Who We Are

The Claremont Canyon Conservancy is a citizen-based, nonprofit organization for the longterm stewardship of Claremont Canyon. Our goal is to ensure the best possible stewardship of the canyon as a whole, coordinated among its stakeholders to preserve or restore a healthy native ecosystem, reduce wildfire hazards, and foster education and research. Founded in 2001 through generous contributions of our original Founding Sponsors and strong volunteerism, the Conservancy is run by an all-volunteer working board, aided by a small part-time, paid staff.

Our Vision

Join us in building a vision for the future. We call it Vision 2042! This vision is a work in progress and meant to guide us through the next two decades. We are moving fast on two fronts: 1) enhancing our our stewardship of Claremont Canyon through boots on the ground stewardship and 2) building institutional capacity to enable us to achieve our goals and grow.

The Conservancy has a long history of working with major land owners, UC, the EBRPD, and EBMUD to help them take better care of public lands. We encourage them to reduce invasive vegetation and promote native species. Early in our history we planted planted hundreds of redwood trees after eucalyptus were removed from UC land. Today we are experimenting with planting coastal live oaks (as photographed above) and continuing to uproot French Broom and thistle, as well as advocating for removal of more eucalyptus and Monterey pine.

Stewardship

Our goal is to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of Claremont Canyon, to protect native species and remove invasive and fire-prone ones, to maintain trails and create places for people to hike and enjoy the outdoors, to provide information and educational opportunities, and to make our community and the region more firesafe.

Our volunteers work regularly in both Garber Park and the Upper Canyon to keep our trails in good, safe condition. We have attracted groups of high school and college students (photographed on the left), scout troops, employee groups and individuals from the neighborhood to work with us.

The opportunities for future growth are endless. Among other potential projects, we envision creating a new open space area where the giant oak along the Willow Trail succumbed to Sudden Oak Death (SOD). (Read the story)

The Conservancy has sponsored bird walks for members and the general public featuring noted local ornithologists but there is potential for other programs to explore the natural history, plant, and animal species in our canyon. (Visit our Flora and Fauna page)

Region-Wide Leadership

Since the 1991 wildfire that took many lives and homes in our neighborhood, wildfire prevention has been a major concern. In addition to reducing the fuel load on private properties and on public lands in the canyon, the Conservancy recognizes that vegetation management must be addressed on a regional level. The Conservancy is working with other local organizations and public officials to lead in the formation of a region-wide approach to vegetation management and wildfire prevention.

Capacity Building

The Conservancy has taken a bold step towards achieving our stewardship goals. We are moving from an all-volunteer model to retaining part-time staff. We recognize that while volunteers are the backbone of our organization, we need a professional staff to do all that we envision.

We have retained a stewardship coordinator to recruit and supervise our student and community volunteers. This enables us to provide the direction and supervision needed to get more done in the field and to make sure it is done in a way consistent with our environmental goals.

As the work of communication with our members and the public has grown and as changes in technology require additional skills, we have retained a part-time coordinator to update our website and make sure our newsletters and emails are produced on time and with the content needed to attract and inform our audience.

With the increase in the volume of our work and the retirement of our volunteer bookkeeper, we have retained a new person with the skills needed to maintain our records and ensure that we maintain the trust of our contributors.

Moving Forward

The Conservancy is growing and changing with the times in order to continue leading efforts to enhance the beauty and community access to Claremont Canyon. We need community support and involvement to achieve our goals and we cannot succeed without you.