By Frank Landis, Conservation Committee Chair & Rare Plants Co-chair
Over the years, I’ve heard a fair amount of confusion about just how CNPS as an organization is structured. In some cases, this has led to some angst. What follows is a brief overview of the way our organization works. CNPS as a whole is a binational, non-profit organization, very much an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization). Our membership covers California and Baja California Norte. CNPS is a non-profit organization run by a volunteer Board of Directors, who employ an executive director and a staff to perform various functions. The Board of Directors is what runs CNPS, according to the state of California. They or the Executive Director are responsible for budgeting, hiring and firing, signing contracts, litigating, and dealing with the responsibilities of a non-profit corporation. For instance, when California started handing down mandates on how to deal with Covid19 last year, those went to the state office, who then told the chapters to carry them out. Some people blamed the chapter boards for these policies, but the chapters are not in charge of these functions, the state office is. CNPS has five major statewide programs: rare plants, vegetation, conservation, education, and native plant gardening. As an organization, CNPS is considered an expert on native plants and native vegetation. The two programs that handle these, rare plants and vegetation, focus most on plant science of the five programs. What this means in practice is that we work very closely with CDFW to create and maintain the lists of sensitive plant species, formerly known as the CNPS lists and now known as the California Rare Plant Rank (CRPR) lists. We also work closely with CDFW and others to describe and map the vegetation of California. With our science-based conservation program, we are considered major advocates for native plants within California, much as Audubon is considered a major advocate for birds. While anyone can advocate on issues in a democracy, groups that are known subject experts get listened to a bit more carefully, and are often asked to help shape policy. Our focus on native plants limits what CNPS conservation can do. While we may advocate on other issues that touch native plants, such as wildfires, climate change, or development, we are plant advocates first and foremost. For example, CNPS may litigate to protect a population of rare plants. However, we do not have legal standing to litigate to stop a housing development in a high fire area if no rare plants are being threatened by the development. The other two statewide programs are native plant education and gardening. These are the most familiar programs to most members, as they encompass activities such as presentations, seminars, hikes, gardening with native plants, and plant sales. On the state level, they are also responsible for CalScape and for creating and curating a large body of educational material, much of which is available free at cnps.org.
Below the CNPS Board of Directors and the statewide programs are the chapters. They’re organized sort of by county. Los Angeles has three chapters within it, but most chapters cover one or more counties. The San Diego Chapter covers San Diego and Imperial Counties, and the Baja chapter covers their state. There is one specialty chapter which covers bryophytes throughout California. The methods of bryology (the study of liverworts, hornworts, and mosses) are sufficiently different that they work better as a separate group united by interest, rather than organized by region. Running each chapter are the chapter boards (properly chapter executive committees) who are responsible for activities within each chapter. They are also responsible for carrying out the five CNPS programs within each chapter, depending on local needs and available expertise. This can get complicated, as you might expect. One example is that CNPSSD currently does not have an active vegetation program. Our area was mapped a few years ago, and currently there’s little need to remap our vegetation. Each chapter is different, because native plant issues vary enormously between the southern coastal urban chapters, the desert chapters, those of the central and northern California coasts, the Bay Area, the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys, northeast California, and the Sierran forests. Each chapter has different plants and different needs, and we work better as a diverse confederacy with fundamental common structures like the five statewide programs adapted by each chapter to local needs. Finally, to close the loop, the chapters each send a delegate to the CNPS Chapter Council. This body meets quarterly, and its function is to set CNPS policies in areas not covered by corporate law. The Chapter Council is how we deal with the vast diversity of CNPS chapter issues across the state—we get together, talk about them, argue them out, and ideally come up with ways to deal with them, although the debates often take years to sort out. Every CNPS member is welcome to attend a chapter council meeting, and CNPS members can even speak up at them. The only thing they cannot do is vote on an issue— that is what the delegates are for. The delegates are supposed to represent the chapter’s will on issues, but they are also free to vote their conscience on issues that come up where they do not have guidance from their chapter board. This is how, for instance, they can approve the minutes and set the agenda. Finally, the Chapter Boards can nominate people for recognition or even fellowships, and the Chapter Council vote on these nominations if they pass through the nominating committee. In general, fellowships are given for extraordinary work at the chapter level and more often for the organization as a whole. That’s CNPS in a nutshell. We’re a bit complex, but I hope this makes some sense.