Waldo Takilma, “Restoring Plant Communities” Success

KS Wild has worked with community members and public land managers for over a decade to establish, protect and now restore the Waldo Takilma Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). Located outside of Cave Junction, Oregon, Waldo Takilma is a special community space and oasis for wild nature. Over the past few years we have organized volunteer clean-ups, helped build fence to keep vehicles from destroying rare plant habitat and, most recently, restored the native plant communities.

Here is a dispatch from our Community Organizer Allee Gustafson and our Public Lands Advocate Brodia Minter from our 'Restoring Plant Communities Day' in late November 2018 at Waldo Takilma:

“It was an AMAZING day and such an important project we all accomplished together! We planted over 2,900 plants!  

A little about Waldo Taklima. Local community members in the Illinois Valley along with conservation organizations helped establish the Waldo Takilma ACEC in the late 2000s, and we have helped the community steward the area ever since.

Waldo Takilma area is home to rare, low-elevation forests in the Illinois Valley floor. There are also hardwood and evergreen forest stands with large ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees. Some forests have black oak and tanoak mixed in between. There are also world class botanical values at Waldo Takilma, and especially rare and sensitive plants that are associated with “ultramafic” or serpentine influenced soils. These soils are toxic to many plants, and thus give rise to many unique species found only in this part of the world.

But after off highway vehicles came through the area, they decimated the rare plant habitat. We knew we needed to restore the area. So we began planning Thanks goes to the BLM Botanists that collected seeds at this ACEC in 2017. And to the Silver Springs Nursery in the Applegate that sowed the seeds and grew native plants, including Arctostaphylos, Eriodictyon, Eriogonum, Horkelia, and Phacelia.  

Next phase of the project will be planting Jeffrey Pine trees that can grow in serpentine next spring! We are thinking about planning this around Earth Day next year. Stay tuned!

Thank you to the 35 folks  for the first half of the day and then about 30 kiddos came out from the local school for the second half of the day and planted. Thank you to the KS Wild Board Members and volunteers that turned out!”

 Dispatch from Allee Gustafson, KS Wild Community Organizer and Brodia Minter, Public Lands Advocate