CLIENT: San Francisco Parks Trust
PARTNERS: San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department–Natural Areas Program

Lake Merced is a natural coastal lagoon that was historically connected to the sea. Development and road building projects over the last 100 years have made the lake a landlocked freshwater body that remains the largest wetland habitat in San Francisco. The lake's shoreline is rimmed with native coastal scrub, oak woodlands, willow thickets and tules—collectively supporting a rich variety of native wildlife. The Natural Areas Program of San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department stewards this important natural area and faces the difficult challenge of managing erosion, park user impacts and a plague of invasive plants.

Shelterbelt was hired in 2000 to develop a stewardship crew to help manage critical natural areas around the lake. We hired, trained and supervised a local youth crew to work year-round on the lake. Ten populations of cape ivy (Delairia odorata) were treated in willow thickets and have been maintained to date many of which have been restored to a native state. A plague of invasive radish, mustard and poison hemlock are hand pulled each spring to limit their spread. Erosion problems are addressed each winter season as necessary and native plantings are installed in impacted areas.