Pine Hill Ecological Reserve
| Pine Hill Ecological Reserve | |
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IUCN category Ia (strict nature reserve)
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Summit of Pine Hill
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| Location | El Dorado County, California |
| Nearest city | Cameron Park, California |
| Coordinates | 38°43′10″N 120°59′26″W / 38.71944°N 120.99056°WCoordinates: 38°43′10″N 120°59′26″W / 38.71944°N 120.99056°W |
| Area | 403 acres (163 ha) |
| Established | 1979 |
| Governing body | California Department of Fish and Game |
Pine Hill Ecological Reserve is a nature reserve of 403 acres (1.63 km2) located due east of Folsom Lake in the Sierra Nevada foothills, in El Dorado County, California. The reserve was established in 1979, and is managed by the California Department of Fish and Game.
The Pine Hill Ecological Reserve is one unit of the much larger Pine Hill Preservesystem that consists of five separate units of varying size that total more than 4,000 acres (16 km2) and protects eight rare plants and their gabbro soil habitat. It is jointly managed by several local, state and federal agencies through a Cooperative Management Agreement.
Preservation efforts started in 1977, when surplus lands managed by the California Department of Forestry were to be disposed of in the Pine Hill area. Environmental groups joined together to urge the state to set aside significant natural areas from development and by 1979, the summit of Pine Hill became a state-owned ecological reserve of 320 acres (1.3 km2). In 1991, 40 acres (160,000 m2) were added by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and in 2002 and 2004, BLM and the county of El Dorado added another 43 acres (170,000 m2).
Four of the eight rare plants are endemic and known to exist only in the Pine Hill area and nowhere else. Five of the eight species are listed as threatened species or endangered species under both the state and federal endangered species acts.
The western portion of El Dorado County has almost 10% (740 species) of California's native plants growing here, making the site nationally significant for species diversity.
Six of the eight rare plants grow in the Pine Hill Ecological Reserve unit.
Rare plants are protected at the federal level by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) which mandates that the agencies authorized by the ESA (US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service) provide the secretary of interior the names of species needing protection, a final determination is then made by the secretary and the list is published in the Federal Register, the species are now officially "listed" or "federally listed". The Endangered Species Act also requires these same agencies to undertake recovery plans with the goal of delisting the species (for example, the bald eagle is no longer a listed endangered species.)
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