 
California fires rage on, so why are eucalyptus trees still the city’s most protected menace?
Eucalyptus trees are fantastic, almost other-worldly beings. Occurring natively, like so many of the globe’s strangest residents, in the Oceania region of Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand, the plant species takes just about any form there is to take—tree (one species grows as tall as the Giant Sequoia), shrub (including footholds in the world’s largest desert outside the Sahara), and something in between (a fallen eucalyptus can sometimes cling to its root system and restart growth from the side of its erstwhile trunk, forming a soldier’s march of baby eucalyptus along the broad white avenue of the progenitor’s girth). They grow in a range from the Equator to halfway between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle; the North American equivalent of their habitat would be from Colombia to British Columbia. There is only one way to tie the 600-plus varieties together, and that’s the flower, whose petals are fused together in a cap protecting the growing pistil and her showy entourage of stamens. Imagine a flower whose bud never opened, but kept its fingers demurely clasped until ripening—the base of the petals then detach; the cap falls to the ground; the interior sexual organs of the flower burst forth like a firework to the delight of honeybees and hummingbirds. Even in this shared trait, however, eucalyptus are varied: some form tight caps that look like fingernails, while others create clusters of long thin caps that look like starfish until the petals slide off. Eucalyptus bark is a fascinating evolution by itself. Many, but not all, varieties will shed their bark as they grow, creating a bed of debris not unlike some palm trees in order to suffocate any competing vegetation nearby, and rid the tree of any pests that have taken up residence in the shaggy skin. The resulting shades of the bare trunk have given the eucalyptus some of its more colorful common names—rainbow gum, ghost tree, and yellow stringybark. (To see some of the more fantastic varieties, go to the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, which has about 100 different species, the most anywhere outside of Australia.) Humans have prized the tree since coming into contact with it eons ago. Some oils, such as those from the Sydney peppermint and the lemon-scented gum, are excellent for perfume. Silver dollar gums, particularly the juvenile branches, are a feature in many floral bouquets. The high nectar content of the flowers make the trees excellent in apiaries as a source of high-yield, high-quality honey. The sugary sap of the cider gum has been used for fermentation for millennia, and the leaves of that tree are particularly beloved by sheep. The aboriginal tribes of Australia have found medicinal purposes among the eucalyptus family—coolibah bark treats snakebite; bloodwood gum mixed with water cures colds and venereal sores; Eucalyptus tetrodonta leaves can relieve a headache, and manna gum leaves can relieve diarrhea; and, of course, there’s eucalyptus oil, which has been said to cure everything from sinus infections to arthritis, fever to asthma, cold sores to halitosis. While one scientific paper doubts its abilities as a germicide, the authors note, “It is, however, an excellent stain remover.” Two species produce the pharmacologically important rutin, which is used for fragile capillaries and can be a relief for hemophiliacs. It was this medicinal aspect that led to the first spread of eucalyptus beyond Oceania. In the 1870s, a monastery in the Pontine Marshes near Rome was plagued by malaria, and planted a large amount of Eucalyptus globulus (blue gum), which is known for growing quickly, and for exuding its sap such that the air around its foliage takes on a blue haze. (This is also the reason the mountain range west of Sydney is called the Blue Mountains.) Believing this remedy in the atmosphere would cure malaria, the Trappist monks enthusiastically planted the trees throughout the marsh and spent time breathing the medicinal air. Glory be to God, the malaria abated. Of course, malaria is transmitted by mosquito bite, and the reason for the monks’ success was the fact that the blue gum—a thirsty and fast-spreading variety—sucked up all the stagnant pools of water in the marsh, destroying the mosquito habitat. This law of intended-yet-unintended consequences also followed the blue gum to California, where the species was first introduced for medicinal reasons, then enthusiastically planted as a source of renewable timber. While some species of eucalyptus can be harvested for wood, blue gums are too water-logged, particularly in this damp climate, to yield much but sapwood. Like most of the species, they have a lignotuber just beneath ground level attached to the trunk, so that when a tree is felled at the base (or burned down), it contains all the nutrients necessary to regenerate from scratch. Blue gums not only shed, but drop branches as they grow, in order to concentrate the photosynthesis at the canopy, leaving (when unchecked) piles of fibrous matter up to four feet deep at their base. The oil of the blue gum is flammable—trees have been known to explode—and the combination of debris at the base and wide-spread, oil-bearing canopies at the top lead to a perfect system of plume and flume: fire started in the undergrowth can catch a remaining low branch, climb up the tree as a ladder, and then race across the canopy as if a match were dropped in a trail of gasoline. Blue gums, being branch droppers, have a tendency to let their branches free when on fire, further spreading the flames by sending lit torches into the undergrowth as the flames spread across the top. When the smoke clears, the hardy and fireproof eucalyptus have dropped their flaming branches and shed their flaming bark, ridding the area of any competing vegetation. Even the most burned and scarred have a lignotuber ready to regenerate a new trunk. Even the fallen have the ability to use a single root to create a new miniature grove. And the area is wide open for more eucalyptus to grow. Eucalyptus is more than just the dominant species in fire-prone Australia—it represents 80 percent of that continent’s forest growth. The Eucalyptus globulus groves that dominate the waterways of the Central Coast are now almost impossible to get rid of—and, curiously, that’s not just because they are so well adapted to this climate, and so free of any natural predation to keep their spread in check, that they have become, in one author’s estimation, “America’s largest weed.” While physically removing a blue gum is hard enough, politically and financially, it’s almost impossible. A Heritage of DestructionAccording to the city of Santa Cruz, a heritage tree is “any perennial plant or grove of perennial plants growing on public or private property, having a self-supporting woody main stem or trunk usually characterized by the ability to grow to considerable height and size and the development of woody branches at some distance above the ground,” and “which has a trunk with a circumference of 44 inches (approximately 14 inches in diameter or more), measured at 54 inches above existing grade,” or “planted as a commemorative,” or “planted during a particularly significant historical era,” or “marking the spot of an historical event,” or “unusually beautiful or distinctive,” or “old,” or “distinctive … in size or structure for its species,” or “a rare or unusual species for the Santa Cruz area,” or “providing valuable habitat,” or “identified by the city council as having significant arboricultural value to the citizens of the city.” In other words, if it’s big, or we like it, it’s a heritage tree. Heritage trees are protected from pruning, trimming, cutting, burning, posting, staking, being parked near, having roots covered or otherwise affected by stuff on the ground, and the mere existence of insect infestation. To make alterations to a heritage tree—even ones potentially beneficial to the tree’s long-term health such as pruning—requires a permit. If three or more heritage trees (a grove) exist, an arborist must be consulted, at the permit seeker’s expense. The city of Oakland also has one of the more comprehensive tree ordinances in California, but it exclusively stipulates that eucalyptus are not protected. In fact, its protected trees section of the municipal code is followed immediately by a hazardous trees section, in which eucalyptus are not singled out by name, but injunctions against trees which “pose an imminent threat to life or property” leave little to the imagination. That’s because of the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, still one of the most damaging fires in American history. Sparked by a grass fire in the Berkeley Hills on Oct. 19, the blaze eventually consumed 1,520 acres, 2,843 single-family homes, 437 apartment buildings, and killed 25 people, injuring 150 more. The economic loss was $1.5 billion. The fire’s most terrifying feature was its speed. Almost doused the night it began, a small remaining flare reignited the blaze on October 20, and by three days later, the fire had completed its course, destroying a home every 11 seconds at its height. While high building density and some antiquated firefighting resources contributed to the enormity of the fire, it was the deadly combination of dry brush and clustered eucalyptus groves that gave the fire its ready access to fuel. The very same conditions, minus the high population density, existed in the Larkin Valley area north of Freedom, where the Trabing Fire burned through 630 acres of brush and eucalyptus in 48 hours this June. According to an investigation report released by CalFire on July 9, “fire brands” from the canopies of eucalyptus groves leapt outside containment zones and contributed to the fire’s rapid spread, which was halted at the Watsonville Airport, just short of Watsonville Community Hospital. Unusually high temperatures of 108 degrees coupled with unusually low humidity of 4 percent made conditions ripe for a flare-up—the fire was started by car exhaust from Highway 1—but it was the lack of adequate fire clearance that contributed to the loss of 26 homes and dozens of domestic animals. In a 2002 article for Audubon Magazine, the writer Ted Williams describes the blue gum as a wilful firestarter. “Living next to one of these trees is like living next to a fireworks factory staffed by chain-smokers,” he writes. It would be anthropocentric to point out that of all the benefits humans have discovered about eucalyptus trees mentioned earlier, blue gums only provide the oil, and are dubious producers of that to boot (there are nine species with high 1, 8-cineole content, the active ingredient in medicinal eucalyptus oil, and the three best producers are Eucalyptus dives, the yellow gum, and the beautiful narrow-leaved peppermint tree). But the species affects more than humans. In his article, Williams writes of the effect California eucalyptus have had on the bird population. Noting that birdsong decreases sharply in eucalyptus groves (species diversity drops among the trees by about 70 percent, according to bird experts at Point Reyes Observatory), he also paints the picture of contact between species not adapted to one another. “To deal with sticky gum,” he writes, “Australian honeyeaters and leaf gleaners have evolved long bills. North American leaf gleaners … have not; so the gum clogs their faces, bills, and nares, eventually suffocating them or causing them to starve.” Bird artist Keith Hansen describes to Williams encountering a yellow-rump on the forest floor in a eucalyptus grove: “At first I thought it was deformed, because there was such a dome of gum over its beak that it made a horn. The bird was hunched forward, breathing very heavily.” Williams notes that attempting to remove the gum will cause the upper mandible to snap off in your fingers. The trees, with their propensity for shedding branches, also tend to serve as “bird sinks,” luring species to nest in the lavish foliage, then dropping the nests or allowing them to shaken out by wind. The Point Reyes Bird Observatory has found that Anna’s hummingbird nests are lost at a rate of 50 percent in eucalyptus, as opposed to 10 percent in native trees. Red-shouldered hawks are also found to lose a higher proportion of nests in eucalyptus branches. But What About the Butterflies?Monarch butterflies are not an endangered species. Their colors, the majesty of their flocking, the miracle of their long migration patterns, and indeed their ubiquity have all contributed to a strong protective feeling about the species. Natural Bridges State Park, of course, is one of the most important overwintering Monarch habitats in the United States. The butterfly even graces the Santa Cruz State Parks logo. As a quick touchstone of zeitgeist, WikiAnswers (the research tool preferred by four out of five elementary school children) has the following exchange: “Q: Why are monarch butterflies endangered? A: Monarchs are endangered because of the change in climate.” Well, once again, monarch butterflies are not endangered, but the answer isn’t too far off. Because development has shuffled the ancient stands of native willow off this mortal coil, eucalyptus have become an important source of sheltering foliage for the monarchs, and much of the drive to protect blue gum trees is to ensure that this habitat remains. While the habitat draws the butterflies here, it’s not habitat loss in California that affects the vast majority of the monarch population. In 2004, reports that the monarch numbers in Mexico had dropped 75 percent sparked alarm. With climate change—particularly the volatility of the weather in this decade—serving as the main source of blame, scientists also pointed the finger at Mexico’s problems with illegal logging in traditional overwintering sites. The Mexican government shot back that use of genetically-modified farming in the U.S. was as much to blame. (In some experiments, it was found that Monarch caterpillars died after eating milkweed covered in genetically modified corn pollen.) In 2005 and 2006, however, the Monarch population roared back, probably, according to University of Kansas professor Orley Taylor, because weather conditions were once again ideal. “The temperatures were perfect, the moisture conditions were perfect. It was neither too hot, nor too dry, nor too rainy or too windy,” he told a KU publication. (Monarchs summer throughout the continental United States and southern Canada, and are possibly the most studied butterfly on the planet.) The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, plagued by illegal logging since its creation in 1986, was named one of the new eight natural wonders of the world by UNESCO on July 10 of this year in an effort to engage worldwide stewardship of the nearly 12 acres of overwintering forest. The Mexican winter population spreads through the United States and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, while the California population sticks to the west coast for its entire life (kind of like the people). California’s population is also the only North American one that uses eucalyptus. Williams and his sources at Point Reyes intimate that eucalyptus might not be as friendly to monarchs as they appear—that they might, in fact, create the same kind of sinks they do for bird nests, by luring monarchs in with their shade, only to fail to provide shelter when a large storm rips away the branches, killing thousands. There’s no scientific study for this supposition, however, and monarch populations appear to be fluctuating wildly mostly due to outside climactic circumstances, too much to allow for such a study to be conducted with any certainty. In a letter, Williams takes a different tack on how eucalyptus might not be nature’s best friend, even if it does provide habitat for the non-endangered monarch: “No one is suggesting that the few eucalyptus groves monarchs use for winter roosts be cut down. Cutting down all eucalyptus is impossible anyway. But as I pointed out in the piece, promoting and propagating eucalyptus with heritage tree ordinances (prevalent along the California coast) is wiping out dozens of less spectacular, more diminutive butterflies that depend on the native plants eucalyptus replace.” There is also no study I could find on the effect eucalyptus have on California redwoods. But there is some suggestive evidence in one Santa Cruz resident’s backyard. Evidence that only came about, in a backward way, because of the aforementioned heritage tree ordinance. Not In My BackyardDavid Zicarelli is a computer programmer who lives next to the old Jewish graveyard on Meder Street. Across the way is a horse paddock, and it’s just a good stone’s throw over Arroyo Seco Creek to University Terrace Park. Though the neighborhood as a whole is fairly dense, Zicarelli’s paddock seems a verdant paradise. Some of that is his doing. “I hired some people to create a habitat restoration plan,” he says. “I didn’t like plants at all until I got involved and then I became kind of a geek about plants. I really enjoy working out in the project. It’s a huge amount of work, but from my perspective—this opportunity might not exist for other people with land in the county—but there are a lot of people with energy who, if given the opportunity to do habitat restoration, they might find it very rewarding. More rewarding than playing video games.” He planted his yard with native blackberry, live oak, mugwort, various wetland shrubs, and sticky monkey flower to name a few species. It sounds bucolic, but the reason he did all this was he feared for his home, and possibly his life. The waterway that courses through the Zicarelli property is an artificial one, created by a storm drain diversion that nudges a seasonal trickle into Arroyo Seco Creek. The land upon which his house sits is former landfill, with tires and garbage from 19th century campsites buried just under the topsoil. And the water used to be lined by majestically tall blue gum trees, a few dozen of them, each with rotted roots and precarious lists. The previous owner of the lot tried to construct four townhomes on the land, which angered some neighbors, triggering a lawsuit that eventually got the drainage creek declared a riparian corridor, banning construction within 100 feet of its banks. In addition to the seasonal trickle now falling under the jurisdiction of the Deparment of Fish & Game, the property Zicarelli bought was saddled with 37 conditions, one of which was that nobody touch the heritage trees on the property, all blue gum eucalyptus. While 13 of the trees came down on their own during the past 20 years, it was one in particular on June 19, 2002, that was the final straw. A 105-foot blue gum dropped into the property, miraculously missing the house and the people nearby. At the time, Zicarelli was in the midst of obtaining a heritage tree permit, but the fallen tree enabled them to get an emergency permit for 25 trees. While there were still plenty of hurdles to cross, the native habitat restoration plan went a long way toward making everything happen, and $200,000 later, Zicarelli had made his property safe from falling trees. Not that the eucalyptus are all gone. Groves still squat on the back of his property, and there’s one stand in the front yard of his neighbor, the poet and former professor Robert Sward, living on despite its own sordid story. In 1996, Robert’s wife Gloria became alarmed when a falling blue gum branch nearly killed her. Indeed, one nickname for the shedding gum in Australia is “the widowmaker” for its propensity to drop branches in a fatal way. (On Feb. 6 of this year, a 100-foot blue gum at Soquel and La Fonda avenues toppled onto a car, trapping three young women when it crushed the passenger side, and knocked a signal light onto the roof. Two had no harm from the incident, while the driver had some minor injuries.) The Swards fought the city to have the trees declared dangerous, but there was little movement until one fell and nearly took out the PG&E substation on the block, ripping out five power lines in the process. In 1998, Tom Derr, a certified arborist, recommended the removal of 11 trees from the Sward property. But still, a permit wasn’t forthcoming. So Sward, who describes himself as “once politically correct; stoned out of his mind innocent; yes, yes, and holier than thou,” hired a man with a chainsaw and murdered his trees. Or at least one, before a city official arrived on the scene to put a stop to the cutting, and a fine for $9,000 into Sward’s hand. Though he later pleaded with the city council and got the fine reduced, the barriers still stand. The current city council seems more amenable to eucalyptus removal on private property, but the wording of the heritage tree ordinance still stands. And as such, threatens trees that might be considered the more rightful heritage of the area. “We planted redwoods,” Zicarelli says, “but they’re not doing that well because they can’t compete with the eucalyptus. Mainly, they suck up all the water. We tried to water the redwoods, costing us hundreds of dollars a month, but we decided we can’t afford it. The strategy was irrigate everything for a few years and take it away, which worked for a lot of the plants, but the redwoods don’t look too good. The other stand of redwoods that were very small when we moved in have grown tremendously over the last seven or eight years. You can see that they’re far away from the eucalyptus.” He said the idea that came from city councilmember Ed Porter during the battle was that Zicarelli could plant redwood trees amongst the eucalyptus, and then when they got big enough, remove the eucalyptus. “It doesn’t work,” he says. “The consultants had never done anything like that, so they thought it would be an interesting test to see what happens.” The trees were planted in 2002. “Maybe in a few years, they’ll take off, but compared to the ones 50 feet away, they look terrible.” Asked if he is going to continue to attempt removing the eucalyptus from his native garden, Zicarelli says, “I’m more interested in putting my kids through college.” Removing a heritage eucalyptus costs $2,500 to $3,000 per tree, even if you get permission. “I have no sympathy for people who think of them as natural here,” he says. “I’ve never met anyone who actually has these trees on their property who wants to save them. They’re all people who look at them from afar. I like to call that sentimental environmentalism. To some extent that’s okay. We don’t have to go to the rainforest in Brazil to care about it. But in this particular case, the people who are closest to the issue have lost the political battle in this town. Robert Sward nods. “After the atomic apocalypse, there will be nothing but cockroaches and eucalyptus.” 100 Feet of Middle GroundRon Oliver, the fire chief for the city of Santa Cruz, says it’s a standard recommendation around the country that houses keep 30 feet of defensible clearance, and 100 feet if possible. “Eucalyptus, oak, whatever they are,” he says, “sometimes go right up next to people’s houses, and that’s the biggest problem. Eucalyptus are somewhat more dangerous because of the resins and oils, so they burn significantly hotter than other trees. But in Santa Cruz, they’ve been declared a heritage tree so we can’t do much.” Oliver says he’s in the midst of meetings with city parks and recreation to do an audit of the open space to see which areas are in most need of attention for fire danger. Part of that survey will be looking for eucalyptus debris. There’s no time machine with an introduced species. Eradicating a tree that’s been here for 150 years has been compared to attempting to rid the country of an ethnic group that immigrated here. In a way, that’s correct—at this point, a eucalyptus genocide would have as many unintentional consequences as their introduction, with massive soil erosion, butterfly habitat destruction, and a possible disruption of any subtle evolutions we humans are often too blind to notice. But in another way, these are trees, not people—while human immigrants move and adapt to society at the speed of, well, humans, eucalyptus are still obeying the genetic blueprint of their ancient evolution on a harsh and isolated continent, where it takes remarkable survival skills and a winner-take-all approach just to exist. Eucalyptus cannot be coached into appropriate behavior in California’s fertile and forgiving habitat. It’s one thing to protect butterfly habitats. Because of the space required for monarch flocks, there’s little harm in maintaining the eucalyptus groves along the coast and inland that prove to be favorite wintering shelters for the pretty insects. But it’s another thing to protect ourselves. That might mean a renegotiation of the heritage tree ordinance, to allow property owners to protect themselves, to allow native vegetation a little room to breathe, and to allow eucalyptus to re-emerge as the wondrous spectacles that they are in all their varieties, instead of being lumped in with cockroaches. Whether that’s politically possible is a serious question. For now, blue gums are so legally protected they live up to the Greek root of their very name; eu: well, calyptos: covered. Should the status of the blue gum eucalyptus as protected under the heritage tree ordinance be changed? A selection of opinions from the Santa Cruz City CouncilRyan Coonerty:
Eucalyptus trees as a non-native invasive species need to be looked at. Fire protection adds to that need. I don’t have a position yet because I don’t know enough about it, but it’s certainly worth looking at.
Mike Rotkin:
As a matter of practice the city has not followed the ordinance in regards to those trees, but in the last three or four or five years, on a case by case basis, we’ve been moving toward allowing people to take them down. It’s not resolved as formally as it needs to be, but I think there’s been a recognition of need on practical cases. At one end of it, people still can’t do stupid things, like topping them, which doesn’t solve any of the problems. It’s not as if they are a risk so people should start chopping them down. A lot are on corridors with steep hillsides would create a risk for other problems like slides. But at this point, I would say they don’t have the full protection of that ordinance.
Cynthia Matthews:
Sure. I think the particular fire danger presented by eucalyptus is well-acknowledged already and has been reflected by city actions.
Ed Porter:
I’ve been willing to change that for a long time, but what I would do is not clear cut them but initially do significant pruning and plant native trees like Monterey Pine in between. I would trim them back and back over several years until native trees replace the eucalyptus. That’s an expensive program, but really the smart thing to do is a transition so you don’t do clear cutting like in Oregon. We have allowed these to grow and become green areas, but at the same time I acknowledge the problems we have with them.
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