Owning Up to Our Responsibilities: Who Owns Lands Important for Biodiversity?

Standing watch over San Francisco Bay, Ring Mountain lies just a short stretch north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The mountain rises from the Tiburon Peninsula, lined with exclusive residential communities and one of San Francisco’s most desirable suburbs. The slopes of Ring Mountain are exclusive in another sense as well: Here lives the world’s sole population of the Tiburon mariposa lily (Calochortus tiburonemis). Found in the open grasslands near the summit of the mountain, this attractive flower grows only on an unusual rock type known as serpentine for its slick, scalelike, blue-green appearance. A product of California’s restless geology, these rock formations also support several other rare plant species, including the Tiburon paintbrush (Castilleja affinis ssp. Neglecta) and Tiburon jewelflower (Streptanthus niger). While serpentine occurs elsewhere in California and beyond, the Tiburon mariposa lily does not. The view from atop Ring Mountain, a spectacular vista of water, mountains, and skyscrapers, would fetch top dollar for residential development. Bulldozers may well have overrun this unique piece of real estate if The Nature Conservancy had not purchased and managed it as a nature preserve. In buying the land on Ring Mountain, the Conservancy also bought the earth’s entire population of the Tiburon mariposa lily. This created a weighty responsibility, but it also freed the organization to take any action necessary to ensure the survival of this flower and Ring Mountain’s other rare species. Ownership offers the most direct and absolute way to offer conservation to those plants and animals inhabiting a piece of land. On the other hand, land ownership also conveys rights that allow management of property in ways not nearly so beneficial to our native species. Of the four basic strategies for biodiversity conservation discussed in the previous chapter, three relate directly to land: owning and managing land; regulating land use; and influencing land use through nonregulatory means. If we are to understand not only the current condition of species and ecosystems in the United States but also the opportunities and challenges for their long-term protection, we must also understand how the underlying natural patterns relate to the patterns of land ownership and management that have been laid atop them.