Cambria’s Pines Are Doomed, Experts Say

A virulent fungus is killing the Monterey pines in this picturesque coastal community, forcing the town long known as “Cambria Pines by the Sea” to consider life without them.

The towering pines that cover the hillsides have been infected with pine pitch canker, and experts say it may wipe out 80% or more of Cambria’s native stand of pines within the next three decades. No chemical or biological weapon exists to combat it.

“People come here because of the trees,” said Lynda Adelson, a local gallery owner. “I can’t imagine it’s going to be good for tourism to see a whole standing pine forest decimated. It’s not going to be pretty.”

The fungus has been detected elsewhere in the state, including pockets in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties, but it is in Cambria that alarmed state officials are launching an offensive to stop its spread.

Biologists believe that it’s only a matter of time until the pitch canker invades the Sierra Nevada.

“All the native pines and, with the exception of one pine, all of the introduced pines are susceptible to the fungus too,” said Dave Adams, a forest pathologist with the California Department of Forestry in Sacramento. ‘There’s no chance of eradicating it.”

A bill pending in the California Legislature would provide $2 million for researchers trying to find a resistant strain in the pines of Cambria, a community of 6,000 north of San Luis Obispo. Once found, a new strain could be used to develop seedlings and, it is hoped, a new stand of trees.

Last month, scientists inoculated 89 trees in Cambria with pine pitch canker spores in an effort to find that elusive resistant trait. In another month they will return and inspect the trees.

The fungus is spread from tree to tree by various methods, but scientists think that the most active carriers are insects and birds, which pick up the fungal spores from infected trees and transport them to others. People too are responsible: The disease can be carried in lumber loads, Christmas trees and firewood.

Most likely, the pitch will make its way to the Sierra in firewood brought by campers, Adams said. Researchers don’t know when that will be or how serious the devastation might become.

The state Board of Forestry has declared a zone of infestation that includes 17 coastal and Bay Area counties, from Mendocino south to Los Angeles County and the western half of Riverside and San Diego counties.

Typically, the first signs of infection are browning at the ends of pine branches, Adams said. In severely affected trees, excessive pitch develops at the site of infection and drips down the side of the tree as if from an oozing canker, which explains the fungus’ name.

The fungus weakens and eventually kills by interfering with a tree’s ability to transport water and nutrients. In most cases, it is bark beetles that hasten a weakened tree’s death by boring into the tree, Adams said.

The canker was found in Cambria four years ago, and already there are significant pockets of infected trees. The Monterey pine forest here is one of only three native stands in California and five worldwide.

Pine pitch canker was detected in the other two native California stands, in the Monterey Peninsula and at Point Ano Nuevo near Santa Cruz, in 1992. Stands of native Bishop pine in southern Mendocino County also have been infected. (The only pine in California that hasn’t been affected is the Brutia pine, which is a nonnative tree from Europe.)

Though the pitch canker has been found in ornamental trees throughout the state, researchers say, the appearance of the fungus in native stands is more alarming because of its potential to affect entire forest systems.

“Even if the forest system survives, it would most likely undergo a significant change that could include major damage to watersheds, wildlife and plant communities in the affected forest,” said San Luis Obispo County entomologist Richard Little.

“The cost to local communities and governments to remove and replace the pine that die from pitch canker will be very expensive. And then there are the cost and technical problems of disposing of the volume of green waste generated by the dying trees. . . . These are problems that we have not yet been able to deal with.”

Though not a commercial tree in California, Monterey pines are grown and sold for lumber in Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Japan and other countries. Officials there are watching the California infestation with concern.

“These trees need to be preserved for the world,” said Richard Hawley, the founder of Greenspace, a privately funded Cambria land trust.

State Sens. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo) and Bruce McPherson (R-Santa Cruz) have sponsored the canker legislation (SB 1712) and are trying to find money in the state’s budget to fight the fungus.

“We’re hopeful,” O’Connell said.

So are residents of Cambria, where a Forest Management Committee has been set up to seek solutions. The committee, along with Greenspace members, have begun a program to collect and cultivate pine seeds. They hope to involve fourth- and fifth-graders from the local grammar school.

Greenspace recently received a $10,000 state grant to develop a program to dispose of infected trees.

The goal is to replant the forest once the fungus has run its course. Little estimated that 50,000 seedlings will be needed.

“It’s pretty discouraging because there’s no cure, no treatment,” said Adelson, the gallery owner. “It’s going to be a long, tough road.”