All too often, conservation efforts focus on the exclusion of human activities, or the repair of human impacts. All these stories typically place humans in a negative light. This presentation will attempt to highlight cases where the most effective tool for restoration is human effort, particularly in areas where habitat is highly fractured and historic landscape scale processes are defunct. We will look at a heterogeneous disturbance hypothesis, as well as the role of humans in a wild landscape and how these two theories make for a more cohesive and powerful role for humans. We will discuss how we apply effective management in 2 cases with rare flora and fauna: 1) Serpentine Prairie, Oakland, 2) Twin Peaks, San Francisco. Through this journey we hope to reconsider success criteria and possibly redefine sustainability for future restoration efforts. 

Lech Naumovich was first infected with botany at Fort Ord and has meandered along the winding path of a conservation botanist since 1998. He has worked as a CNPS-East Bay Conservation Analyst, the Restoration Coordination for Fort Hunter Liggett, a private botanical consultant, an independent conservation photographer, and now as the director of a Restoration Ecology institute. He is well versed in Bay Area, Central Coast, and Desert botany throughout California. He recently co-authored the 2nd Edition of the “Annotated Checklist of the East Bay Flora” with Barbara Ertter and A Guidebook to Botanical Priority Protection Areas of the East Bay with Heath Bartosh and Laura Baker.