Workforce Development with North Bay Jobs with Justice & Resilience Works
2022 – Present
OAEC has teamed up with North Bay Jobs with Justice (NBJwJ) and Resilience Works (owned by the nonprofit Resilience Force) in their effort to train and employ immigrant and Indigenous farmworkers in Sonoma County for dignified climate resilience careers with family sustaining wages. Since 2022, we have co-hosted a series of workforce development trainings at OAECâs 70-acre Field Campus with NBJwJ and Resilience Works. Offered in Spanish, these trainings have focused on fire mitigation and vegetation management, wildlife habitat restoration, and upland Fuels to Flows waterway restoration techniques.
Bohemian Collaborative
2020 – Present
Since 2020, OAEC has helped to convene the Bohemian Collaborative, a group of large-parcel landowners and organizations based in OAECâs Dutch Bill Creek and adjacent watersheds collaborating on fire and water resiliency efforts at a landscape scale. Now a formal subcommittee of the 501(c)(3) Safer West County, the Bohemian Collaborative is made up of over 40 large-parcel landowners (~50+ acres) representing nearly 20,000 acres surrounding the watersheds/firesheds of Dutch Bill Creek, Green Valley, Willow Creek, and Salmon Creek. The Collaborative strives to improve the ecological function and health of our diverse vegetation communities, while increasing the resiliency of the adjoining wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities of Graton, Forestville, Guerneville, Monte Rio, Camp Meeker, Occidental, Freestone, Bodega, and Bodega Bay.
Tending the Land for Fire Resilience – Web Resource
2020 – Current
In 2024, OAEC, Sonoma Ecology Center, and Pepperwood launched Tending the Land for Fire Resilience in Sonoma County, a website created to support land owners and managers in the planning, decision-making, and implementation of regenerative land stewardship. Tending the Land helps users articulate a set of goals – from wildfire resilience to biodiversity to worker justice – evaluate opportunities and constraints, and then actually do the work with a set of practical guides. As a contributor to Tending the Land, we hope to expand the discourse around fire and shed light on strategies that offer complementary ecological and social co-benefits – from water retention and carbon sequestration, to regenerative economy and land accessibility.
Wildlands Preserve Stewardship Plan
With support from CalFIRE through CFIP (the California Forest Improvement Program), OAEC worked closely with Harold Appleton, a Registered Professional Forester, to create a comprehensive Wildlands Preserve stewardship plan. The plan outlines our strategies for âmending the wild,â as we dedicate ourselves to repairing a damaged ecosystem out of balance, and strive towards the vision of âtending the wildâ — with humans returning to their role as regenerative disturbers of an ecosystem that supports life.
Two versions of the plan are available online:
- Full Wildlands Preserve Stewardship Plan >
- Stewardship Plan Summary: A shortened document that covers land management history and high level management goals.
Federated Indians Of Graton Rancheria
2007 – Present
Since 2007, 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. OAEC and FIGR have collaborated to explore principles of ecology, traditional ecological knowledge, and native flora and fauna in our Wildlands Preserve with the goal of both organizations becoming better practitioners of cultural regeneration and biological restoration.Â
Over the past years, OAEC has supported FIGR in their work by: deepening tribal family and youth bio-cultural TEK practices by hosting FIGRâs family camp as well as organic gardening and nutrition classes on the land at OAEC; facilitating 200 tribal citizens in the development of a comprehensive Master Plan for their 170-acre tribal trust land in Rohnert Park, including wetlands restoration and the development of a tribal community garden using Resilient Community Design; designing and installing organic gardens at FIGR tribal offices; and facilitating a planning process with FIGR and the parks system at Tolay Regional Park, a 1,800 acre site that is one of the most sacred places in the Tribes ancestral lands.
Coastal Prairie Working Group
OAEC partnered with Sonoma State University and the Coastal Prairie Working Group as one of the demonstration sites for the management of Holcus lanatus in Coastal Prairie.
SRJC Natural Resource Management
Brock Dolman serves on the advisory board of the Natural Resource Management department at the Santa Rosa Junior College, supporting curriculum development and program design for the department.
