District dedicates forest to Stevens
MONTEREY >> Six years ago this month, the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District purchased the historic 850-acre Rancho Aguajito property on Jacks Peak for $7.45 million from the Pebble Beach Company. They renamed the forested land the Joyce Stevens Monterey Pine Forest Preserve, in recognition of the longtime local conservationist and environmental activist who worked for decades to preserve the habitat.
The property’s natural stands of Monterey Pine Forest, reports the California Native Plant Society, form plant and animal communities found nowhere else on earth.
“I met Joyce several decades ago, and she has been an inspiration to me as a passionate advocate for the preservation of the Monterey Pine forest,” said Kathleen Lee, executive director of the Point Lobos Foundation. “I was delighted to work on naming the preserve after Joyce in honor of the decades of advocacy work she has performed on the Peninsula to protect and conserve this unique habitat. Joyce has always been a dynamic leader, and the naming of the preserve is a tribute to her life’s work and passion.”
Considered a rare forest type found in only three coastal California groves and on two islands off the coast of Baja, it
is home to at least 10 rare and endangered plant species, including Yradon’s Piperia, a federally endangered orchid, native only to the Monterey region.
“This biologically significant property is an integral part of the largest contiguous Monterey Pine Forest habitat remaining on the planet,” said Stevens, 93.
The Park District had scheduled a formal dedication ceremony and unveiling of the Joyce Stevens Monterey Pine Preserve entry sign, designed by Stevens, in conjunction with MPRPD General Manager Rafael Payan, for last week. The event was postponed in compliance with the most recent stay-at-home order.
“Joyce Stevens has been one of the primary catalysts for open space conservation in the Monterey Bay area, and has worked for more than 50 years to safeguard, advocate, and educate on behalf of the Central Coast’s incomparable environment,” said Bill Perocchi, CEO, Pebble Beach Company. “She is admired by local volunteers for her keen humor and indefatigable energy, and by civic leaders as an organizer, mentor, and visionary. This recognition is long over- due.”
Stevens isn’t sure what the fuss is all about. “I was just doing what had to be done,” she said.
The birth of a naturalist
Growing up amid the startling beauty of Anchorage and Juneau, Alaska, Stevens felt a connection to the wilderness that inspired her to protect natural environments that should not be sacrificed by civilization.
Stevens was 19 when someone told her about Carmel, a pristine place where side streets had no sidewalks, and folks couldn’t cut down trees. “Those are my people,” she thought, as she began to consider the kind of education and career that would lead her to a life in Carmel. A watercolorist, her proclivity lay in visual arts. Yet she decided a more practical application of her eye for design would be architecture.
Stevens pursued a fiveyear course of study at the University of Washington, returning every summer to Juneau, where she “knew everyone and their sled dogs.” Upon graduation, she received a job offer in Juneau, as one of only two architects. After two years, she spent another year working in Fairbanks, which enabled her to apply for her architecture license.
In 1962, Stevens planned a Christmas vacation to Baja California, hoping to collect job opportunities a lon g t he way. A f ter accepting an offer to become an architect for Fort Ord and Fort Hunter Liggett, she began more than half a centur y of hiking and backpacking, horse-packing and whitewater rafting, along with an ardent crusade to protect and conserve the wilderness of Monterey County. It wasn’t calculated; it was just her nature.
In 1964, Stevens designed her Carmel Woods home, the midcentury modern house where she still lives and continues her conservation activism.
“Joyce Stevens has inspired countless efforts to protect the natural beauty of Monterey County and beyond,” said former State Senator Bill Monning. “For nearly 60 years, Joyce has been at the forefront of environmental efforts, from keeping oil tankers out of Moss Landing Harbor to the establishment of the MPRPD. Her work with Friends of the Mission Trail Nature Preserve has focused on the importance of the Lester Rowntree Native Plant Garden.”
Stevens’ work against the Humble Oil refinery proposed at Moss Landing in the ‘60s galvanized the Ventana Chapter of the Sierra Club, led by Ansel Adams, and prompted the meeting of many early conservationists in this area, said riparian and native plant ecologist Nikki Nedeff. Stevens’ work to preserve the Monterey Pine Forest is chronicled in, “Coastal California’s Legacy: The Monterey Pine Forest,” a book she coauthored in 2011 with Rita Dalessio, David Bates and Nedeff (Pine Nut Press).
In 2017, upon the naming of the Joyce Stevens Monterey Pine Preserve, actor Robert Redford wrote a letter to Stevens, expressing his gratitude for her decades of efforts in protecting and preserving the “incomparable beauty of this special place for me and my family.” Because of her influence, he wrote, “The life force of the Monterey Peninsula will remain, in all the right ways, forever.” Stevens was 87 then. On Jan. 10, she will turn 94. She still has the letter and her commitment to conservation.
“Joyce is the citizen-community activist for all seasons,” said former Congressman Sam Farr. “Her legacy is our esthetics, which is our best sustainable economy. Nobody deserves more recognition for an environmental movement that was so positive and so necessary. We went from accepting the beauty of the trees to understanding we live in the birthplace of a unique and famous tree, the Monterey Pine. Every single tree should be named for Joyce Stevens.”
There’s more. A past president and long- standing board member for the Big Sur Land Trust, Stevens also was instrumental in preserving a 12-mile stretch along the Monterey State Seashore. She served on the Hatton Canyon Coalition, arguing against constructing a freeway through the canyon. The founder of Friends of Mission Trail Nature Preserve, she still works to protect and conserve Carmel’s 35 acres of native vegetation and rich diversity of habitats.