Anytime I look at the land that surrounds us, I try to imagine what it looked like a hundred or even a thousand years ago. It reminds me that we’re part of a much longer story—that tending the land is not just conservation work, but an act of community, continuity, and care.

As a land manager and community liaison with the Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy, I coordinate restoration events where people come together to tend the land, remove invasive species, and rebuild habitat so that wildlife and people can thrive side by side.

The problem I’m hoping to solve is disconnection—between people and nature, and between the fragmented habitats that make up Southern California’s wild spaces. Urban sprawl and development have cut off these natural corridors, and with them, a sense of belonging to the land. My goal is to restore both: to reconnect the hillsides for wildlife and to reconnect people to the land they live on.

What I get out of contributing is a deep sense of purpose. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a once-degraded space come back to life, or watching someone discover their own role in that process.