CLIENT: San Bruno Mountain Watch

San Bruno Mountain Watch is a local community based restoration and activist group that has been protecting San Bruno Mountain from development and exotic weeds for 30 years. SBMW focuses its volunteer work within botanically rich northeastern canyons of the mountain which contain 3 Federally endangered butterfly species and at least 4 rare plant species. Volunteers were losing ground to exotic plant invasions throughout the regions of the mountain they worked and needed additional help.

Providing a mapping protocol and basemap is helping San Bruno Mountain Watch control exotic plant species that were previously unknown to even exist.

Shelterbelt was hired by SBMW to identify and prioritize weed infestations in the canyons, map the extent of the populations and help controlling. We hired and trained a work crew from the local community and managed exotics for more than 4 years, concentrating first on small nascent populations that threatened the most intact habitats and secondly on larger populations near existing stewardship sites. Our work crews focused on invasive plants that could not be reached by volunteer groups and the prepping and follow-up maintenance of volunteer stewardship sites. Our technical staff developed a mapping protocol and basemap for the area which was intended to coordinate weed management work on the lands of 6 different private and public organizations. It was a challenge to create a map that could be used by both community-based weed pulling volunteers and professional managers using sophisticated GIS systems. Our map provided the link between the two extremes. Our mapping and control reached populations of exotics unknown to many managers on the mountain and provided a basis for future maintenance.