About the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion
The Santa Cruz Mountains are part of the California Coast Range, trending north to south and running from San Francisco south to the Pajaro River whose channel runs generally east to west and terminates the Santa Cruz Mountains segment of the Coast Range.
The Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion covers an area of 4,900 square kilometers (1,900 square miles) that is bordered on the north by San Francisco and the Golden Gate, on the East by San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, on the south by the Pajaro River and on the west by Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean (see map here). It encompasses all the watersheds and drainage areas that extend from the ridgetop of the range down to the alluvial plains, valley bottoms, coastal terraces, and shorelines. On the west it includes coastal marshes and lagoons, beaches, and offshore rocks. On the east it includes bay marshlands and tidal areas. The region so described includes all of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz counties and the western half of Santa Clara County. About six million people live or work within the Bioregion.
The region is essentially one of heavily populated lowlands surrounding a core of forested uplands, with small to large pockets of everything from salt marsh to grassland to chaparral intermixed. It is rich in endemics and many other natural features of special interest. Major biotic communities found within the Bioregion are redwood/Douglas-fir forest, mixed evergreen forest, oak woodland, riparian woodland, chaparral, coastal scrub, valley grassland, coastal prairie, coastal salt marsh, and bay salt marsh / tidal mud flats.
Learn more about the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Bioregion…
Who we are
The Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregional Council is a nonprofit public benefit corporation comprising biologists and other natural resource professionals whose objective is to conserve native plant and animal biodiversity in the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion. A nine-member Board of Directors governs the Council.
Directors of the Bioregional Council are required to be familiar with native flora or fauna and have a working knowledge of scientific research techniques or science-based habitat management practices. Associate Directors assist the Directors and may chair Advisory Committees.
The Directors and Associate Directors serve as individuals. Individual affiliations are listed for information only and do not imply any endorsement of the Bioregional Council or its actions by the entities listed.
Directors Of the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregional Council (SCMBC)
Jen Michelsen, President of the SCMBC Board; Environmental Planner with Valley Water of Santa Clara County
Portia Halbert, Vice President of the SCMBC Board; Senior Environmental Scientist, California State Parks, Santa Cruz District
Steven Singer, Secretary/Treasurer of the SCMBC Board; Consulting Biologist, Steven Singer Environmental and Ecological Services, Santa Cruz
Zane Moore, Plant Biology PhD Student, University of California, Davis
Will Russell, SCMBC Board Member; Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, San Jose State University
Jerry Smith, SCMBC Board Member; retired Associate Professor of Biology, San Jose State University
Georgia Stigall, Former Treasurer of the SCMBC Board; Landowner and Steward
Associate Directors
Ramona Arechiga, Stewardship Forester at Sierra Institute for Community and Environment
Toni Corelli, Consulting Botanist
Matt Freeman, Assistant General Manager, Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority
Betsy Herbert, PhD, Former Board Member and President of the Board, currently a freelance writer
Inger Marie Laursen, Consulting Wildlife Biologist
Mike Monroe, Principal, The Valley of Heart’s Delight, Inc., Citizen Historical Ecologist
Hannah Ormshaw, Assistant Director, San Mateo Co. Parks
Diane Renshaw, Consulting Ecologist