I was walking my dog on upper Woodland Avenue today, at a spot where there is a view into the Sutro Forest. I stopped to look into the forest, and took the picture that you see here. The view is of the Woodland Creek area of Mt. Sutro, part of the “Interior Greenbelt” that is owned by the City of San Francisco. (There is a small seasonal creek in ravine here, that emerges only in wet winters.)

Mt. Sutro was once owned by Adolf Sutro, and he planted the bare (at the time) hills with various types of trees. The blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus, from Australia) out-competed the others, leaving a monoculture of eucalyptus in the forest. I’m actually a fan of this tree in the right place, and a vigorous forest of eucalyptus is a beautiful thing. But that’s not what you see on Mt. Sutro.

What you see in the photo is an image of a forest in sad decline. The forest floor is impenetrable ivy, which means that the forest can’t regenerate - when the eucalyptus seeds hit the ground, they disappear into the thicket of ivy, and don’t germinate. The ivy also creeps up the trunks of the trees (clearly visible in this photo), covering branches and blocking light from the trees. And the trees aren’t healthy - you can see the thinning crowns at the top of this photo.

The decline of the forest has been a slow thing, and when bad things happen slowly, we often don’t react (or even recognize them as a problem - look at climate change as an example. Fortunately, the University of California, which owns over 80% of Mt. Sutro’s acreage, is taking steps to address the forest’s decline: https://www.ucsf.edu/cgr/cgr-projects/mount-sutro-open-space-reserve-vegetation-management-plan-faq

I wish them well!