UC San Diego Alumnus Leads UC Natural Reserve System

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This article originally appeared in the fall 2024 issue of UC San Diego Magazine as “Natural Preservation.”

Biodiversity — that is, all the different plant and animal species that together comprise life on Earth — is crucial to the existence of a functioning ecosystem. Together, “these provide us with essential things that humans need to survive, like clean air, water, food, fuel and fiber,” says Steve Monfort ’80. 

 As head of the UC Natural Reserve System, he is focused on protecting biodiversity for our planet’s future. “Our service is for the people of California and citizens of the world,” says Monfort, a biology major from UC San Diego’s Revelle College. “The reserve can be a go-to resource for decision-makers and for others who need to understand what’s really happening on the ground.” 

 The system is operated out of the University of California Office of the President in Oakland, California, and includes 41 reserves, each of which is managed by one of nine UC campuses. The system was established by the Board of Regents in 1965 with seven reserves; currently, each campus manages between two and seven reserves.

 A library of ecosystems is represented: from desert to mountain, savanna to woodland, coastland to conifer forest. It is a shared managed-access resource that is typically available to UC system students, staff or faculty members who apply to set up a research project within the reserve lands. Monfort adds that any higher education organization from around the world that would like to conduct a legitimate research project can also apply.

 UC is one of just four land trustee agencies in the state that are designated under the California Environmental Quality Act. (The other three are the California Department of Fish and Game, the State Lands Commission and the State Department of Parks and Recreation.) And partnerships with other federal landowners, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, give researchers access to even greater swaths of land.

Yet one of the crucial differences between, say, the National Park Service and UC Natural Reserve System is the guidelines around the use of the land. While the National Park Service preserves natural and cultural resources for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of the public, the UC Natural Reserve System’s lands are for the dedicated use of researchers and educators. “We have a different mission — we have space where researchers can do long-term research that will not be disturbed,” Monfort says. “If you set up monitoring spots or put out sophisticated instrumentation, it has to be protected.”

Over time, the types of research projects conducted have changed to focus less on individual, curiosity-driven questions and more to climate-impact issues that are affecting the planet, such as heat domes, sea level rise, wildfires and droughts.  

“Today, we have the hottest ocean and land-surface temperatures ever recorded. We have massive declines in biological diversity across the board,” he says. “California is a global biodiversity hot spot and, within the U.S., home to the most imperiled biodiversity.”

After attending UC San Diego for his undergraduate degree and then UC Davis to become a doctor of veterinary medicine, Monfort spent more than three decades in Washington, D.C., working in various roles, including as director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. In 2021, he returned to California to serve as executive director of the UC Natural Reserve System.

While conservation biology didn’t exist as a field of study until he finished veterinary school, it was a natural evolution from his desire to have an impact with his work. It’s meaningful to Monfort that the mission of the UC Natural Reserve System includes educational opportunities, such as field trips, tours and summer camps for K-12 and college students.

“Education is about creating knowledge bridges between successive generations,” Monfort says. “We need to unleash the incredible potential of young people and give them the idea that yes, they can make a difference. And if they can figure out how to work together collectively as part of something bigger than themselves, then amazing things can happen.”

He believes the reserves could help society become more resilient to climate change by serving as a resource for researchers seeking solutions to its impacts.

“Climate change is here for multiple generations to come and likely forever,” says Monfort. “To solve a forever problem, we need forever institutions.”