THE OAK AND THE REED
The achingly beautiful oaks that surround us here in Mendocino County stand as symbols of strength. Their powerful trunks extend skyward, supporting the immense weight of their dense wood. Their branches reach in a graceful, alternate structure to capture as much sunlight as possible. Our oaks withstand strong winds, extreme high and low temperatures, exceptional droughts, and many wildfire events. Many human lifetimes pass before an oak grows old.
And yet, many of our oaks are in trouble. Blue oaks are starting to die off at the southern end of their range. Valley oaks are being removed for human development or dying due to summer irrigation on their roots in urban and landscape settings. Black and blue oaks are not recruiting from seedlings to mature trees for a variety of reasons. The oldest oaks, sources of acorns for the next generation, continue to fall in winter storms or summer heat. Others succumb to wildfires made more intense by climate change and too much fuel.
As we look to adapt to our changing climate and world, two symbols emerge to guide our work here at the University of California (UC) Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC): the mighty oak and the enduring reed. We are all familiar with the oak tree as a symbol of rigid strength. Alone on a hill, it stands as a testament to time and endurance. But in texts and art from across the world, the reed has been held up as a symbol of a different kind of strength, one emanating from flexibility. Proverbs such as `better bend than break', `a reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall', and `the hard and strong will fall, but the soft and weak will overcome' shows how relevant both strategies can be in times of turmoil and crisis. At HREC, melding the flexibility of the reed with the strength of the oak means that we look in new directions for solutions to the problems we are facing in this changing world while holding true to our core values.
In creating new programs and supporting existing ones, we are guided by our UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Public Value Statements:
—Promoting economic prosperity in California-protecting California's natural resources-promoting healthy people and communities building climate-resilient communities and ecosystems Developing an inclusive and equitable society
Here at HREC, we are partnering with Calfire, the Mendocino County Prescribed Burn Association, and our
neighboring Pomo tribes to bring beneficial fire back onto the land. We are conducting research on blue oaks and how they might adapt to climate change and other human impacts, and we are trialing and evaluating electric tractors and learning new ways to sequester carbon to offset our ongoing emissions.
But our proactive work doesn't stop there. We're educating our youth in various aspects of rural life, including sheep rearing, birding, and fire science, and we're training California Conservations Corps staff in natural history. For the first time in over 75 years, HREC is bringing cattle onto the property so we can learn to better support livestock operators and the ecosystem services, such as grazing and nutrient cycling, they provide. We're creating classes to train small-scale producers how to manage, shear, and maintain health in their sheep flocks, and we continue to engage with the viticulture industry to develop new management techniques, too.
Reaching out to and supporting our neighbors is also central to our mission. HREC is intentionally developing and building relationships with our neighboring Pomo tribes, exploring ideas that provide mutual benefits. With the help of our community partners, we are opening up more hikes and events to share the beauty of and knowledge about this landscape with the public.
In all the work that we do at HREC, we aim to strike a balance between the oak-like strength that comes from knowing what you stand for and the reed-like flexibility to change paths and embrace new opportunities. Through all the changes that are happening and those that will undoubtedly come, we all continue to depend on each other. Changing our ways of thinking and acting takes time but, in the words of the Luo proverb `If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together'.*