Sudden Oak Life by Lee Klinger

Hey fellow tree-huggers, especially those in SoCal, how would you like to learn about the health and care of our old-growth oak forests and what we can do to mitigate wildfires using the knowledge of a broad community of stakeholders? Well next week Sudden Oak Life and the Santa Monica Mountains Fire Safe Council are giving you the opportunity to explore these issues together amid a mix of voices from the Indigenous Tribes of the LA basin, the National Park Service, California State Park Rangers, the local community fire safe council, and me, a western-trained ecologist. Please join us for a three-day (and night) learning and camping experience where you will not only up your skills, but, more importantly, you will help grow and strengthen the community of people that is necessary to better tend our forests.

This workshop will likely fill up so please consider registering soon and/or sharing this announcement with your community. Workshop registration: https://www.smmfsc.org/oakworkshop

Below are further workshop details and a schedule of activities:

If you’re in the Carmel Valley neighborhood and want a preview of my book “Forged by Fire”, I’ll be speaking at the Carmel Valley Branch Library on Saturday, May 4.

In 2005 I had a thought (ironically, or not, beneath an Ancestor coast redwood) of creating a movement called Sudden Oak Life, with the intent of helping restore the dying oak forests of California through the efforts of fire mimicry. The movement has grown steadily over the years as more and more positive results from my fire mimicry practice have been documented. Now that I’m able to give more time to sharing these practices with the larger community, the Sudden Oak Life movement is now blooming.

Thanks to the fine efforts of EcoCamp Coyote and Indian Canyon Nation this past weekend we attracted more than 70 participants of all genders, ages, and ethnicities for our “Restoring Fire Safe Communities: Fire Mimicry and TEK” workshop at Indian Canyon. Along with my teachings on fire mimicry, we had TEK instruction led by Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Mutsun Ohlone) and Chanel Keller (Esselen Tribe), We were also honored to receive some heartfelt teachings from Anne Freiwald and Lydia Neilsen on methods of stream restoration. Ammon Felix guided us in the basics of chain saw safety and operation. At the end of the workshop, the enthusiasm of the participants for the teachings shared and the futures created were palpable.

I’m immensely pleased to see how this movement has grown in both size and diversity! Below are a few images of our event.

This coming Thursday (June 9) at 7:30 pm I will be presenting an online talk and discussion on “The Science and Practice of Fire Mimicry“, hosted by the Yerba Buena Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. The event is free and open to all. Please register for the Zoom conference at the link under my talk announcement here: http://cnps-yerbabuena.org/calendar/speaker-series/