OAEC supports diverse communities to design their own regenerative systems at the regional and local scale.
Our cookbook is a collection of inventive recipes inspired by seasonal eating from our biodiverse Mother Garden, orchards and Wildlands Preserve.
Experience the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center through beautiful slideshows of our Guest Houses, Meeting Hall, Kitchen, Garden, Wildlands and more.
OAEC serves as a retreat center for networks, public agencies, foundations and other groups working towards social and environmental change.
Our 100% Certified Organic plant nursery specializes in open-pollinated perennials including edible landscaping plants, rare and endangered food crops, drought tolerant ornamentals and habitat plants - all tested in our onsite gardens and appropriate for our bioregion.
OAEC offers the longest consistently running two-week Permaculture Design Certification course in the West. Immerse yourself in information, ideas and inspiration on how to design sustainable, regenerative systems in balance with your home ecosystem.
Over the past decade, OAEC has forged a deep relationship with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR), the local Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo tribe whose ancestral homelands include the 80-acres in western Sonoma County upon which OAEC resides.
Photo: Tribal citizens at an OAEC traditional ecological knowledge workshop learn to forage native edible geophytes, or “Indian potatoes” (Perideridia gairdneri).
Together, OAEC and FIGR engage with our 70-acre Wildlands Preserve to reconnect tribal citizens to the traditional ecological knowledge held by their native ancestors and to introduce methods of restoration ecology taught and practiced by the staff of OAEC. Since the first TEK workshop in 2007, OAEC has hosted many workshops and youth and family camps for and with tribal citizens. We work together to increase all of our knowledge of native flora and fauna, ecological processes, cultural resources and land management techniques. Ten to fifteen tribal families have spent two to three weekends each year at OAEC, steeped in nature, community and intergenerational learning. Workshop topics include traditional ecological knowledge, organic gardening and nutrition, and permaculture design.
In 2013, FIGR invited OAEC to lead educational workshops and to help facilitate their citizens and staff in the development of a comprehensive, permaculture design-based Master Plan for their 170-acre tribal trust land in Rohnert Park, including plans for wetlands restoration and the development of sustainable agriculture projects.
Over the past years, OAEC has supported FIGR in their work to:
In May 2016, FIGR contracted OAEC to facilitate the design and implementation of a 2.5 tribal garden, a project FIGR has dreamed of doing for many years. Seven FIGR members of the Tribal Lands Council attended OAEC’s School Garden Teacher Training in June as part of their preparations.
Through tribal community work days, FIGR has transformed this untended land into a community gathering space with organic vegetable gardens and orchards with perennial borders, a basketry and medicinal garden, and a native plant restoration area.
This project continues the 20-year collaboration between OAEC and FIRG towards the Tribe’s mission of environmental and cultural restoration through reconnection to place, organic agriculture, and sovereign tribal land projects.
This collaboration is an example of our emphasis on building the resilience capacity of whole communities.