California Native Plant Society

Re: Appeal AP11-0008, Sulphur Mountain Land & Livestock Co. LLG, CV11-0329

16 August 2012

Page 1

16 August 2012

Ventura County Planning Commission

800 S. Victoria Ave.

Ventura, CA 93008

Subject: Appeal AP11-0008, Sulphur Mountain Land & Livestock Co. LLG, CV11-0329

Dear Planning Commission and Chair:

The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) herein provide this testimony in support of the Ventura County Planning Division’s assessment and recommendations regarding CV11-0329 and Sulphur Mountain Land & Livestock Co. LLG’s appeal of that notice (AP11-008).

CNPS is concerned about the protection of the natural vegetation and plant communities of Ventura County and all of California. Ventura County has established clear and well-throughout zoning ordinances that protect the environment while allowing reasonable development and use of private property. CNPS supports those ordinances and expects that they be enforced to the full extent of the law.

I am David L. Magney, President of the Channel Islands Chapter of CNPS, and Chairman of the CNPS Chapter Council, the governing body within CNPS that determines CNPS conservation policies, developing CNPS’s mission and strategic plan, and elects the board of directors.

I am also an environmental consultant, specializing in biological resources, practicing as such since 1986. I am an approved biologist by the Ventura County Planning Division, County of Santa Barbara, City of Malibu, County of Los Angeles Sensitive Environmental Areas Technical Advisory Committee, and serve on Los Angeles County Planning Department’s Environmental Review Board for the Santa Monica Mountains. I also serve as the consulting biologist for the City of Rancho Palos Verdes. I have expertise in botany, wetland delineation and permitting, habitat management and restoration, vegetation classification and mapping, and CEQA and NEPA assessments, and wetland functions and assessment. I am also a Certified Arborist by the International Society of Arboriculture. I have served as an expert witness for several legal cases, and designated as the U.S. Department of Justice’s Expert Botanist on a large wetlands violation case.

A few issues have been raised by the appellant and his experts that need to be addressed.

Numerous CNPS members routinely use Sulphur Mountain Road, including that portion that passes through the appellant’s property, for environmental education and recreational purposes, and are quite familiar with the natural vegetation and land uses practiced there for over 40 years. The Channel Islands Chapter of CNPS led an educational hike along the western portion of Sulphur Mountain Road as recently as 15 April 2012.

I conducted a rare plant survey on 15 May 2011 along the road, and found several occurrences of special-status plants, including immediately adjacent to the Sulphur Mountain Land & Livestock Co. parcel that contains the violation. Those special-status plant species found on that date include: Baccharis plummerae, Calochortus catalinae, Juglans californica, and Polygala cornuta var. fishiae. Additionally, Navarretia ojaiensis has been collected along the road about 1 mile east of the property. It is highly likely that one or more of these plants were eradicated during the vegetation clearing activities, reducing the population size of all of these species countywide and statewide. The landowner gave these sensitive species absolutely no consideration before or during their vegetation clearing actions. Had the Sulphur Mountain Land & Livestock Co. gone through the permit process, they would have had an opportunity to avoid such impacts and still meet project objectives. It is highly likely that one or more rare plant species occur on the property.

Mr. Atmore testified this morning that he and his client, Sulphur Mountain Land & Livestock Co. LLG, practice holistic land management and that he is a “grass farmer” and cattle rancher. He also claims that he is a good land steward and works hard to management his grazing lands to achieve long-term stability. Mr. Atmore also claimed that Ventura County cattle ranchers have more wildlife on their property then are contained in all of the Los Padres National Forest and Santa Monica Mountains combined. However, he failed to provide any evidence whatsoever to support such a claim.

Holistic Management® (HM)[1]:

"Holistic Management® originated when HMI’s founder, Allan Savory, set out as a young wildlife biologist in his native Zimbabwe to solve the riddle of desertification. His efforts resulted in the development of the Holistic Management; Model – a proven, whole farm/whole system approach to resource management that incorporates financial planning, land planning, grazing planning and biological monitoring. The process increases soil health, reduces erosion, improves biodiversity and enhances productivity by working with Nature." [Frequently Asked Questions (Holistic Management International (HMI)).

Holistic Management International[2] has four basic cornerstones of practicing holistic management:

  • Plan for and produce a profit;
  • Determine what enterprises to run;
  • Know what to spend money on and when; and
  • Determine the best investment strategies for business growth and resource productivity.

Holistic range management is a misnomer, in the manner in which Mr. Atmore described it to you. This approach is focused on one objective, managing lands for the maximum growth of grazing livestock in a sustainable manner. That is a smart business plan, which more and more ranchers and farmers are slowing learning, that you have to pay attention to the carrying capacity of the land to have a sustainable business of growing livestock.

It is clear that Mr. Atmore is not a biologist, as evidenced by many of his statements of natural plant communities and what wildlife, such as Mule Deer eat. Cattle are grazing animals. That is, they eat low-growing grasses and herbs, not shrubs or trees. While cattle will eat the later when not enough herbaceous vegetation is available, it is not their preference. Mule Deer are browsers. That is, they eat the leaves and young twigs of shrubs and trees, and only occasionally eat herbaceous vegetation. The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies state the following about what Mule Deer eat:

“Deer have more specific forage requirements than larger ruminants. A component of mule deer diet is forbs (broad-leafed herbaceous plants), but mule deer are primarily browsers, with a majority of their diet comprised of leaves and twigs of woody shrubs. Deer digestive tracts differ from cattle and elk in that they have a smaller rumen in relation to their body size and so they must be more selective in their feeding. Instead of eating large quantities of low quality feed like grass, deer must select the most nutritious plants and plant parts.”[3]

Mr. Atmore’s claim that the Mule Deer prefers grassland forage is simply false. Reducing the amount of chaparral and Coastal Sage Scrub habitat onsite degrades existing Mule Deer habitat on Sulphur Mountain. The Mule Deer Working Group also supports this:

“The presence and condition of the shrub component is an underlying issue found throughout different ecoregions and is important to many factors affecting mule deer populations (Schaefer et al. 2003). Disturbance is a key element to maintaining high quality deer habitat, especially where shrubs compose the climax community.”[4]

Chaparral and Coastal Sage Scrub vegetation are not crops, never have been considered crops, and likely never will be so considered, except if doing so is necessary for Mr. Atmore’s client to redefine reality to avoid penalties for violating the law.

Mr. Atmore is correct that the Sulphur Mountain area been grazing nearly continually for approximately 200 years; however, it was only since the 1940s did ranchers spend resources to convert shrublands and woodlands to grasslands on Sulphur Mountain to maximize profits. An examination of a 1977 aerial photograph of the property shows no evidence whatsoever that any of the natural vegetation had been modified or otherwise managed to improve forage conditions for grazing cattle.

The detrimental affects of vegetation type conversion[5] and overgrazing have been widespread and well documented for decades now about the poor grazing and land management practices of cattle ranchers, resulting in significant adverse impacts to lands downstream of cattle grazing lands. Land management practices such as developed by Allan Savory (in Africa) to correct this type of land mismanagement have been adopted by more and more American ranchers, which have often reduced and minimized the adverse downstream impacts to the environment, and improved forage conditions on those ranch lands that have put the holistic management principles into practice. However, this approach has nothing to do with wildlife habitat or managing natural vegetation and wildlife habitat for any other purpose then growing cattle for profit.

ISA tree care standards highly recommend a tree protection zone that precludes activities that modify the root zone of trees, quite similar to that adopted by the County of Ventura. As a Certified Arborist, it is clear that all the trees onsite that had the brush removed by heavy equipment have indeed been damaged. Their root zones have been compromised and their health affected. Only time will tell if the trees can recover from this damage.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important project.

Sincerely,

David L. Magney

President

ISA Certified Arborist WE-7674A

cc:Kim Prilhart, VCPD Director
Christina Danko, VCPD Staff Biologist
Greg Suba, CNPS Conservation Program Director
Brian Trautwein, Environmental Defense Center

[1] Available at HMI Website: (8/23/07)]

[2] Holistic Management International - based on Allan Savory’s Holistic Management® principles.

[3]Sommer, M.L., R.L. Barboza, R.A. Botta, E.B. Kleinfelter, M.E. Schauss, and J.R. Thompson. 2007. Habitat Guidelines for Mule Deer: California Woodland Chaparral Ecoregion. Mule Deer Working Group, Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Type conversion definition: The conversion of the dominant vegetation in an area from forested to non-forested or from one species to another.