Marin Conservation League

Parks and Open Space Committee

3:00 – 5:00 pm
In-person/Zoom hybrid

Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pcOmgrD4vG9XtnkUk-dxDuEZFSvAuGyhD

May 14:  Forest Health and Wildfire Resilience in Marin’s Open Spaces

As part of Wildfire Awareness Month, May’s POSC meeting will focus on how Marin County Parks approaches forest health, wildfire resilience, and vegetation management across Marin’s 34 open space preserves as they face the prospect of increasingly hot, dry summers.

Forest health is not a new subject for MCL’s Parks & Open Space Committee, nor a new practice for Marin County Parks, which has long employed forest health strategies. The challenge, however, remains immense: protecting the ecological integrity and biodiversity of the preserves from catastrophic fire while simultaneously reducing wildfire threats to the 3,500 neighbors whose homes lie at the wildland-urban interface.

Three members of the County Parks vegetation management team will offer their perspectives on this work. Julian Geoghegan will discuss forest health and vegetation management strategies within Marin County Parks preserves. Luke Bishop will focus on fuel management work along preserve boundaries and defensible space tools at the wildland-urban interface, where homes and infrastructure face the greatest wildfire risk. Sarah Minnick will review wildfire trends and discuss how the County’s natural resource science capabilities have evolved into a coordinated team effort focused on protecting and restoring ecological function and biodiversity across the preserves. Jon Campo will introduce the topic and moderate the discussion.

The meeting will also feature an update from Bree Hardcastle, Senior Environmental Scientist with California State Parks, on major habitat restoration and wildfire resilience projects underway in Mount Tamalpais and Tomales Bay State Parks.

Please register above. We hope you will join us!