Take action

One email takes a minute, and it does more than you'd think. Campus decisions about Strawberry Creek are being made now. Here's exactly what to ask for and who to ask.

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A tracked excavator standing on bare, graded ground inside chain-link construction fencing at the California pipevine (Aristolochia californica) habitat beside Strawberry Creek on the UC Berkeley campus. Pink utility marking paint runs across the cleared soil and the adjoining concrete path. Cut California pipevine lies heaped and drying in the foreground, with coast live oaks behind.
Friday, July 24, 2026. The pipevine has been cut and the ground cleared and graded. The pink utility marking paint crossing the patch is the same marking line described in our response to the University's replanting plan, sprayed, as we wrote then, through the densest and most established rooting of the stand.

What we're asking for

Four specific, achievable commitments. None of them stops the construction project. They ask the University to do it without erasing the habitat.

  1. A formal habitat survey of all California pipevine populations on campus before any new construction begins, with results made public.
  2. A no-disturbance buffer around known pipevine populations during the butterfly's flight and oviposition season (March–October).
  3. Mitigation plantings: for every pipevine plant removed or damaged by construction, ten replacement plants installed in a suitable adjacent site, with a 3-year monitoring commitment.
  4. A campus pollinator stewardship plan developed with community input and implemented within 18 months.

Email UC Berkeley

Emails from community members carry real weight. They show this isn't a single organization's concern. Write in your own words if you can; a paragraph that sounds like a person beats a form letter.

Chancellor's Office
chancellor@berkeley.edu

Jennifer Loy, Capital Strategies
jenloy@berkeley.edu

Mailing Address
Office of the Chancellor
200 California Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-1500

Phone: (510) 642-7464

A message you can send

Copy this as-is, or use it as a starting point.

Dear Chancellor,

I'm writing to urge UC Berkeley to take immediate steps to protect the California pipevine (Aristolochia californica) populations on campus. These plants are the sole larval host of the California pipevine swallowtail butterfly (Battus philenor hirsuta), a California-endemic subspecies of conservation concern. Campus construction has already reduced this habitat significantly. I ask that the University conduct a formal survey, establish no-disturbance buffers, and commit to mitigation plantings for any impacts. This is an opportunity for UC Berkeley to demonstrate environmental leadership in its own backyard.

Thank you for your consideration.

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Where things stand

UC Berkeley published a Pipevine Preservation and Replanting Strategy in June 2026. It commits to relocating vines and identifying new planting areas, but it leaves significant questions unanswered, and no site list has been made public.

Read our response: what the replanting plan leaves out →

CBS News Bay Area visited Strawberry Creek to report on the conflict between the campus clean energy project and the swallowtail's habitat. Read the story ↗ · Watch the segment ↗

Beyond email

Advocacy is one lever. These are the others.

Plant a pipevine, or name a spotCome to a work partyDonate