> As the plants grow, they capture windblown sand beneath their branches and leaves, over time creating natural sand dune barriers that protect against coastal erosion. The project was experimental, Ford explains, and so there wasn't any quantifiable success criteria that was set. But in Ford's view, it's been a resounding success. The dunes have already reached between one and three feet tall (30 to 90cm).
The whole article is aspirational fluff and projects such as these prevent us from forwarding solutions, that would rather work, versus some heartwarming stories. In this case, about how snowy plovers returned randomly with a whole 3 eggs, and how trees have created one foot dunes.
California has a serious problem with non-profits and foundations, successfully pulling on well-meaning and loaded people's hearts and wallet strings
I thought this was an interesting piece on the mistakes of our past, some education on beach and sand dunes formation, and a lovely journey through a topic I had no knowledge of.
Why be so dismissive?
The sand dunes formed over just 9 years. Imagine how much bigger they will be in 20, 50, or even 100 years. Why be so short sighted?
You also selectively cut off part of the quote about the eggs. That was in the first year, it goes on..
"Since then, plovers have returned to the restoration area to nest. Native plant species that had not been planted by The Bay Foundation appeared too, such as pink sand verbena. And dune beetles – which provide food for foraging birds, and which had not been observed in baseline surveys prior to restoration – also arrived."
Not everything happens instantly. We're lucky to live in a time of rapid innovation. Some things just take time.
There’s a 120 page report with all sorts of detailed analysis reviewing 5 years of the project linked in the article.
If this is genuinely your concern you should read that before deciding whether they are trying to rip anyone off.
Coming to the conclusion that this is not a worthy effort because you read a feel good general news piece and it only included feel good general news seems silly at best.
I lived there between 2004 and 2023 and used to walk along the perimeter of the protected dunes. I didn’t know it was an intentional engineering. I thought it was just natural dunes that were protected. They are really beautiful and you get a sense that there’s a lot of life going on. I always wondered why Santa Monica’s beaches were so barren otherwise compared to other beaches on both the West and East coasts. Good read!
I don't know about Californian beaches, but I know in Australia there's been a significant attempt to replant native grasses in erosion zones and maintain the dunes. The article describes this.
What do you mean by "solutions that would work"? The solutions to coastal erosion are many, but one that sometimes works is having dunes held together by plants with sturdy root systems.
What would you suggest? Like it’s not a magic bullet, the plover won’t be parting the oceans like King Canute or anything, but, er, yes, a living beach is more resistant to coastal erosion than a desert; that’s fairly uncontroversial, I thought?
In theory it doesn't, but in practice there's limited public attention, and money. The interviewee is obviously pushing his own particular mitigation project, and the BBC reporter has uncritically accepted it. In much of San Diego County, there never were dunes but rather sandy bluffs dropping to a beach, wide or narrow depending upon exposure, bluff geology, and proximity to river outflow.
The whole article is aspirational fluff and projects such as these prevent us from forwarding solutions, that would rather work, versus some heartwarming stories. In this case, about how snowy plovers returned randomly with a whole 3 eggs, and how trees have created one foot dunes.
California has a serious problem with non-profits and foundations, successfully pulling on well-meaning and loaded people's hearts and wallet strings