Los Angeles was once a basin of woodland, chaparral, riparian, and coastal floodplain ecozones, populated by numerous, strategically placed villages of Tongva people. They moved with the land as it changed through the seasons, tending to the diverse spaces, from the sea to the foothills.
The development of Los Angeles into a megacity of 10 million people over the last few hundred years has led to serious degradation of the land itself, and a breakdown of relations between the land and its human inhabitants.
By degraded land, we mean:
- soils with very low organic matter
- high rates of soil compaction
- impermeable surfaces which prevent water from infiltrating
- breakdown of the hydrological cycles
- disrupted dynamics between the realms of life (plant, animal, fungal, bacterial) and their habitats, ultimately leading to biodiversity loss.
The forces of modern development responsible for this degradation marshall monumental efforts toward extracting and commodifying Earth’s resources, treating environmental consequences as unfortunate externalities, a debt deferred to the ledgers of unborn generations.
So, what are we to do?
In 2020, The BirdHouse became the first urban camp in the global Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement. We didn’t have any ready models to work from, so we began assessing the opportunities that the urban environment affords us. We quickly realized that the greatest asset we have—one that all cities share—is our abundance of people.
With people, we have more than enough labor to plant trees and turn piles of food waste into compost. We have the creative genius of people from so many walks of life, who give their songs, ideas, love, and humor. Some of these people also have assets of time, expertise, and land to offer.
Many of these people came to us with a desire for community, a need to feel and tend to the Earth, and to be in the company of those who share our biophilic ethos. They helped out in the garden and attended our programs, like the Band of Singers, Salons, and Wisdom Series events.
Thanks to our Tongva cultural advisor Lazaro Arvizu Jr, we learned of the concept of Kuuyam, the Tongva word for ‘guest’, as theorized by the indigenous Acjachemen scholar Charles Sepulveda as a conceptual tool to move collectively beyond settler/native binaries and into a relationship to place, which requires respect, etiquette, and good tending. This concept of Kuuyam gave us a frame with which to view our presence here as guests on the land, as we want to be good guests!
BUERI
Still, we needed language to describe our land restoration efforts. After many iterations, we alighted on the name BirdHouse Urban Ecosystem Restoration Initiative. It’s a mouthful, so we call it ‘BUERI’—(say it with an Italian accent!)
Realizing that we needed our own ‘elevator pitch’ to summarize the complex mission of BUERI to our members and the public, we boiled it down to this essence:
Our big goal is to regenerate the land under the Hollywood sign, by growing gardens, urban farms, and wildlife corridors on neighbors’ lots and irregular public parcels, sharing the bounty, and creating a culture of care.
We aspire to create one of the world’s most iconic restoration projects—one that will inspire new restoration efforts around the globe!
If this sounds optimistic, it’s because we think that’s what’s called for—optimism and active hope, despite the challenges which lay ahead, and the uncertainty which infuses the present moment. We’re aware of the visibility of our location, and see it as an asset to leverage the story of our collective efforts. Ask us why ecosystem restoration in Los Angeles is important, and we’ll tell you that Hollywood broadcasts the messages which reflect and shape our culture—there’s no place higher in the watershed of world-changing ideas.
The visibility of Hollywood cuts both ways. While most restoration projects focus on large, contiguous parcels in rural areas, we are faced with the challenge of restoring land located in some of the most expensive real estate in the country, much of which is divided into small parcels with different owners. Given the cost, we are unable to simply buy land for restoration purposes. Over the past three years, we have expanded beyond our main Community Garden to include four other sites, with another potential parcel of land in the works with the City of LA. Some sites are privately owned, and some are public land. Each new parcel and owner requires relationship-building to develop trust, to reach and sign agreements, and only then, to begin a site-specific restoration plan. This takes significant time in every case.
There are some benefits to working with small parcels. A recent study published in the journal Conservation Letters showed that individual small patches of land had a disproportionately high value for biodiversity conservation, when compared to a single large patch of land with the same total area.
And the social, relationship-building aspect of getting land access for restoration purposes is central to our approach. It represents a way of configuring the Commons – defined as: land or resources belonging to or affecting the whole of a community – as a patchwork landscape within an existing residential context. The hope is that, within our own canyon, we will create a groundswell of inspiration to open up land to collective stewardship for restoration purposes. If we reached a tipping point of support and participation, we could significantly improve the hydrology, biodiversity, and climate resilience of Beachwood Canyon. Maybe the storytellers of Hollywood’s film and television industries will take notice and dare to imagine a renaissance of people healing their relationships with the land, and inspiring other communities to take on this work.
With sufficient interest, this could result in the development of a trained restoration workforce. A similar idea for a Civilian Climate Corps was already proposed in Executive Order 14008 addressing climate change, which President Biden signed during his first weeks in office. The road to restoration appears long, but we can start where we are, with what we have, in the grace and good company of our neighbors.
References:
The disproportionately high value of small patches for biodiversity conservation (link)
“Small patches have disproportionately high value for biodiversity, and we thus contend that the preservation and restoration of small habitat patches should be an important objective in conservation policy and management.”
Stoltz, Jonathan, and Christina Schaffer. “Salutogenic Affordances and Sustainability: Multiple Benefits With Edible Forest Gardens in Urban Green Spaces.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 9 2344. 4 Dec. 2018, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02344
