Process-Based Restoration with Sonoma County Regional Parks
2023 – Present
In 2023, OAEC began working with Sonoma County Regional Parks (SCRP) on a series of Fuels to Flows projects to promote upland recharge, enhance wildlife habitat, and increase overall watershed resiliency. While we have installed and modeled many of these process-based restoration (PBR) techniques onsite at OAEC, we are thrilled to help bring these innovative practices to more publicly-managed parks and preserves across Sonoma County to be enjoyed by the wider public.
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 OAEC’s 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 OAEC’s 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.
Sonoma-Marin Coastal Grasslands Working Group
2006 – Present
In 2006, OAEC and a number of other organizations and agency partners, including Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center and UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, came together to form the Sonoma-Marin Coastal Grasslands Working Group to better understand the challenges and opportunities of caring for this special ecological community.
In 2006, OAEC and a number of other organizations and agency partners, including Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center and UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, came together to form the Sonoma-Marin Coastal Grasslands Working Group to better understand the challenges and opportunities of caring for this special ecological community.
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 “mending the wild,” as we dedicate ourselves to repairing a damaged ecosystem out of balance, and strive towards the vision of “tending the wild” — 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.
