“The Galapagos Islands of Santa Cruz County”

The global significance and educational potential of the Sandhills is summarized by Dr. Peter Raven, President of the Missouri Botanical Garden and one of the world’s leading advocates for biodiversity.  He is coauthor of Coevolution of Insects and Plants with Dr. Paul Ehrlich and of Biology of Plants, the standard college text in the field.

“I am excited by the possibility of saving the Sandhills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a unique habitat that I first visited when I was 8 years old.  Dunes left as the ocean receded provide unusual habitats that form a mosaic of openings and unusual vegetation in the dominant forest vegetation of the region.  As a model of the complexity of soils and habitats in California, the Sandhills stand out prominently!  My early experiences in and around them helped to form my interest in botany and my passion for preserving plants worldwide.

“From a global perspective, the Sandhills are important because of their remarkable concentration of biodiversity.  Because of the patchy nature, which resembles an archipelago, I once called it the Galapagos Islands of Santa Cruz County, which, if anything, understates its global significance.  It affords a remarkable example of the persistence of rare species, of species found beyond their normal distributions, and of evolution in action.”

 

 

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