The assessment of damages to trails and infrastructure at Valley View Preserve has been completed. The following report provides a brief summary of our reconnaissance.

Climate change is fueling landscape-scale shifts in our wildlands— the breadth and scale of human impacts across the globe have fundamentally altered plant communities, damaged ecosystems, and fragmented habitats. Reversing these trends requires proactive efforts at all scales, including in the Ojai Valley. 

OVLC thanks Alessandra (aka Ale) for her many years of hard work in the nursery. She effervesces a love for her community and the land. There is a certain kind of lifestyle in nursery work, in which the rhythms of one’s life sync to that of nature. It is a lifestyle that requires patience, and a kind of passion that transcends the classic summer internship. Ale embodied this completely. When Ale began working at OVLC, she would ride her bike in the summer heat to the Ojai Meadows Preserve just to get her hands in the soil. She has always shown dedication to the care of plants, coming in to water any day of the week, leading her peers in oak plantings, and methodically studying the Latin names of our native plants (some days it sounded like we were casting Harry Potter spells in the nursery). It has been a wonderful experience to see someone youthful be certain that native plants are worth the hard work, study, and patience.