Lagoon Island Set to Burn

UCSB’s Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER), together with the campus and the county fire departments, have tentatively scheduled a prescribed burn on the campus’s lagoon island to be conducted Saturday, July 23, weather permitting.

According to Lisa Stratton, the natural areas director at CCBER, the burn will be part of the ecological restoration of the area. “The burn is part of a management effort to control non-native grasses and establish native coastal bluff scrub vegetation,” Stratton said in a July 6 statement. “We will be conducting the burn on the day with the least amount of fog, in order to get a hot enough burn to reduce the viability of the non-native seed bank.”

This will be the fourth year that UCSB has conducted the burn. Funding for the project comes from UCSB students through the Coastal Fund, said Stratton. The Coastal Fund is a student organization on campus that uses student donations to protect and restore the campus’s coastline. Stratton said. It contributes over $350,000 annually to fund local projects and programs.