Standing Together
iAll around Ojai, California, the hills were burning, fueled by fierce Santa Ana winds. The air was thick with smoke. As Brian Stark thought about the staff of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy — knowing they had safely evacuated before him — he was able to shut the office door one last time before getting to safety.
Stark, executive director of the accredited conservancy, says, “When you face such a fierce thing as a wildfire, you don’t think about the land. You think about the people.”
Like many others, Stark won’t forget 2017. It was a year of record-breaking hurricanes, floods, droughts and wildfires that scourged communities around the country. Hundreds of people were killed and homes destroyed. Land trusts that weathered these natural disasters showed tremendous grit, resilience and creativity under pressure. They proved to be integral members of their communities, bringing people together, assisting with economic recovery and framing important conversations about the future. Indeed, out of the tragic natural disasters has come a renewed sense of purpose and mission for many land trusts—and an opportunity to solve complex problems, hand in hand, with their communities.
Water, Water, Everywhere
Beginning in August 2017, three catastrophic hurricanes ripped through the Caribbean and struck various parts of the United States. The first of these was Hurricane Harvey, which hit Houston with intense winds and 51 inches of rain in less than a week. Throughout the city and surrounding areas, massive flooding ensued.
During Harvey, local land trusts focused primarily on the safety of staff and family, and afterward on the needs of their local communities.
“Our biggest challenge was accurate and timely communication,” says Jill Boullion, the accredited Bayou Land Conservancy’s (BLC) executive director. “Our staff was on the phone, fielding media requests and talking to people. Everyone was looking for resources and information wherever they could, and we were perceived as a trusted community partner.”
But they also had pressing work issues to deal with. After the waters receded, BLC had preserves covered in sand and sediment deposits measuring anywhere from a couple of inches to 8 feet.
Many organizations broadened their typical scope of activities around Hurricane Harvey. BLC, for example, celebrated the police and firefighters who had gone above and beyond the call of duty. Staff reached out to local public safety organizations and asked them to nominate employees, which BLC then recognized at its annual fundraising gala. Another Houston land trust, the accredited Galveston Bay Foundation, helped raise money for two hurricane relief funds.
In the wake of Harvey, Houston residents started asking how such a disaster could be avoided. “The storm finally made people realize that we can’t go on the way we have in the past,” says Mary Anne Piacentini, president of the accredited Katy Prairie Conservancy. “Everyone knows that flooding knows no political jurisdictions or boundaries.”
The main issue in Houston is that sprawl-like growth has decimated large swaths of tallgrass prairie and wetlands, replacing these natural resources with subdivisions, shopping malls and parking lots. Instead of seeping into the ground, rainwater runs over a sea of pavement before landing in streams and rivers.
“The community is looking for answers. Land trusts are positioned to help,” says Bob Stokes, president of the Galveston Bay Foundation. “It’s important to engage with local officials right after the disaster is over.” Stokes notes that now Harris County officials are considering setting aside money for nature-based flood control measures, whereas before Hurricane Harvey, greater weight was given to engineering solutions.
Having the public on board is critical right now. “People are often not aware of the importance of land conservation or nature-based solutions,” says Boullion. “Watershed education has always been a component of our youth and adult education programs, but now we plan to develop it as a presentation for community groups.”
A Wakeup Call
With cleanup and recovery efforts under way in Texas, a new Category 5 storm was churning away in the Atlantic. Hurricane Irma ripped through the Caribbean before striking Florida and heading up the middle of the state. “By the time Irma got us, wind speeds were lower, but it was still devastating,” says Tom Kay, executive director of the accredited Alachua Conservation Trust (ACT) in central Florida. “When I finally got off my farm after two days, it looked like a war zone. I have been through a bunch of hurricanes, but this was different.”
Many of ACT’s preserves were damaged, and the land trust lost several weeks of work due to flooding and power outages. Fortunately, ACT had adhered to Land Trust Standards and Practices for recordkeeping, so copies of electronic files had been backed up in two separate locations. Following the disaster the organization collaborated with AmeriCorps responders to assist with temporary housing sites and resources for a disaster recovery team.
The flood deeply affected everyone in the community. One local official, after watching harrowing scenes on his television, told Kay: “I never want to see my constituents getting rescued from their flooded homes ever again.”
Hurricane Irma was a wakeup call for state lawmakers. There is renewed interest in reviving Florida Forever, the state’s most prominent land conservation fund, which has been gutted in recent years. “People are beginning to see that land conservation could help control the significant economic costs associated with flooding,” says Jim McCarthy, president of the Jacksonville-based North Florida Land Trust (accredited). “The conservation argument is really an economic development argument.”
For its part, the North Florida Land Trust is working with municipal governments to play a role as a possible takeout partner for properties built in floodplains that repeatedly flood and to undertake restoration activities on these lands. “This kind of work falls outside our stated mission,” McCarthy says, “but we’re the go-to environmental group in the area, so we’re going to take it on.”
A Devastated Island
The disasters in Houston and Florida were still ongoing when another massive storm, Hurricane Maria, devastated Puerto Rico, claiming many lives and triggering an economic and humanitarian crisis for the island that continues to this day. When the skies cleared, staff from Para la Naturaleza, a unit of the accredited Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, ventured out to survey the damage on its lands. They found widespread community devastation.
“Puerto Rico’s humanitarian needs were so great that as a land trust, we decided to stop our operations and go out and help the communities around our natural reserves and historical sites,” says Fernando Lloveras San Miguel, president of Para la Naturaleza. “We can’t have conservation without having the connectivity and relationship with this community.”
The land trust created the Para la Naturaleza Community Fund to help people with basic recovery efforts. Their primary activities have included clearing roads; stabilizing structures; getting tarps for those who lost their roofs; and distributing water, food and supplies. Thanks to donors from around the word, the fund now contains upward of $1.7 million.
One of Para la Naturaleza’s main projects has involved retrofitting 50 community centers with battery-operated solar power and water purification systems. “Our dependence on fossil fuel proved to be so detrimental during Maria,” says Lloveras San Miguel. “We learned that what we need is a distributed, independent energy system so that communities will be more resilient for the next hurricane.”
In addition to addressing basic human needs, Para la Naturaleza is focused on supporting Puerto Rico’s overall economy, which took a massive hit due to the storm. Approximately 100,000 residents have left the island, and scores of factories, manufacturing plants and stores lie shuttered. Among the land trust’s goals is to help small, organic farmers get back on their feet. They have distributed $250,000 in grants to 50 farmers. In addition, they are raising money to hire 100 workers to plant trees and vegetation in areas decimated by the hurricane.
Fire on the Mountain
While some parts of the country coped with massive storms and flooding, other parts struggled with extreme drought and fire. In Northern California, wildfire flames engulfed towns and hillsides throughout Napa and Sonoma counties last October, destroying neighborhoods and lives. In Southern California, the Thomas Fire, one of the largest and most destructive wildfires in recent history, ravaged Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
“We went to bed on Sunday night and everything was fine. We woke up Monday morning and the world was on fire,” says Bob Neale, stewardship director at the accredited Sonoma Land Trust. “Five percent of the housing stock in Santa Rosa burned overnight. It has had a huge emotional toll on all of us.”
A month after the fires began, the land trust held a public community event, “The Heart of the Land.” Hundreds of people gathered to tell stories, talk about property losses and discuss plans for the future. “I wasn’t sure how such a community gathering would be received so close to the fires, but it was truly one of the most amazing things I’ve experienced,” says Neale. “There was such an outpouring of emotion in the room. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”
After the fire, Sonoma Land Trust created a Fire Recovery Plan to guide its recovery efforts in the coming months and years. One of its main priorities is to engage the public in conversation and talk about the role of fire in the natural world. Neale says. “We are asking, ‘How can we be a more resilient community?’”
In Southern California, the Thomas Fire, fueled by unusually strong Santa Ana winds, burned a total of 280,000 acres over a month-long period. Fifteen hundred acres, or 65%, of the land preserved by the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy burned. “We had seven active land projects at the time of the fire,” says Stark. “All that land was burned. We were left trying to market blackened moonscapes. Fortunately, all of our agencies understand that wildfire is a part of life.”
When the immediate crisis was over, people took to Facebook and social media to discuss ideas for healing the land. The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy had to walk a fine line. It wanted to harness the public’s energy and enthusiasm but also clearly establish its leadership and vision for restoring the preserves.
There was a compelling need for people to experience the destruction, Stark says. So he and his staff have begun clearing trails in order to get groups out on the land. They are concerned about weeds and non-native species sprouting up on the preserves, so they have arranged for university students and volunteers to perform regular monitoring.
Just over the mountains, in Ventura, the Thomas Fire continued its destructive push. Nearly all of the 2,200 acres that are protected, managed and under contract to purchase by the Ventura Land Trust (VLT) burned. Fortunately, the board and staff and all the office belongings made it through unscathed. “Our office building’s resident groundskeeper heroically saved the building by running the landscaping sprinklers and hosing down the roof in high winds throughout the night,” reports Derek Poultney, VLT executive director. “He was so focused that he didn’t even realize his shoes had burned until the next morning.”
Other people were not as lucky. Many homes were reduced to ash and families utterly shattered. VLT reached out and connected people to resources and housing opportunities. It also donated computer equipment to individuals who had lost everything. “This disaster showed us how woven into the community we are. We thought we were just a small organization in a sea of nonprofits, but we are connected on so many levels. We have a much bigger circle of support than we thought.”
The Thomas Fire spread northward to Santa Barbara County, roaring through canyons and forcing mandatory evacuations. The fighters used property owned by the accredited Land Trust for Santa Barbara County to light backfires that ended up slowing down the advance of the fire front. “We were sorry to see so many beautiful farms, ranches and natural lands be consumed by the fire,” says Chet Work, executive director of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County. “But we also recognize that this is a natural cycle and we were grateful that our conserved lands are helping to protect our human communities.”
Work believes his land trust can increasingly play a role in this realm. “We typically protect lands for four reasons: recreation, agriculture, wildlife habitat and scenery. But now we see that our lands have one more value: guarding urban areas against the impacts of wildfire.”
As communities emerge from the ashes and think about what’s next, Work argues that now is the time to think seriously about these issues. “Why are we building farther and farther up the hillsides? It’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ the next wildfire is going to come. Unfortunately, people seem to have a very short memory of these events in California. Purchasing conservation easements or buying peripheral lands for the community might save money in the long term.”
A Web of Support
One of the silver linings from these tragic wildfires was the phenomenal web of support that materialized among land trusts who reached out to one another, offering advice and words of encouragement. Neale reports, “We probably had 10 land trusts and other conservation organizations, including Andrew Bowman at the Land Trust Alliance, reach out to us. It was fantastic moral support.” Poultney agrees: “I was genuinely touched when Andrew reached out to us directly, and by how many other land trusts called and emailed offering whatever help they could.”
One of the key groups that land trusts look to for wildfire advice is the accredited Methow Conservancy, located in Washington state, which experienced brutal wildfires in 2014 and 2015. Jason Paulsen, executive director of the Methow Conservancy, offers this advice: “You have a role to play in your community’s response to a natural disaster, and it’s probably going to push your comfort zone in terms of what you previously saw as your mission — but you need to go there boldly.”
The Methow Conservancy realized in 2014 that ecological restoration would never be successful without the parallel renewal of the community at large, so it decided to help spur economic growth however it could. Staff thought of an innovative program called “Spend a Ben,” whereby residents would pledge to spend $100 at local Methow Valley businesses and receive a “Spend a Ben” bumper sticker in return. Land trust staff also agreed to meet free of charge with any landowners who had been impacted by the fires. “We spent hours walking on people’s properties, listening to their stories,” says Paulsen. “A lot of our staff would have said they were scientists but they found themselves being landscape social workers instead.”
After the fires, the Methow Conservancy assumed a central role in Methow Valley Long Term Recovery, the group responsible for comprehensive recovery efforts in the valley. “Our belief is that for conservation to endure, the community must remain strong and supported in many ways,” says Paulsen, who serves as the recovery group’s volunteer president.
The Methow Conservancy has become a clearinghouse for information on wildfires. It features an extensive website with links, resources and guidance on preparing for (and managing) wildfires. The land trust has spoken at Rally and offered advice to land trusts on wildfire preparedness. Paulsen recognizes that preparing for a natural disaster can be difficult for most organizations. “It’s not until you’ve been in this situation,” Paulsen says, “it’s not until your bell has been rung, that you put it as a priority.”
Standing with Community
Once Stark made it down the valley, smoke billowing in his rearview mirror, he set up a group text to communicate with his staff. Although they were out of the office for two weeks, staff members supported each other in countless ways.
“We look at what we lost and we’re not at all concerned,” says Stark. “We mostly feel for those who lost their homes. This fire changed our community, probably forever. What’s amazing is how everyone came together to help each other.”
Partnerships between land trusts and their communities are going to be critical in the years ahead. Climate change is likely to exacerbate weather extremes, causing more frequent and higher-intensity hurricanes, floods and wildfires. In addition, unchecked growth has amplified the destruction caused by natural disasters. The events of 2017 have shown many people that in order to create a different future, change will be necessary today. Land trusts have an opportunity to reinforce the value of open space, not just as an amenity but as an essential tool in minimizing the impacts of natural disasters. They also have an opportunity to stand with their communities in times of great need, and to trust whatever changes come from the experience.
“Any organization, in a moment of crisis, has to rethink itself and collaborate,” says Lloveras San Miguel. “We really believe that once a humanitarian crisis starts, your mission and focus need to be completely reenergized to respond to the crisis. We will maintain our core business, but now we will reach that goal in a different way. We have gained a bigger family, and because of that, I think we will be able to do much more.”
Edith Pepper Goltra is a frequent writer for Saving Land.