Purpose

The Restoration Trust is a non-profit land trust formed in 1998 to promote native habitat restoration and stewardship in central California. The Trust believes that these habitats provide important functions and values to communities and neighborhoods but are too often neglected or degraded. Further, the Trust also believes that the community and neighborhood level is an important and also neglected area of endeavor for these efforts.  Accordingly, the mission of The Restoration Trust is to complete and manage native habitat restoration and stewardship projects in conjunction with local communities and neighborhoods in central California.

The Trust seeks to promote native habitat restoration and stewardship through four mechanisms:

1.         Promoting and providing technical assistance to local communities and neighborhoods in native habitat restoration and stewardship projects. A typical project would be the enhancement of a neighborhood riparian corridor through the removal of exotic vegetation and planting of appropriate natives, conducted with a local community or neighborhood and accompanied by educational and research work with that community.

2.         Protecting restored native habitats through the acquisition of conservation easements from willing property owners that also provide opportunities for further stewardship and education efforts. A typical project would be the acquisition of a conservation easement over a restored native habitat that also involves continued monitoring, as well as opportunities for community education and research.

3.         Educating members of the community about the importance of native habitat restoration and stewardship. A typical project would be either a habitat- or species-specific revegetation effort with a school or community group accompanied by a age-appropriate curricula and follow-up research involving that school or community group or a course or symposium offered to the public on restoration or stewardship.

4.         Conducting research focused on restoration and stewardship challenges. A typical project would be an analysis of the success rate of planting different sizes of plant material under differing conditions.

This work may be accomplished in collaboration with other groups or The Trust may act alone. Community restoration projects, for example, will generally be completed in collaboration with a neighborhood and/or local government body. Easement acquisition, on the other hand, may often be completed solely by The Trust.