The Conservancy’s eleventh annual meeting was held at the Claremont Hotel, November 4 with our keynote speaker, Jon Keeley, PhD.

IT IS MY PLEASURE TO ANNOUNCE that Jon Keeley has agreed to be the featured speaker at our annual meeting on Sunday, November 4. Dr. Keeley last spoke to the Conservancy in the autumn of 2007—five years ago—so we’re pleased to have him back again to discuss the most important new findings in the field of wildfire behavior, climate, and local conditions.

We've done it: a tenth anniversary!  We had a good turn out on for our annual meeting on November 6.  Thanks for all who attended and for our presenters and speakers. What a ten years. We began as a group of individuals interested in activating a fire response program for Claremont Canyon

THIS WILL BE THE CONSERVANCY’S TENTH YEAR anniversary, and we want to celebrate it with you—not only on November 6th at our Annual Meeting (mark your calendars), but throughout the year. At each of our nature walks, at each of our stewardship days where ever they may be in Claremont Canyon, at each of our special events, we all hope you join us and become part of the discussion about the local treasure that is Claremont Canyon.

HONORING OUR MEMBERS: From our founding in 2001, we have encouraged nearby residents and community organizations to support the Conservancy by becoming Founding Sponsors with a commitment to contribute $1,000, either all at once or over ten years. We are pleased to list in our Spring 2011 newsletter, in approximately the order the commitments were made, our first 209 Founding Sponsors.

AS SUMMER TURNS TO FALL Claremont Canyon can take on a special beauty after our recent relatively wet spring and mild summer. A drive up Claremont Avenue, or better yet a walk onto a canyon trail, whether through Garber Park, from Four Corners to the chert, or a more ambitious hike from the Stonewall trailhead to Grizzly Peak Boulevard and back, is just what one needs to be reminded of the natural beauty that is right in our backyard.

ON APRIL 20, 2010 THE PARK DISTRICT Board of Directors unanimously approved the Park District’s Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Resource Management Plan and its accompanying EIR. The approval followed six years of hard work by staff, consultants, natural resource specialists, planners, cooperating agencies, and the public, and will pave the way for important fire hazard reduction work to begin in Claremont Canyon and several other East Bay Hills regional parks.

IN THE BEGINNING: Throughout the latter part of the 1800s, Claremont Canyon, like much of the East Bay Hills, was utilized primarily for cattle grazing and dairy farming. The landscape was mostly grassland, a likely mixture of native bunch grasses and exotic annual grasses with a scattering of native shrubs and trees.

BACK IN THE 1970S, the Conservancy’s secretary and newsletter editor, Marilyn Goldhaber, and her husband Nat lived on Park District land in a small farm house up a driveway about .2 miles above Gelston Road. They raised a few goats, which occasionally got loose onto Claremont Avenue, and generally took care of the land. 

“The Claremont Canyon Conservancy is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Claremont Canyon’s natural landscape and to the promotion of fire safety throughout the canyon and in adjacent residential neighborhoods. The Conservancy works closely with public and private property owners and various government agencies to ensure the best possible stewardship of the canyon as a whole.”

The Conservancy has worked closely with and supported the four major public landowners — East Bay Municipal Utility District, University of California, East Bay Regional Park District, and the City of Oakland — both to identify hazards and to seek programs of vegetation management that will reduce the chances of such disasters in the future. All agencies have acknowledged the hazards and responded with substantial programs, some supported by grants from FEMA.

Allocations of funds for Claremont Canyon are listed in three line items of the Measure CC budget: $418,060 for completion of the trail system; $120,000 for research for Whipsnake habitat enhancement; and for Sibley and Claremont Canyon combined, $1,175,000 for vegetation management and fuels reduction. The precise allocation of these sums has yet to be determined.

The Conservancy is pleased to announce the completion of the Mid-Canyon and Stonewall Road fuels reduction projects, the final phases of our 2005-2006 fire-safety program in the Claremont Canyon Preserve. The program grew out of a consensus among neighbors, government agencies, and land-holders, who agree that we need to gain some control of the invasive eucalyptus, acacia, and pines that increasingly encroach upon the roads, homes, and wild habitat of the East Bay hills.

When we formed our organization two and a half years ago, Claremont Canyon was being overlooked and ignored. Little had been done by the major stakeholders to control the spread of French broom, poison hemlock, yellow starthistle and the other invasive exotics. Damaged eucalyptus trees were re-sprouting. Roadsides were minimally managed and trails on parkland were virtually ignored. All this has changed.