Phyllis Faber, a veteran California environmental activist, a writer, an editor, a publisher, an educator and a coastal wetlands scientist who made countless singular contributions to the Bay Area environmental movement, died on Jan. 15 at age 95. With the late Ellen Straus, Phyllis cofounded the nation’s first agricultural land trust, Marin Agricultural Land Trust, 43 years ago. She was a leader in the campaign for the California Coastal Commission in 1972 and served on the North Central Regional Commission, including as chair for two years.
Phyllis was born in New York City. She told me that the influence of her father early on taught her that science must fit together with policy to prevail in a political world. She earned a B.S. in zoology from Mount Holyoke College and an M.S. in microbiology at Yale. She lived in the Bay Area for a few years in the early 1960s, then returned in 1971, settling in Marin with her husband and three children. Phyllis combined duties as a mother, a consulting coastal wetland biologist, a teacher of biology and natural history at the College of Marin, and an environmental advocate. She was one of the founding instructors at the Environmental Forum of Marin.
Phyllis began her long publishing career in 1982 with “Common Wetland Plants of Coastal California,” and subsequently worked on numerous books about California flora and ecosystems. She served as editor of Fremontia, the journal of the California Native Plant Society, from 1984 to 1999 and, until recently, was co-editor of the natural history series for the University of California Press.
Phyllis told me once that having young children at home had prevented her from taking a lab job doing what she’d been trained to do, which was unraveling the structure of DNA. So she accepted a job teaching science at a private school in Connecticut. The teacher she replaced, Joy Lee, made it a point to inform her of the loss of marshland and the need to protect it. She also made the connection between science and politics. Phyllis said that Joy had asked her, “Do you know the world is going to fall apart because we’re losing our wetlands?” It made a huge impression. She became fully engaged in the environmental movement through this issue of the loss of wetlands. So when she moved out to California, Phyllis said she was “primed.”
Phyllis started teaching with a group of biologists at Audubon Canyon Ranch on the Bolinas Lagoon. Because of her interest in wetlands, she joined the campaign for the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act. There were 10 miles of beachfront that the developers of Sea Ranch had blocked from public access. Huge gravel mines were being sited along the coast, and oil companies were gearing up for extensive offshore drilling. The exploitation of the coast was underway, but there was no regional planning, and decisions were made by local governments largely interested in enhancing their tax base.
After voters passed the Coastal Act in 1972, state senator Peter Behr appointed Phyllis to the regional coastal commission, a life-changing moment for her. “It was incredible to see how legislation can happen and to see what a change that legislation could make in the prospects for the coast,” she told me. “It changed California, and it was a citizen initiative; I’m really proud of the citizens of this state for having passed it.”
I asked her once why environmental consciousness has flourished in the Bay Area. “The Bay Area has a rather exceptional population of people who love the environment,” she said. “It might be expensive to live here, but people are willing to pay the price. The educational opportunities and the beauty of the region attract activist types. The affluence means people have money and time to support nonprofit groups and the energy, education and understanding to direct them. And the freedom that women have in California, the level of self-confidence, opportunity and idealism that women have compared to other parts of the country, has really driven the movement.”
In the late 1970s, West Marin dairy ranchers Ellen and Bill Straus opened their ranch to Phyllis and her students from Drake and Redwood High Schools. Ellen and Phyllis became great friends at a time when land developers were attracted to West Marin by the creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore and the population growth in the region. Ranchers, particularly those who were the third and fourth generations ranching and dairying in their families, were reeling from the changes. Many were selling their land. For-sale signs lined Tomales Bay.
Phyllis told me, “Ellen and I talked about this situation and felt we had to do something. In 1978, we interviewed a number of local ranchers and heard from Boyd Stewart in Olema that land security was what enabled his family to stay in agriculture. He had sold his land to the Point Reyes National Seashore with a long-term lease-back. That’s how his family could count on a future in agriculture. We realized that a land trust might work by taking away the pressure for the rancher to sell his land. We went to the Trust for Public Land, which had experience with land trusts, and they endorsed the idea.”
She went on, “Timing is everything. MALT developed at a particular moment when all the right people just happened to be working on related issues. And it turned out that an experimental land trust was an appealing alternative to the coastal commission staff’s suggestion to require a higher ratio of land to houses as a way of slowing development. This had been very controversial and the county supervisors were reluctant to impose what seemed unjust to much of the ranching community. So they agreed to let us try a land trust.”
Now, more than four decades later, over 50 percent of Marin’s agricultural land has been protected by conservation easements that extinguish development rights in perpetuity. In 1980, it was a brand-new concept; no one had ever done anything like it. Now the idea has been replicated thousands of times across the nation.
Phyllis was thrilled to live her final decades in Mill Valley next to the Bothin salt marsh, where the daily tidal cycles and the myriad visiting birds provided endless pleasure. She loved walking at Stinson Beach, and on the Matt Davis and Nora Trails on Mount Tamalpais, and along the Bear Valley Trail.
I last spent time with her a month ago, sharing tea at her home. She was reflective and happy. “I’ve had a great life,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier. I remain in good health and count my blessings every day!”
I count mine for having known her as an incredible role model and friend. She is a true under-sung Bay Area heroine. We all are better for her passage this way.
David Kupfer is a San Francisco-born, Marin-grown writer, environmental consultant and former executive director of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin. He lives in Boca de Iguanas near Jalisco, Mexico.