Native Plants

Restored to Five Sites in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

Final planting event held Saturday, March 25 at 9 a.m. for the park’s largest ever restoration project

By Sam Catanzaro

After two years of hard work, the largestever restoration project in the Santa Monica Mountains is finally reaching its end. The project, which aimed to restore 100,000 native plants to five sites in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, involved around 3,000 volunteers who spent a total of 7,000 hours participating.

to L.A.

at Brentwood Farmers Market with the Help of The Archer School for Girls

By Sam Catanzaro

On Sunday, March 5, the Brentwood Community Council (BCC) joined hands with the Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment (LASAN) and volunteers from The Archer School for Girls to distribute around 400 kitchen pails for composting to the residents of Los Angeles. The event took place at the Brentwood Farmers Market.

The BCC expressed its gratitude to the 12 volunteers from The Archer School for Girls.

“We were so thrilled with our student volunteers, and cannot thank them enough for spending their Sunday participating in community service!” the BCC said.

The event also welcomed a surprise visit from Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park, who was accompanied by members from her office.

“We distributed more than 400 pails, and it was great to see so many people interested in composting and sustainability. Fun fact: The compost generated from these pails is used in our city parks! Let’s continue working together to make our city greener and keep food waste out of our landfills,” Park said.

The event aimed to spread awareness about composting and how it can help in reducing waste. The BCC urged the residents of L.A. to make use of the green bin for composting, which can now accommodate more than just yard clippings.

Funded by Snap, Inc., the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, and Re:wild, the project began in October 2021 and has seen the growth of 10,000 trees and 90,000 herbs and shrubs from locally collected seeds in the park’s Rancho Sierra Vista native plant nursery. The five project sites were all impacted by recent wildfires, including the Woolsey and Springs wildfires.

According to Joey Algiers, the restoration ecologist who has led the project, the planting strategy involved planting trees along riparian areas with perennial or seasonal creeks where water may exist underground. This not only creates critical habitat for a range of animals, including birds of prey, hawks, owls, bobcats, and mountain lions, but it also supports the growth of native trees like coast live oaks, valley oaks, willows, elderberries, California black walnuts, and western sycamores. Additionally, the restoration of these sites is expected to improve the habitat of sensitive species, such as the grasshopper sparrow and the threatened monarch butterfly.

“Nobody’s doing this kind of work – at least on a collective scale,” Algiers said. “Through long-term monitoring, we discovered that we had lost about 100,000 riparian trees prior to the November 2018 Woolsey Fire. The reason for that includes prolonged drought and other wildfires.”

The final planting event was held on March 25 at Rancho Sierra Vista in Newbury Park, and saw around 30 high school students from East Los Angeles join dozens of other volunteers. According to Algiers, this project has brought together diverse people from all over the region and from all walks of life. He expressed his gratitude to the thousands of volunteers who made this restoration project a success.