Shani Kleinhaus
Environmental Advocate
Our Environmental Advocacy work in the first half of 2021 focused on the built environment. Here are some of the issues we tackled:
Integrating Nature into Cities
Worldwide, the loss of biodiversity has been devastating and scientists believe that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event similar to the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65 million years ago, when 75% of all plant and animal species on earth were wiped out.
The importance of wildlife in cities (Urban Ecology/Urban Nature/rewilding) to people and in sustaining biodiversity has been highlighted in many books and studies. Win-win Ecology and Biophilic Cities were among the first books to highlight the integration of nature into human civilizations. Recently, the San Francisco Estuary Institute published a study, titled The Biological Deserts Fallacy: Cities in Their Landscapes Contribute More than We Think to Regional Biodiversity, showing the importance of nature in cities.
Biodiversity has been shown to be important to people’s happiness. Using data from the "2012 European Quality of Life Survey" to study the connection between species diversity in their surroundings and life satisfaction in more than 26,000 adults from 26 European countries, researchers showed that an additional 10% of bird species increases life satisfaction as much as a comparable increase in income. Other studies also linked happiness and life satisfaction to biodiversity in nature preserves, parks, open space, and people’s everyday lives.
In our region, cities are starting to consider ‘Nature-Based Solutions’ and ‘Ecosystem Services’ to increase sustainability and to become more resilient to the effects of climate change. SCVAS has been advocating for protection and habitat enhancement for local biodiversity within these efforts. We ask cities to increase parklands and wetland areas, to plant locally native plants when they engage in stormwater management and streetscape projects, and to include native trees in parks and in the urban forest. We ask for special attention to the needs of local pollinators and birds to sustain local biodiversity.
Our work to highlight the importance of nature to cities
and their residents is slow, persistent, and ongoing. As we advocate with City leaders, we recognize that this is a shift
in a long-standing paradigm, but this is the time to recognize that biodiversity is the biological fabric on which we all depend. When biodiversity is the goal, then climate action, sustainability and the urban forest all fall well within the paradigm. But if the goals of climate action and sustainability assume that biodiversity is an end result, and nature is viewed as a “service” to our anthropocentric universe, we will continue to lose habitat and species.
We are making progress! We thank Mayor Ellen Kamei,
Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez and Mountain View City Council Members Lisa Matichak, Alison Hicks, Margaret Abe Koga, Pat Showalter, and Sallie Lieber for their inclusion of Livability and Biodiversity as a goal in the Strategic Roadmap Action Plan for the City.
Bird Safety & Dark Sky
Artificial Light at Night is a relatively new threat to species and ecosystems. A recent (Nov 2020) comprehensive review of the biological impacts of Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) in a leading scientific ecological journal explores the evolution of response to light in biological evolution. The study, titled Exposure to Artificial Light at Night and the Consequences for Flora, Fauna, and Ecosystems (https://www.frontiersin.org/ articles/10.3389/fnins.2020.602796/full), concludes, “It is not surprising therefore that ALAN impacts natural systems at
all levels of organization, from unicellular to eukaryotes, from systems physiology to community structures, from population behaviour to trophic interactions” and in combination with other human induced stressors. ”The result is a dramatic acceleration in extinction of species, followed by disorganization and collapse of ecosystems.” The authors propose that “efforts should be made to limit night- time illumination to more essential purposes”.
We are proud of the Cupertino City Council that voted unanimously to adopt a Bird Safety and Dark Sky ordinance. On April 6th, 2021, the City Council passed the ordinance, which controls lighting to reduce light pollution on all private properties in Cupertino. In addition, the ordinance mandates bird safe design treatments to all glass surfaces in “bird- sensitive areas''. These include parcels in hillside areas as well as within 300 feet of water features and vegetated open space. We thank Mayor Darcey Paul, Vice Mayor Liang Chao and Council Members Hung Wei, John Willey and Kitty Moore for caring and taking action. This is a great step forward for protecting sensitive habitat, native and migratory birds.
We are also pleased that the town of Los Gatos included Bird Safety and Dark Sky policies in the Draft General Plan update. We continue to work in Los Gatos towards the development of appropriate standards or ordinance.
We continue to fight the proliferation of Artificial Light at Night and light pollution in our area, advocating for other cities in Santa Clara County to adopt lighting ordinances and to address over-lighting by city owned fixtures and light installations.
Oka Ponds in Campbell
The Santa Clara County Library District is in the process of constructing a “government office and facility” at 1344 Dell Avenue, adjacent to Los Gatos Creek County Park (also known as Oka Ponds) in Campbell. The planned office included a vast glass wall less than 50-ft from the pond. We have expressed concern that the proposed project will result in bird collisions with the glass facade of the building. In our letter we explained that Oka Ponds provide an important resource for birds and the birders who love them. We discussed the tragedy of bird collisions with glass and the negative effects of artificial night lighting and reviewedrelevant requirements by government agencies in the Bay Area and potential solutions. We ended by discussing the lost opportunity to create habitat for birds and pollinators, and to educate the public about the need to protect and promote biodiversity.
In our recommendations, we suggested that Santa Clara County develop partnerships to use the building and its immediate environment as an educational tool to educate the public about:
Avian species that can be found at Oka Ponds
Bird migration
Global threats to biodiversity
Creating habitat by using California Native Plants
Bird-friendly building design
The impacts of lighting on ecosystems, light pollution, and the importance of dark sky
Interested in protecting birds and their habitat in your community? Our Environmental Action Committee is looking to expand. Please contact shani@scvas.org.