Our Impact

Last Year Our Youth Corps...

Project Spotlight

Learning about Native Habitats

With the help of our partners at Sonoma County Ag & Open Space, CCNB’s Sonoma County Youth Ecology Corps worked on an exciting invasive species removal and management project. This hands-on experience allows corpsmembers to identify invasive plants, learn the proper techniques of removal and management, and witness first-hand the importance of protecting native habitats for local species.

“For the Sonoma County Youth Ecology Corps summer program, the crew spent about two weeks hand pulling English ivy, hedging down Himalayan blackberry, and removing the highly invasive French Broom for Sonoma County Ag + Open Space,” said Jenna Parsons, CCNB’s Natural Resources Supervisor who led the project.  The focus on these three specific species stems from their proclivity to increase fire risk, dominate landscapes, and tendency to crowd out native species. Since these plants did not adapt in our local ecosystem, they create substantial fire risk by growing rapidly and rampantly, which has been linked to increased wildfire frequency and intensity. “We treated almost two acres of land in seven days along the creek and finished by continuing up into the backside of the easement, adjacent to the Hidden Valley neighborhood,” Jenna said. “Outside of the project’s scope, I led many short educational walks and talks about the native species that lived in the area, with an emphasis on tree identification, their roles in the ecosystem and the effects that the invasive species have on them,” she added.

This is CCNB’s third consecutive year working at Paulin Creek with Sonoma County Ag + Open Space. This partnership has proved to be fruitful for corpsmembers’ growth.  “We always look forward to working with [Sonoma County Ag + Open Space] every year,” Jenna said.