Fire recovery: Planting in fall, saving native seeds
PARADISE >> Restoring native lands and plants for the future of the ridge and foothills is driving local handson projects to get outside and get seeds in the ground as winter begins.
The day after Thanksgiving, a group of fire survivors and ridge neighbors volunteered their Friday morning to plant seeds at the Paradise Sol Sanctuary. Janeva Sorenson, project manager for Camp Fire Restoration Project, said this project got moving after a large tree giveaway was organized to help encourage residents and landowners to plant their own trees, with the anniversary of the Camp Fire.
The project partnered with the Butte County Resource Conservation District, each with about 2,000 trees, giving about 3,200 trees away over four different days, Sorenson said. Some were also given to the general store in Concow as well, or passed along to other landowners. The remaining trees will be given away to Berry Creek fire survivors at a watershed education event the project is coordinating Saturday morning.
Sorenson said the project day was begun with help from volunteer wildtender Raphael Digenova, who she describes as an avid native seed collector, and Ali Meders Knight who leads a Traditional Ecological Stewardship Program in Chico. Meders Knight has been leading project seed planting days it the county for years, including at Verbena Fields in Chico which she calls a “live seed bank.”
With Digenova’s support, the group was able to gather seeds mixed for different purposes and planting, such as for various elevations and resulting ecosystems. Digenova then came to the Sol Sanctuary and on Nov. 27, the day after Thanksgiving, the group joined along the property’s seasonal creek for planting.
Sorenson said part of the goal is to someday use the sanctuary for a “native living seed bank” to preserve native seeds on the ridge in case of future disasters like floods.
They are also working on ways to get seeds into the ground in ways that don’t require irrigation and instead work with the land’s natural environment. DIGenova emphasized how important it is to utilize landbased knowledge to learn about restoring native plants, in partnership with indigenous tribes. They think there is little time to begin restoring natural plant life and undoing damage from hundreds of years of settling that has largely eradicated the native landscapes of the county.
“We should be down on our knees in gratitude that indigenous people are here, to steward the land right again,” Digenova added.
Soon, perhaps monthly seed collection and gathering events could become reality. Sorenson is hopeful for this as a community effort — people getting outside, in the fresh air, getting their hands in the dirt and learning about planting for the unique properties of the soil is “healing and nurturing,” especially for the burn scar community.
It’s a chance to learn about native agriculture and restore some of the land together.
“Post-fire, there’s things missing,” she said. “Plant species are gone” for various reasons. People miss the trees once thick on the ridge, and they miss native plants, she said.
After multiple disastrous fires and during a pandemic, “It gives people a sense of control,” she added. “A lot of people feel really powerless right now.”
Sorenson added people have a personal connection to the land on the ridge, even to the trees. She remembered how during the tree giveaway, neighbors would come full of stories
about the plants they had lost in the fires.
“People knew exactly how many (trees) got lost and how many got cut down by PG&E,” she said.
“It’s time to heal and planting the native seeds is important. You can bring something that’s empowering for them to restore,
come back and get some semblance of what was, or regrow from what was.”
And it turns out planting in early winter, even as the temperatures turn colder, is great timing. Perennial and native plants need the winter to establish root systems and get enough water, particularly to grow into trees,
Sorenson said. The same is true for shrubs and grasses which need time to get settled as rains finally arrive. The plants can prepare the land for hot, dry valley summers.
“I think it’s important that as we are looking at healing our environment and ecosystem and also our community, it takes top level efforts in our larger county and stage programs and reforestation efforts … and there’s also a gap between that and the community,” Sorenson said.
That’s why the project is trying to be a community based restoration, she said.
Meders Knight is also using Verbena Fields as another opportunity to teach people how to learn to plant these seeds and later be able to use them on their properties as well. She hopes to make a native seed bank a reality to create “a living food forest,” and promote education of how to tend plants which have adapted to frequent fires and planting more indigenous species.
Berry Creek survivors can pick up leftover trees to plant Saturday at Berry Creek Community Church at 9:30 a.m. while discussing toxic runoff and erosion and how to use wattles.