A massive wildlife restoration project is underway in the Angeles National Forest, and the nonprofit TreePeople is leading the way with volunteers working to replant nearly 54,000 native plants and trees.
In partnership with California Botanic Garden, they are working with a $7 million Cal Fire grant to maintain approximately 1,000 acres of forest over four years.
“Our goal is to transform a space from a degraded habitat to a functioning habitat,” says Alyssa Walker of TreePeople.
KCALNews
A series of wildfires, including the Bobcat Fire of 2020, the Copper Fire of 2002, the Sayre Fire of 2008 and the Ranch Fire of 2007, have had significant impacts on the land, where invasive plants have taken over. a fire hazard.
Volunteers recently were out in an area near Santa Clarita that was burned by the 2002 Copper Fire, pulling chaparral, an invasive mustard.
“We’re going to take all the mustard out, get rid of all the invasive species and put some native species in there,” says Stephanie Liu of TreePeople. “This area we have now will dry out once it gets hot, and then it will be very susceptible to fire. It will just be, as we like to call it, a pile of kindling.”
The restoration project will require approximately 12,000 volunteers to plant natives and remove invasive chaparral on forest land.
