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Post Office Box 506 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 | 831-423-3191 www.ventanawild.org vwa@ventanawild.org |
September 2, 1999
California Fish & Game Commission
1416 Ninth Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: Listing of Monterey Pine as a Threatened Species
Dear Commissioners:
The Ventana Wilderness Alliance is a non-profit wilderness conservation organization dedicated to protecting the wildlands of California's northern Santa Lucia mountain range. Our organization is composed of people from all walks of life with at least one thing in common: a love of the wilderness and a desire to help see to it that what little is left in our area remains as such in perpetuity.
It has recently come to the attention of our organization that a formal petition has been submitted to The Commission for the listing of Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata) as a State Threatened species.
The Ventana Wilderness Alliance supports this listing of Monterey Pine. The Monterey Pine has only 3 native stands within California, 2 of which are directly adjacent to the Santa Lucia mountain range; one at the northern and one at the southern end of the range. We, as an organization, are concerned about the various threats to this tree as outlined in the petition and support the immediate listing of this tree before we lose forever any more of its native habitat, genetic diversity or loss to other associated special status species of concern.
Thanking you in advance for your immediate attention to the above, I remain
Sincerely Yours,
Jonathan A. Libby
Member, Executive Board
Ventana Wilderness Alliance
Cc: Mary Ann Mathews
Fred Keeley
Bruce MacPherson
