Steward the land

The HNA sits on the ancestral Huchiun territory of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people.

Stewardship didn’t start with us, and we’re committed to doing our part while continuing to learn and listen.

Stewarding the Hillside: A philosophy of life

For thousands of years, the Huchiun tended these hills, knowing every plant and season by heart. We walk here as guests, in gratitude, inspired by Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson and The Ohlone Way by Malcolm Margolin, which reveal how Native peoples shaped and cared for this land as kin. Just as important are the encounters we seek with Native people today, whose knowledge is living and whose relationship with this land continues.

So we show up. We spend time in the field and watch the ecosystem turn with the seasons. We question the patterns, and we trust our gut and our connection with nature.

We are also inspired by Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement, who often retold the story of the hummingbird in the forest fire. While the other animals fled or despaired, the hummingbird kept flying to the flames, releasing a few drops of water at a time. Told it could not possibly make a difference, it answered, “I’m doing the best that I can.” For Maathai, the story was about values: people who act from what they believe can sustain their work for the long haul. So we do our part, drop by drop, and in tending the hill, we find that it tends us back.

Stewarding the Hillside: What It Looks Like in Theory

We are inspired by the Bradley Method (Passive Restoration)

• Developed by bush regenerators, the Bradley sisters, in Australia

• Focuses on working with natural processes, not against them

Core Principles

• Start with healthy native “islands”

• Understand their habitat conditions and ecological context

• Work from best to most degraded areas

• Use minimal disturbance (mainly hand weeding)

• Give native species a competitive advantage

• Allow natural seed set and dispersal

• Let native plants regenerate naturally from the seed bank

Stewarding the Hillside: What It Looks Like in Practice

• Plant ID, phenology & monitoring

  • Updated Native Plant List & Ongoing Population Monitoring

  • Habitat Identification:Soil, geology, hydrology, and site history analysis

  • In progress: a restoration-focused map of the HNA.

• Restoration approach to date

  • Adaptive stewardship: Learning from the land + Improving practices over time

  • Foundational work: French Broom removal

    • Maintain legacy areas

      • Builds on years of work by Friends of Five Creeks and Trail Trekkers

      • Revisit annually to remove new French broom seedlings

      • Long-lived seed bank (>30 years) requires sustained follow-up

    • Sustain efforts in newly opened areas

      • First 3 years are critical

      • Ongoing management of disturbed soil and heavy seedling recruitment

  • Maintain areas cleared by Measure X crews in upper Madera (thistle and broom removal)

• Triage (like an emergency room): prioritize early weed management, targeting species such as crofton weed, field calendula, and stinkwort before they spread.