Success story of the day: University of California Natural Reserve System

Academia

Story featured in the Made in Countdown 2010 publication

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The University of California Natural Reserve System (NRS) is the largest university-managed reserve system in the world with 36 reserves protecting more than 135,000 acres across the state for research, teaching, and public service. As such, the University is perfectly positioned to play a leadership role in increasing awareness of, and galvanising responses to, the global and regional biodiversity crises. In 2010, the NRS renewed its commitment to biodiversity issues by providing refuges for endangered and threatened species. It also supported research and stewardship projects that document and protect the state’s biodiversity and hosted University courses and educational programmes focused on biodiversity. The NRS incorporated biodiversity themes into its publications and initiated a seed bank facility to protect endemic plants in collaboration with England’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

Before Conservation International, a large conservation organisation based in the USA, has identified the California Floristic Province as a global biodiversity hotspot where endemic species are heavily threatened. Such biodiversity required reinforced conservation action in the Natural Reserve System of the University of California.

Now NRS reserves have provided protected habitats for the California Condor, American Peregrine Falcon, Stephens’ Kangaroo Rat, Desert Tortoise, and other endangered endemic species. Scientists working at NRS reserves have identified new insect species, rediscovered a species (the Wolverine) formerly believed to be extinct within that range, and reintroduced endangered Mountain Yellow-Legged Frogs to their former habitat. The educational programmes of “Exploring California Biodiversity” and “Adventure, Risk, Challenge” have introduced hundreds of youngsters to biodiversity issues. The University faculty has focused on biodiversity in courses for thousands of undergraduates. The NRS publications are reaching people across the nation with their biodiversity stories.

• University of California Natural Reserve System
• http://nrs.ucop.edu/
• The NRS Transect, newsletter of University of California NRS, vol. 28 (1) , Summer 2010 (pdf)

Photo: Scientists from several U.S. government agencies reintroduce eggs of the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog at the University of California NRS’s James Reserve in southern California © Becca Fenwick

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