At TreePeople we’re all about partnerships. From the U.S. Forest Service to the Mountains Restoration Trust to the Social Justice Learning Institute to city and county government agencies, professionals and organizations give us reasons every day to stand in awe of the individuals and groups willing to work together toward improving the health of our trees and local environment.
When those we admire laud us in return, it always gives us a boost! Meet Rosi Dagit, a well-known biologist and certified arborist with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. Rosi’s conservation projects reach from Malibu Lagoon to Antarctica and benefit mountains, oceans, sea life, and people living at the wildland-urban interface. We’ve enjoyed working with her to restore damaged ecosystems in the Santa Monica Mountains, and are grateful for her recognition of our “fantastic field leaders,” as she calls them.
“Many a weekend morning,” she writes, “they are leading crews of volunteers to hike in with equipment and plants, put the plants in correctly, weed, mulch, water, and generally give these restored areas a chance to recover. Some of these are challenging sites to access, and they regularly tromp through walls of an invasive cane called arundo to get an elaborate hose system in.”
Organizations like ours have the good fortune to work with talented volunteers and interns who lend their time and energy to vital restoration projects. But they don’t go into the back country on their own, they need leadership from people like Cody Chappel, TreePeople’s Wildland Restoration Manager, and others in TreePeople’s Forestry staff who split their time between mountain parkland and more urban work. As Rosi observes, “Maintaining these wildland areas is a real challenge, and without the TreePeople volunteers, led by enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff, the work would simply not get done.”
Thank you, Rosi, for your kind words and for setting a great example for all of us working to restore L.A.’s watershed.
Learn more about Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains
RSVP for your next volunteer opportunities in the Santa Monica Mountains:
Saturday, June 22, Agoura Hills
Sunday, June 23, Topanga
Emergency Response Calls to Action: www.treepeople.org/emergency-response
Above: TreePeople volunteer photographer Ali Guglielmi is spending the summer on both sides of the camera, helping with restoration work as well as documenting her fellow volunteers—like when they wisely stop for a drink of water!