus Group, the Cambria Forest Committee and Friends of the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve) and dedicated individuals battling the elements with skill, buckets, shovels and elbow grease.

For instance, from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 19, adult volunteers under the direction of Greenspace — The Cambria Land Trust are to transplant 300 to 400 healthy pine seedlings into the Strawberry Canyon Reserve.

Richard Hawley hand-raised the baby trees from seeds harvested for years from trees showing no signs of pitch canker or other serious diseases.

Greenspace Executive Director Connie Gannon said the nonprofit has recently completed a cleanup of dead trees and understory materials near the reserve’s trails. When the work is done, workers will nosh on cheese and fall fruits and sip wine.

For details or to RSVP, call 927-2866 or email Gannon at connie@greenspacecambria.org.

The forest

Many trees in the North Coast’s 3,400-acre native Monterey pine forest are suffering from the drought, beetle and disease infestations, the effects of encroaching development and old age. A Monterey pine tree’s average lifespan is from 80 to 100 years, and foresters who know how to determine such things have deemed many of Cambria’s pines to be elderly.

Cambria’s rare native Monterey pine forest is one of three remaining on the U.S. mainland and five in the world — two smaller forests are on little Mexican islands.

So many people in Cambria and surrounding areas, the county, state and beyond are determined to do all they can to make sure the North Coast forest continues to thrive, helping to define the hilly, oceanfront town and making it different from neighboring communities.

What else is happening?

Here’s a partial list of some other efforts to help the pine-and-oak forest:

Biomass

The Cambria Community Services District, with the help of fire-safe and other groups, is seeking grants toward buying a high-tech, portable plant that turns wood chips into electricity, heat and “biochar” charcoal.

The plant’s manufacturer, All Power Labs in Berkeley, says the plant would reduce the carbon footprint of downed trees, with substantial positive implications for Cambria’s future. Electricity generated by the biomass-reduction process could provide power to the district’s wastewater treatment plant.

Another biomass-related project, one that could be funded by a forestry grant, would provide a “curtain burner,” a sophisticated incinerator that produces little smoke when disposing of slash and wood that’s not suitable for reuse as lumber or chips for the All-Power plant.

Test plots

Various areas in the forest have been marked, set aside and otherwise segregated by scientists, college students and volunteers so they can test and track several different treatment methods for those sections. Work on some Fiscalini Ranch Preserve plots is reportedly complete; monitoring there will continue.

Sarah Bisbing is an assistant Cal Poly professor of natural resources management/environmental sciences. She and her students are evaluating the effects of drought and disease on the forest in a network of small, permanent plots they established on the Fiscalini preserve, Covell Ranch and Norris/Rancho Marino Reserve.

The researchers regularly observe and record how the forest ecosystem there changes over time. Work in the plots can be as expansive as counting mature trees and as painstaking as counting twigs on the ground.

Mature and older trees may be dying, Bisbing said during a lecture in Cambria last summer, but baby trees are springing up to replace them.

Grants

Multiple agencies and nonprofits are seeking — and, with some regularity, getting — hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from federal and state agencies and from organizations interested in forest regeneration.

Work paid for by the grants is ongoing or in the planning stages, and there’s more ahead, according to representatives of the FireSafe groups, governments and nonprofits.

Local hazard mitigation plan: Work has begun on Cambria’s plan, which is required if the town is to qualify for federal funds that would help the community prepare for or mitigate effects of an emergency or disaster.

Bob Neumann of Category 5 Professional Consultants in Los Osos told Cambria FireSafe Focus Group participants Oct. 12 that it should take about seven months to get the multiphase plan ready for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), with FEMA taking that long or longer to review and approve it.

A grant is paying for most of Category 5’s work, with the Cambria Community Services District also contributing to the cost.

Chipping

The FireSafe groups, Community Emergency Response Team and others will sponsor and direct upcoming “chipping days,” when Cambrians can reserve time for a mobile chipping machine to turn their cut branches and limbs into chips that are returned to the owner’s property.

Weather permitting, the next chipping event will be Thursday and Friday, Dec. 1 and 2. Details will be forthcoming soon; advance commitments are required.

This story was originally published October 26, 2016 at 10:26 AM with the headline "Many efforts underway to help Cambria’s forest."