Fellow of the California Native Plant Society CNPS presents the Fellow award once a year as a means of awarding special recognition to persons who have made an outstanding contribution to furthering appreciation and conservation of California native flora and to the success of the Society.
On the recommendation of the Board of Directors of CNPS, the Chapter Council has elected Dr. Dirk Walters to be made a Fellow of the California Native Plant Society.
Dirk Walters has been active in the conservation of native plants since his arrival in California in the late 1960s, where he joined and became an active member of the newly formed San Luis Obispo Chapter serving in leadership positions on both the Chapter and State level. Dirk has blended his position as a Professor of Botany at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with the interests of CNPS by arranging for Chapter meetings on campus and encouraging student membership.
Walters has performed botanical monitoring on beheld of CNPS’s conservation program and has influenced planning at the Hearst Ranch and other locations in San Luis Obispo County, In the early 1980’s Dirk, along with his wife Bonnie, undertook the work of monitoring the threatened and endangered Nipomo Lupine, publishing “The Natural History of the Nipomo Lupine (Lupinus nipomensis Eastwood)” in the journal Crossoma.
Educating, hiking, teaching, plant-selling, writing, and advocating appreciation of native plants by the public are all activities Dirk is accomplished at. He has lead numerous field trips and produced many plant lists for different areas of San Luis Obispo County, has authored, co-authored, and contributed to academic and local publications including Vascular Plant Taxonomy and Wildflowers of San Luis Obispo, California. For many years has set up and staffed CNPS booths at community events and actively promoted CNPS with other conservation organizations that he is involved with.