Preserving Paradise with Ventura Land Trust

In this episode of Farm Talk with Paul Ward, we welcome special guests from Ventura Land Trust, Director Melissa Baffa and Deputy Director Dan Holst. They shed light on the mission and operations of Ventura Land Trust, beginning with its inception and the driving force behind its establishment. As Melissa and Dan delve into the intricacies of land preservation, listeners gain insight into the multifaceted efforts involved in managing and conserving natural landscapes. From addressing homelessness issues on preserves to balancing human recreation with wildlife conservation, Ventura Land Trust’s approach emerges as a dynamic blend of stewardship and community engagement. The discussion spans topics such as volunteerism, habitat protection, and combating invasive species, illustrating the organization’s comprehensive commitment to environmental sustainability. Melissa and Dan also highlight Ventura Land Trust’s distinctive features, including its diverse staff, educational programs, and innovative initiatives like the 30 by 30 Initiative. Throughout the episode, they emphasize the vital role of public awareness and participation in safeguarding local ecosystems. As the conversation draws to a close, listeners are encouraged to explore Ventura Land Trust’s website and social media platforms to learn more about their impactful work and ways to get involved in preserving the natural beauty of Ventura County.

Watch the full episode HERE

What you’ll learn in this episode:
0:00 Welcome to the show and to our guests from Ventura Land Trust: Director Melissa Baffa and Deputy Director Dan Holst
0:29 What is Ventura Land Trust?
1:10 What was the impetus for Ventura Land Trust?
2:10 Find out what’s involved when a piece of land is located that should be preserved
3:36 Melissa Baffa tells us about other preserves that Ventura Land Trust has
4:42 Dan discusses the homelessness component on the Willoughby Preserve and how that is also a big part of managing that preserve.
6:30 The delicate balance between preserving the land and cleaning up the “homes” of the homeless and even helping facilitate their hopes and aspirations
7:27 Find out how a preserve managed by a nonprofit organization differs from a park
8:06 Become a member of the Ventura Land Trust and learn how your membership fee helps
9:12 Melissa explains the balance between human and dog recreation and wildlife on the preserves
11:03 Dan talks about promoting a responsible recreational culture and providing publicly accessible open space, but also conserving wildlife habitat and how science plays a role in all of that
12:30 How a strong Volunteer Docent Corps helps with the mission of Ventura Land Trust and an invitation to become a volunteer
13:43 The diverse staff that Ventura Land Trust has and different programs they offer
15:37 Some of the ways people can get involved in what happens with Ventura Land Trust and at the preserves
16:57 Melissa tells us about the donor wall created with a local artist, Tyronne McGrath for the Capital Campaign and gives us the website to be a part of this amazing creation
18:34 Dan describes the variety of habitat types that are protected by Ventura Land Trust and the different size preserves they hold
19:54 New invasive species are inadvertently introduced to the preserves everyday and educating the public on how to avoid it happening
20:51 Passive restoration of invasive species and how Boy Scout Troop 111 helps to remove the invasive species on the preserve
22:55 How conservation efforts keep animals and plants on the preserves and the need for animals to roam freely
26:04 What is the dedicated area of interest for Ventura Land Trust and what the future looks like for that focus area, including the 30 by 30 Initiative and Biodiversity
28:50 Melissa and Dan tell us what makes Ventura Land Trust stand out amongst other land trusts as well as the importance of neighbor outreach
30:29 How Mother Nature and climate change impacts the preserve
34:01 How to learn more about Ventura Land Trust on social media and their website
34:38 A special thank you to our sponsor Opus Escrow

Related Episodes:
Pathfinders: Cultivating Leaders Through the Scouting Journey
Harvesting Futures in Agricultural Education
Holy Guacamole! Sustainable Farming and Soil Health at Petty Ranch

Ventura Land Trust:
Phone: 805-643-8044
Email: info@venturalandtrust.org
Mailing Address: PO Box 1284 Ventura, CA 93002
Office Address: 3452 Foothill Rd Ste 201 Ventura, CA 93003
www.venturalandtrust.org

Contact Paul Ward:
805-479-5004
paul@homeandranchteam.com

Have ideas for future episodes? We’d love to answer your questions – leave a comment! For any home buying or home selling needs in the Ventura County area of California, please reach out to Paul@HomeAndRanchTeam.com or visit www.HomeAndRanchTeam.com

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A special THANK YOU to our sponsor, OPUS ESCROW! Farm Talk with Paul Ward would not be possible without the support of our sponsor Opus Escrow. Supporting our sponsor ensures Farm Talk can provide listeners with the best possible episodes.

Paul Ward (00:06):

Hi, friends, it’s Paul Ward here, and welcome to another edition of Farm Talk. I’m very excited. Today we are at Harman Canyon in Ventura County, California, and we’re talking open space. And who better to talk about that than the director of the Ventura Land Trust? Melissa Baffa and the deputy director Dan Holst. Welcome both.

Melissa Baffa (00:28):

Thank you.

Dan Holst (00:28):

Thanks for having us.

Paul Ward (00:29):

Absolutely. And of course, we wanna thank our sponsor, Opus Escrow, and encourage you to subscribe to the channel if you like what you see. For folks that don’t know, what is the Ventura Land Trust?

Melissa Baffa (00:41):

So, the Ventura Land Trust is a conservation organization, a 501c3 nonprofit. Our mission is to conserve the land, water, wildlife, and scenic beauty of the Ventura region for the benefit of current and future generations. In that future generations piece is a really important part of what we do because we are in the business of forever. And so, our intention is that we would preserve these spaces forever.

Paul Ward (01:10):

And what was the impetus for this? Who kind of thought of this whole idea locally?

Melissa Baffa (01:18):

So, in the early 2000s, late 1990s there was a particular property in Ventura, the city of Ventura, the hillsides behind it that was up for development. And there were a number of grassroots citizens who felt that that space was better preserved as open space. They got involved on the political level, the organizing level, and eventually there were two groups that split out of those original, you know, organizing efforts. The Ventura Hillsides Conservancy, which became the Ventura Land Trust, and the Ventura citizens for Hillside Preservation. So, the Ventura Land Trust, our job is to take land and steward it in perpetuity. The Ventura Citizens for Hillside Preservation, they’re more of the advocacy, lobbying, political group.

Paul Ward (02:10):

Gotcha. And for folks that don’t know and including myself, so how would that work if you see a beautiful hillside and say, “Wow, that should be preserved for all time. I’m gonna reach out to the owner and give him a call and see if he’d be willing to preserve it or sell it.” How does that, how does that work?

Melissa Baffa (02:29):

We always work with willing landowners, that’s the most important part. So, if there’s a landowner who wants to either sell a property or put it under something called a “Conservation Easement,” then very often they would reach out to us. Or, if we see a property that’s come on the market or that we might find interesting, we work to build a relationship with that landowner. And then there’s, you know, mechanisms in place for fundraising, right. For these kinds of purchases, because as you can imagine, in coastal California, land is very expensive. So we need to have a lot of partners. Usually you know, in a major acquisition like Harmon Canyon Preserve, where we are now, this is 2,123 acres. So you can imagine that, you know, acquiring this land and then getting it ready to open as a preserve was quite an expensive venture.

Paul Ward (03:22):

I would imagine it was thousands of man hours.

Melissa Baffa (03:26):

Yeah. Tens of thousands probably. It took about 10 years for the negotiations.

Paul Ward (03:31):

And this is not your only preserve, you have other preserves throughout the area?

Melissa Baffa (03:36):

We do. We have a total of almost 4,000 acres. So, our first preserves were actually down in the Ventura River bottom. So, we’ve got one in between the 101 and Main Street Bridge, our Willoughby Preserve. And then we’ve got one that’s up by Foster Park, and that’s our big rock preserve. And that’s actually made of a number of different small parcels. Those were our first preserves. And part of the reason why Ventura Land Trust rebranded to become Ventura Land Trust, because we had properties that were more than just hillsides. So, we added this preserve in 2020, and then also the Mariano Rancho property in 2020 at pretty much the same time. That’s the one that inspired the founding of our organization. Dan actually started his career with Ventura Land Trust as a volunteer, as many of us on staff have. And then was hired as the Stewardship Coordinator and spent a lot of time on those river preserves. And you might wanna talk about some of the challenges that you’ve faced there.

Dan Holst (04:42):

Yeah, absolutely. Like Melissa mentioned, Ventura Land Trust has a publicly accessible preserve between the Main Street Bridge and the 101 in the city of Ventura. This is called our Willoughby Preserve. It’s just under nine acres, and it has a really colorful past. The railroad was built around 1900 or so, and for the past 120 years or so, the Willoughby Preserve and surrounding areas have been labeled Hobo Jungle. People who would ride the railroad cars would jump off and sleep there. And to this day there is homeless activity in that area. And so, as a conservation organization, Ventura Land Trust sees it as necessary to try and reduce the impacts of homelessness to the watershed on our property. But also recognizes that as a conservation organization, it’s quite easy to enter into a mission drift scenario where we’re getting involved trying to provide services to folks experiencing homelessness, working to connect partner agencies to these folks. It’s a really dynamic and sort of ever-changing situation. But yeah, working with the homelessness component on that property and government agencies is a big part of managing that preserve.

Paul Ward (05:58):

And I saw a little bit on online about you, Dan, you kind of doing a delicate dance there because you’re working in the conservation world, but then this is also a homeless person’s, home and they’ve got their trash and their dogs and their cats. And I mean, that’s a delicate dance because you’re there to preserve mother nature and, you know, get rid of invasive species. And now this is somebody’s home and you’re taking out just bag after bag of trash. Yeah.

Dan Holst (06:30):

It’s a very delicate balance. You know, we’re fortunate to have a team now that’s really focused on that component of our land management. I think it starts with, with respect of both the natural environment and the people that are there. It’s also like many aspects of our work, it’s about relationship building over time. You begin to know the people who live in the river bottom. You hear their stories; you understand sort of their maybe hopes and aspirations. And if there’s a way that we can help facilitate that and in turn doing so reduce the impacts on our property that’s, that’s a big goal. So, it’s tricky. Yeah. It’s really challenging.

Paul Ward (07:08):

Now that’s primarily the river bottom is the one that has the homeless problem. This is very different here at Harmon Canyon. How does a preserve managed by a nonprofit differ from a park?

Melissa Baffa (07:23):

Oh, that’s a good question. I’ll turn that over to Dan. That’s since his background has been in stewardship. Yeah,

Dan Holst (07:27):

Absolutely. So, as a 501c3 nonprofit, the management of our nature preserves is funded in a few different mechanisms where a city or county park would receive you know, sort of a direct line item, government budget. Ventura Land Trust needs to raise funds through a variety of mechanisms we can apply for federal, state, and local grants to do project-based work on our property. We appeal to individual and business donors in our community and encourage them to support our work here. We also encourage the community to become members. For $45 a year, you can become a member of Ventura Land Trust.

Paul Ward (08:05):

Oh, well that’s very reasonable.

Dan Holst (08:06):

And those funds go towards supporting the stewardship of this open space. I think it’s also important to note that Harmon Canyon is a preserve. It’s not a park, you know, a traditional park would provide amenities like picnic tables and barbecues. We really encourage the community to interact with Harmon Canyon and our other preserves as more of a nature experience. You can come here; you can observe beautiful native plants. You can listen to the calls of bird species. You can, if you’re lucky, maybe see some mammals and other animals. We hope to facilitate a close connection to our natural environment whereas a park might just provide, you know, more amenities for like a birthday party or a family gathering.

Paul Ward (08:51):

Right. Now, just a curious question. As the preserves become more popular and more people are using them, how does that balance work between, you know, public use and enjoyment and dog walking and actually preserving the homes for the animals that, you know, live here 24/7?

Melissa Baffa (09:12):

It’s a great question. So, we actually, here at Harmon we do allow dogs, but on a leash and only up until a certain point. On the trail system. And a lot of folks wonder why that is. So, I’m glad we have a chance to talk about it. The presence of dogs and the sense that they leave behind through their wastes actually affects the behavior of wildlife. And so, what we’re trying to do is strike a balance between human recreation, and Ventura is a dog town. Dogs go everywhere with us. And so, strike that balance between human and dog recreation, and then the wildlife. That really is our primary conservation, you know, mission here. And so that’s one set of challenges that we face. We also allow both hiking and mountain biking on this preserve. And so, our team has worked from the very beginning to try and develop a friendly atmosphere is the motto, “Look, listen and smile.” And so, when you see anyone from our team out here working, you’ll see us greeting people, smiling, waving. We’re getting that back 9 times out of 10. And we’re really trying to inspire this culture of mutual respect. Because otherwise you can end up with conflict on the trails. And that’s not what we want. We don’t want people on social media screaming at each other because they’re not getting along on the trails.

Paul Ward (10:49):

Right. So, it sounds like you’re, and not policing is probably the wrong word, but you’re providing kind of a kindness factor to folks that are coming out to, you know, enjoying Mother Nature.

Dan Holst (11:03):

We’re promoting a responsible recreational culture and really trying to foster that. And I admire Paul, that you immediately picked up on the sort of contrast in providing publicly accessible open space, but also conserving wildlife habitat, because that’s really at the center of our work and is one of the most challenging components of opening and managing the nature preserve. And I do wanna call out the role that science plays in our work. You know, we have 2,123 acres here through a robust approach to biological monitoring. We’re endeavoring to understand the natural resources that are present here, and at the same time provide public access, but reduce the impacts on those resources by understanding what’s here, the plant animal communities, we can provide public access in a way that’s ideally as least impactful as possible.

Paul Ward (11:56):

That’s challenging.

Dan Holst (11:57):

That takes time and resources to really understand what’s present on our property. But our goal is to accommodate this strong demand for publicly accessible open space, while at the same time staying true to that conservation mission. We’re not a parks department in a local city. We’re a conservation organization. We choose to provide public access in certain places and at certain times, but that’s not a part of our core mission. It’s something that we do. And we tried very hard to limit the impacts on the natural resources that we’re stewarding.

Melissa Baffa (12:30):

And part of the team that helps us, we have a very strong Volunteer Docent Corps. Definitely wanna put a call out for that because we are always looking for folks who wanna join that Docent Corps. And for many of them, you know, they put on the Docent vest, and they go out for a nice hike or mountain bike ride and then, you know, continue to foster that culture of respect. As well as, you know, gently correcting people who may not be following the preserve rules. And so, we have that here. It’s been very robust, very helpful to us, because as a nonprofit, we obviously can’t afford staff to do all of the things we need to do. And as we start to bring Mariano Rancho online, then we will be starting up a Docent Program there as well.

Paul Ward (13:18):

And speaking of that, your staff is diverse in the sense of doing different things. I mean, there’s experts in botany, right. And when we’re coming up the trail today. There were two, were they staff or volunteers that were there?

Melissa Baffa (13:34):

That was a staff and a volunteer.

Paul Ward (13:36):

They were removing invasive species and kind of giving the native plants an opportunity to flourish.

Melissa Baffa (13:43):

Correct. We have a variety of different positions on our staff. Everything from your basic administrative accounting type support to marketing and communication and event support. We have fundraising team. We also have pretty strong education programs that we do. We have the Ventura Wild Program , which serves children in out of school settings related to that. We have the Nature By Design program, which serves children in school settings. And then our general outreach and education does programming for all sorts of people with all sorts of backgrounds and interests and ages. So, everything from nighttime glow hikes where we bring people out here with UV lights at night, because there are certain animals like scorpions that will actually light up under UV lights. It’s a fun, special, unique opportunity. Every year we host a summer solstice drum circle here at Harman Canyon. We’ve done programs with painting and guided hikes in English and Spanish. So we’re really trying to hit the, the community in different ways and meet them where they’re at. And because we know that people are going to connect with the land and love the land, if they’re here, they’re exploring it, they’re having those moments of wonder and awe, and then they’re going to be more inclined to become a member or become a sponsor, become a volunteer, and get involved.

Paul Ward (15:19):

And I think there are at least six ways to volunteer. You mentioned that the night hikes and the musical activities, but there’s a whole host of other areas that people can get involved, even like a movie night that you’ve got.

Melissa Baffa (15:37):

We do. Yeah. We host an annual film festival, The Wild and Scenic Film Festival, in August of every year. So, we need a whole army of volunteers to help us put that event on. So, everything from a one-time volunteer at an event or program like that to regular volunteers like docents who may be out here on a daily basis. Our board and advisory council and committee members are made up of volunteers who come in and help in varying degrees, whether it’s monthly, every time or a couple times a year, et cetera. We’ve got lots of programs and opportunities. We’ve got a Wildlife Habitat Improvement program, our WHIP that comes out every Sunday and Monday mornings here at Harman Canyon to help remove invasives from specifically around this trailhead area. And so, yeah, we’ve got something for everyone. And in terms of their abilities, their interests, and what they’re able to commit to,

Paul Ward (16:45):

I saw a beautiful piece of artwork here at the entrance to Harmon Canyon of a tree with carved leaves and animals, and there’s names etched in. The artwork, what is that about?

Melissa Baffa (16:57):

This is a donor wall for our Capital Campaign. As I mentioned, it was very expensive to both acquire this property and then do the work that we needed to do to get it open to the public building trails and then maintaining trails, removing invasives, et cetera. And so, our donor wall is this beautiful metal art installation. We worked with a local artist Tyronne McGrath and came up with this concept. And he takes our donor names and takes that to CNC shop where they cut out all the names, and then he hand cuts out all of the leaf shapes and hammers them into these cool, twisted sycamore leaf shapes and then welds them to the donor wall. So, we actually still do have a handful of spots available on the donor wall if anyone is interested in being part of this piece of artwork in perpetuity. And so, if they go to our website, Venturalandtrust.org they can find out about how to participate in that or our other fundraising opportunities.

Paul Ward (18:08):

It’s much more exciting than looking at a cinder block wall or brick wall with your name carved in it, or a path full of dirt. The preserves are very different, right. The Harmon Canyons is big, but then you also have a preserve that’s only nine acres and it’s more strictly preserved. I guess you could visit it, but it would be kind of a challenge. You’d have to be kind of the hardcore individual to find your way through it.

Dan Holst (18:34):

Yeah. We’ve got a variety of habitat types that we protect, and we own properties that aren’t open to the public that we just hold as conservation parcels. We don’t facilitate public access. The primary habitat types that we’re protecting are coastal sage scrub here at Harmon Canyon. We have quite a bit of coastal sage scrub. We have some oak woodland. We’ve actually mapped 17 different vegetation alliances at Harmon Canyon, Mariano Rancho, which is similarly sized. It’s 1,645 acres, is primarily made up of coastal sage grove. And then the Ventura River, we have riparian habitat and a little bit of upland habitat as well. But like you mentioned, we have large properties, small properties, and some of them are open to the public, and some of them we just hold as conservation parcels.

Paul Ward (19:20):

One of the more beautiful bushes I’ve seen, but just kind of a nasty, is a poodle dog bush, big, beautiful purple. You know, hiking at the top of Topatopa and just kind of fighting my way through the trail. And I mean, I think I’d rather have poison oak than have a poodle dog bush rash, which I had for three weeks, and my son had it. It is just the worst of the worst. I imagine that’s an invasive species. And how do you keep that out?

Dan Holst (19:54):

Yeah. Luckily, so far we don’t have any poodle dog on our properties that I’m aware of. I’ve mostly seen it at higher elevations. But, you know, we do run a risk by providing public access. Folks who maybe rode their bicycle up on Nordhoff Ridge last weekend and got some dirt and seeds on their frame, come and ride here, and those seeds fall off in our property. Humans are vector sources for invasive species. So luckily, we’re not battling poodle dog bush at the moment. You know, the painful rashes those give, but new invasive species are inadvertently introduced to our properties all the time. So, putting in place best management practices for easement holders or other, you know, vehicles or machinery that might be coming onto our property, but also trying to educate our preserve visitors about how to reduce the likelihood and the chances of them introducing unwanted invasive species to our property. That’s a big part of our management education and public awareness.

Melissa Baffa (20:51):

Yeah. We do battle a number of invasives the yellow hillsides that you see around this time of year, springtime, much of that is actually usually invasive mustard, wild mustard, and it’s prolific. But in terms of plants that can be particularly nasty for us, you know, castor bean, tamarisk, fennel in our riparian habitats, arundo, which is that big bamboo, like, I’m sure you talked with some folks about that before. And so removal of those invasive species is the first step in how we typically deal with restoration, which is passive restoration, which is removing the invasives and giving the natives a chance to rebound and come back. Active restoration would be planting, you know, native plants to replace those that have been crowded out. But some of them are very difficult. Tamarisk sends down really deep roots that digging that out is a beastly task.

Melissa Baffa (21:56):

Now, thankfully, we have this awesome Boy Scouts troop, Troop 111 that comes in and relishes beastly tasks. So, they’ve come in and eradicated a lot of, well, I wouldn’t say eradicate, but they’ve removed a lot of tamarisk on site as well as some of these other invasives that we have here, because sometimes you can dig them out, sometimes you need to cut them and dob them with an herbicide so that herbicide doesn’t get spread all over. It just hits that plant. But it’s challenging. It’s expensive and it’s very difficult physically, the work.

Paul Ward (22:35):

I’ll have to tell my Boy Scout troop 225 that they’ve got a potential project.

Melissa Baffa (22:40):

Absolutely.

Paul Ward (22:41):

At what point did the native animals kind of take notice and say, “Hey, this is a lot better than it used to be.” Do they start coming back, or do you have to reintroduce animals, or how does that work?

Dan Holst (22:55):

You know, for animals, and I wanna preface this, that we have an amazing Conservation Director, Laura Pavliscak, who leads up our conservation efforts. She would be the most qualified to speak on this. I’ll attempt in her behalf. The animals have always been here. They’ve never been gone. They’re out of sight and sometimes out of mind, but they’ve always been here. As we attempt to restore bits and pieces of Harmon Canyon and like I mentioned, monitor and really understand the resources present, we can develop focus areas where there may be a problematic invasive species that reduces habitat for another certain animal species. We can try and focus on that. From my perspective though, those animals have always been here, our motion sensor game cameras show us where they like to go and how they like to move around the property. We can try and reduce barriers for their movement, which I think is one of the best ways to promote a healthy population of a given animal species. With regards to plants like Melissa mentioned, we focus on invasive species removal, a passive approach to restoration. By removing those problematic invasives, we can provide more room for our native shrub species to come in and really flourish. But again a shout out to our conservation team who’s really heading up those efforts.

Melissa Baffa (24:06):

Yeah. And on animals, one of the most important things that we can do as a society is to recognize the value of having contiguous open space, because they need room to roam, especially some of these large predators like mountain lions and coyotes. And so, some of your watchers may be familiar with the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Bridge that’s being built out in Calabasas region. And that’s because the Santa Monica Mountains are effectively an island of open space surrounded by urban development. And so, the toll on those big cats in particular, they’re the poster child, has been horrific. You know, getting hit just trying to cross the road to expand their territory. When males in particular come of age, they have to get out of their home territory. Females as well, but especially males. And so we have to provide room for them to move. Many times they’re solitary animals, they’ll only come together for mating purposes, and then they need to go back out. And so that’s why it’s important that not only do we try and preserve these big cats of land, but we make sure that there’s connectivity between them so that those animals can move and migrate.

Paul Ward (25:24):

I spent my childhood years up in the Bay Area where they have the East Bay Regional Parks District. They’re just huge. I mean, you can ride your mountain bike for I think 50 miles. What’s the plan or the vision for this area? Or is there one? I mean, I know we have the Los Padres Mountains and there’s a lot of good works, but there’s also areas that seem like they’re forgotten. Like you think about Punch Bowls behind Santa Paula where, you know, the Boy Scouts would go up there and sandblast all the graffiti off, and then the next week it would be back. What are kind of the thoughts on the future for the beach?

Melissa Baffa (26:04):

You know, Ventura Land Trust has a dedicated area of interest. So that’s one of the first things that an organization like ours does, is identify what our sphere of interest is, what kind of land are we looking for and where. And so that’s our first step, to look at who else is out here because there are other organizations like us. And to make sure that we are not stepping on any toes. So, we have our dedicated area of interest that includes the Ventura River corridor up till Foster Park, and then this entire Santa Clara River corridor, which actually is this way behind me all the way out to the Ventura County border.

Paul Ward (26:44):

Oh, like past Piru?

Melissa Baffa (26:45):

Yeah. Yeah. We actually have a property out there near Piru. So within that area of interest is where we are primarily going to focus. If we receive a call from a property owner who’s interested in working with us that’s outside of that area of interest, one of the things that we will often do is connect them with the agency that, that falls into instead. And I’ve done that a couple of times, kind of handed landowners off to other agencies in terms of is there a grand division? I would say that our organization has a vision but regionally there isn’t necessarily a grand vision. There is something afoot right now called “30 by 30.” And the concept is that at least 30% of our available open space that’s not yet preserved and needs to be preserved for the concept of biodiversity. And some biologists would tell you that number should be much more like 50%. Biodiversity is a measure of how healthy your ecosystem is, and many of the things that we wouldn’t pay attention to, tiny little ants and, you know, other insects, some of the tiny plants are really important to those ecosystems. And this kind of science of ecology is so brand new. We don’t know what we don’t know yet. And so, we need to try and preserve these intact or as healthy as possible ecosystems now so we can study them, learn them, and allow them to thrive before they get degraded. And we lose species forever.

Paul Ward (28:29):

Ventura Land Trust grew from an idea to a thriving non-profit organization. What areas are you finding yourself working in that you never imagined? That you’ve got a diverse staff and they’re branching out into a whole bunch of different areas. I mean, education is big now.

Melissa Baffa (28:50):

Yeah. The education was a big example. That’s not very common for land trusts like us to have as robust of an education program as we do. Many land trusts don’t allow public access. So, the fact that we have the degree of public access that we have is unique among many, are there other things you would think of?

Dan Holst (29:13):

I think when you’re talking about land trust, sort of at the nationwide scale, many are in rural areas where there’s not a lot of residential or urban development. And so, I almost consider Ventura Land Trust, an urban land trust. We are acquiring stewarding land right around an urban center, the city of Ventura. So, a unique component of that is we have almost a hundred residential neighbors that we’re interfacing with all the time, many of whom are our supporters and donors and preserve visitors. So that component of neighbor outreach and neighbor coordination, collaboration is a huge part of our job. And making sure that folks who own land around our preserves are aware of what’s going on and current and future projects. So that piece of neighbor outreach wasn’t something that I think the organization anticipated maybe 10 years ago before the Harman Canyon and Maria Rancho acquisition.

Paul Ward (30:07):

And Mother Nature is changing as we know. There’s global warming, it’s here to stay. And you’ve had your challenges with that, and I mean, I dunno if the drought is over, but it feels like it’s over. You know, we had seven years of no rain and now we’ve got enough rain in two years for the last 10. That’s impacted the (preserve).ge

Dan Holst (30:29):

Absolutely. Yeah. A changing climate as you know, entry level understanding means more extreme weather events. And we’ve seen that in the last two wet seasons. Harmon Canyon, where we’re sitting today typically averages somewhere around 14 inches of rain a year. Last year we received 35 inches of rain on this preserve.

Paul Ward (30:48):

Last year? 35 inches?

Dan Holst (30:50):

35 inches.

Paul Ward (30:51):

Wow. That’s crazy.

Dan Holst (30:51):

And this year, as of yesterday, we were at 32 and a half inches. So, these extremely wet seasons really take a toll on the infrastructure that are preserved, specifically the public access infrastructure, roads and trails. And so understanding and forecasting those impacts and really understanding what we can do about them. For example, in Harmon Canyon, I always like to point out the six or so miles of Fire Road are actually public utility roads that were built by Southern California Edison in the 1960s to maintain their power lines. These roads make up the backbone of our trail network but are under an easement where Southern California Edison is the primary maintenance provider to these roads. And so, for example, in the north end of the preserve, right now, we have a landslide over one of the roads that’s thousands and thousands of cubic yards of material of Earth that have slid over the road. Public access can’t be safely provided there until we’re able to partner with Edison on the repairs to those roads. And with these more extreme weather events that are part of a changing climate, I think we need to be planning and preparing for more large-scale impacts to our preserve amenities in the future.

Melissa Baffa (32:07):

You know something else that happened last winter was in our river preserves. The Ventura River is a short watershed, but a very steep watershed. And so, what happens is that the water really gets cooking through there. And our big rock preserve in particular took a really hard hit because of that water moving through and because of the arundo that we talked about earlier. So arundo, when it gets into a big rain event like this, it gets turned up. You basically torn up, I’m sorry. And then it’s root systems, for lack of a better term get broken up. And that’s how it propagates is through these rhizomes spread, it’s spreads like crazy, but also during that flood event, it acts like a bulldozer as it moves through the watershed. So it destroys the riparian species like willows and sycamores and things that normally would have adaptations to deal with this kind of big rain event. And then it colonizes that fresh habitat that it’s created. So at our Big Rock Preserve, Ventura Land Trust had spent a decade eradicating arundo, and it’s infested again. And these kinds of events are unpredicted, they’re unbudgeted, they’re unfunded for us, but yet it’s work we have to swing into because we can’t just let this highly invasive species proliferate. It crowds out the natives, it creates fire hazards. So we have to deal with it right away, even though we don’t have the funds readily available.

Paul Ward (33:48):

So thus, the need for more volunteers.

Melissa Baffa (33:50):

More volunteers, and more funding <laugh>.

Paul Ward (33:54):

So how would folks learn more about the Ventura Land Trust if they wanna volunteer? If they wanna donate?

Dan Holst (34:01):

Yeah. we always encourage our community to check us out on social media, follow us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook. We also just launched an exciting new website, venturalandtrust.org. On our website, you can learn about upcoming events that we’re hosting in the community. You can sign up to volunteer with us, you can look at some of our upcoming goals and priorities. We’re really excited about the new site, so I encourage everyone out there to check it out. Ventura land trust.org.

Paul Ward (34:30):

Well, Melissa Baffa and Dan Holst, thank you so much for being our guests on this edition of Farm Talk. We loved having you. Thank you.

Dan Holst (34:36):

It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Paul Ward (34:38):

Absolutely. And of course, we wanna thank our sponsor, Opus Escrow. And be sure to tune in next time for the next edition of Farm Talk.