Restoring Blue Oak Woodlands in San Benito County, California

Restoring the Blue Oak Woodland in San Benito County, California

Everything in the world starts with water and Wildfarmers dug down to the essence of the blue oak woodlands and found water, in this case, the absence of water as the ‘root cause’. And started with a very simple idea from a single premise: that degraded dryland ecosystems can recover when their foundational water cycles are restored.

Wildfarmers is a grassroots, locally led, locally based restoration and conservation organization, with 20 years of observation on our 40-acre site resulting in groundwater depletion as the primary driver of blue oak decline, and the keystone link between soil health, understory diversity, wildlife habitat, and the fog-capture dynamics that sustain California's drylands. Our response has been to revive ancient water-harvesting techniques, and the results are already visible. Last summer, in the midst of drought and after less than five inches of winter rain, four small ponds kept our blue oaks lush and leafy. For the first time in about a decade, no tree died, dropped a limb, or lost its leaves.

Every dollar raised goes directly to fieldwork, stewardship, and the expansion of earthen water-capture ponds. Once funded, we begin immediately, establishing baselines, flagging locations and digging ahead of the winter rains. Within eighteen months we will know how each pond fills and drains; within three years we expect a markedly richer understory as groundwater returns.

This is restoration grounded in patient observation and ancient wisdom. Join us in bringing the blue oak woodland back to life.

Mission

Wildfarmers restores blue oak habitats in San Benito County, recharging groundwater, reviving year-round streams, and reconnecting the circle from oaks to ocean and back again. Through land acquisition, hands-on stewardship, and outdoor education, we cultivate biodiversity, support thriving wildlife populations, and reconnect people with wilderness.

Background and Problem Statement: The Story of a Small Creek

California's blue oak woodlands are disappearing. Spanning 3.3 million acres, these ancient ecosystems have shaded California for over three million years — sequestering carbon, capturing summer ocean fog, and anchoring a mountain-to-ocean hydrological cycle that fed rivers, built valleys, and sustained marine life from the Diablo Range to Monterey Bay.

At the headwaters of the Pajaro River in San Benito County, a small creek, fed year-round by groundwater, once carried mineral-rich, microbe-laden runoff from thousands of acres of blue oak watershed down through Antelope Valley, into the San Benito River, and out to sea. That creek was not incidental. It was the thread connecting mountain to ocean, forest to fog, soil to plankton. It kept the whole system alive.

By 1930, that thread had been cut. Cattle grazing introduced invasive annual grasses that outcompeted native understory and consumed oak seedlings before they could establish. Compacted soils shed winter rainfall rather than absorbing it, bypassing aquifer recharge and sending floodwaters racing toward Watsonville. The Army Corps of Engineers responded by straightening streams and impounding water high in the watershed, solving the flooding symptom while destroying what remained of the ecological system that had prevented flooding for millennia.

The consequences compound today. In areas of active oak die-off, ground temperatures now exceed 130°F, making natural regeneration nearly impossible. With 85% of San Benito County's blue oaks on private grazing land, aquifers shrinking, fog diminishing, and rainfall declining, these woodlands face collapse, and with them, the entire web of life they sustain.

This is not simply a tree problem. It is a hydrological crisis with cascading consequences for biodiversity, climate resilience, and the long-term viability of California's dryland ecosystems.

Solution

Wildfarmers demonstrates what's possible through hands-on ecosystem and habitat regeneration. Using our 40-acre site as a living laboratory for wildlife support, we employ ancient ecological practices, from prescribed fire to water catchment, to develop restoration techniques that benefit native species and can be replicated across California's 3.3 million acres of blue oak habitat. Our work goes beyond conservation to actively rebuild the complex relationships between oaks, native understory, wildlife, and human communities. We practice reciprocity with the land, giving care and receiving its gifts in return, while monitoring the return of native species, plants as well as wildlife, as indicators of ecological health.

Groundwater Regeneration

Wildfarmers draws on ancient practices of fire and water management to regenerate the blue oak forest and restore the region's groundwater. At the heart of this approach are small, community-built earthen rainwater capture ponds, a technology shown to be effective for more than 4,000 years, documented across cultures that transformed drylands into thriving, well-watered landscapes.

In 1985, Dr. Rajendra Singh learned from an elder in India how to construct small earthen dams known as johads, which capture rainfall during the wet season and recharge the water table below. Over the 40 years since, Dr. Singh and his teams, working directly with local communities have restored water access to thousands of villages, revitalized 14 rivers, and renewed the social fabric of countless communities through this indigenous practice.

Research consistently supports the effectiveness of small, community-managed ponds for groundwater replenishment and climate resilience, while also highlighting how large reservoirs tend to degrade ecosystems and store water inefficiently. This is not a new insight: when British engineers surveyed Sri Lanka more than 200 years ago, they documented over 14,000 earthen ponds, locally called tanks, still actively in use after 4,000 years of continuous service.

In Central California, Indigenous peoples burned the land and streambanks each year to improve water infiltration, allowing rain to slowly drain down into the ground and sustain year-round stream flow. Wildfarmers follows this same logic: by combining traditional burning with small-scale water harvesting, the project works to rebuild the hydrological cycle that once connected these mountain landscapes to the ocean. Early results on these lands already confirm what indigenous practitioners have long understood, that fire and water, thoughtfully applied, can heal the blue oak ecosystem and restore the ancient mountain-to-ocean water cycle.

Outputs and Activities

The project begins with a thorough baseline assessment of the 40-acre site, including comprehensive mapping and measurement of all mature oaks and saplings. Wildlife cameras will be installed and maintained to document species activity and diversity, while detailed monitoring protocols and data collection systems, both digital and physical, will be established to track all restoration metrics over time.

Ecosystem recovery work will proceed on multiple fronts simultaneously. Vernal and perennial pools will be monitored and managed seasonally, and prescribed burns will be conducted twice annually in partnership with CalFire and the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association (CCPBA). Rainwater catchment capacity will be expanded through the installation of ten additional earthen catch tanks in strategically selected locations. Alongside this, invasive species will be removed from priority zones each season, and native understory plants will be propagated and established across the site.

Scientific documentation will run continuously throughout the project. Sapling growth rates and understory plant diversity will be tracked and reported annually, wildlife activity will be catalogued through ongoing camera data analysis, and the ecological impacts of each prescribed burn will be assessed and documented to inform future land management decisions.

The project also places a strong emphasis on knowledge transfer and partnership. Educational materials will be developed to share successful restoration techniques more broadly, and active collaborations will be maintained with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service botanists, and NRCS conservation scientists. Student volunteer programs will be coordinated through CSU Fresno, and engages with 4-H to connect younger generations to the restoration work.

Experience

From its earliest days, Wildfarmers has cultivated relationships with exceptional advisors and collaborators who have shaped the direction and depth of this work. In 2012, Ann Marie Sayers of Indian Canyon in Hollister, California — one of the project's first and most important supporters — immediately recognized the significance of what Wildfarmers was undertaking. Within minutes of hearing about the project, she connected the team with Kat Anderson, author of Tending the Wild. Anderson served as an advisor for two years, grounding the team in indigenous methods of tending oaks and native plants. Her knowledge gave Wildfarmers the foundation to study the land's flora with the seriousness and care it deserved and ultimately, to understand both the depth of the ecological crisis and the intricacy of the ecosystem. Without that foundation, the path to identifying real, lasting solutions might never have been found.

The journey to those solutions has spanned more than twenty years. In the early stages, Wildfarmers began with what seemed like straightforward interventions: cutting and bagging invasive grasses and composting the cuttings. After two seasons of this work, something unexpected emerged. In areas where the grass had been cut and removed, blue oak seedlings began to sprout and native forbs started to appear. Just as striking, the grass-cutting machinery was flushing out small animals; frogs, toads, salamanders, in surprising numbers. It became clear that mechanical removal could no longer be the answer.

This realization pointed toward fire. Not the broad, high-intensity wildfire that burns indiscriminately across large areas, but a careful, checkerboard pattern of prescribed burning, managed to give wildlife refuge while protecting young oak seedlings and saplings from being overwhelmed.

After working through the challenges of invasive species and fire management, the team encountered the most complex problem of all: water. Excavations during winter rains revealed that decades of invasive annual grasses had created a dense thatch layer four to six inches thick at the soil surface. Rainfall was being intercepted before it could penetrate the ground. Each spring, this trapped moisture produced a brief flush of invasive grass growth; by June, the grasses had died back, the soil was compacted and dry, and the blue oaks were losing their connection to the aquifers that sustain them.

The solution emerged from more than two years of dedicated research, the installation of a year-round pond, and the data that pond generated in the seasons that followed. Equally important were the lived memories and local knowledge contributed by board and staff members, which opened unexpected avenues of inquiry. Combined with international perspectives brought by volunteers and collaborators over the years, this breadth of experience allowed Wildfarmers to arrive at an approach that goes far beyond what most restoration efforts attempt.

With this funding, Wildfarmers is positioned to act on everything it has learned. Resources will enable the construction of more than ten additional small water catchment ponds, while also allowing the team to begin restoring and opening a 1,300-square-foot education center — a space that will extend the reach of this work into the broader community for years to come.

The Team

Wildfarmers draws strength from a remarkable community of scientists, volunteers, neighbors, and campers, including the curious visitors whose simple questions ("why is that little blue oak thriving when those over there are browning?") have shaped how the project sees the land.

The project has benefited from deep scientific expertise. Ryan O'Dell, plant biologist and ecological scientist with the Bureau of Land Management, walked the property on a hot afternoon in 2015 and catalogued more than 100 native plants in the soil seed bank. He continues to lead Native Plant Propagation workshops, guide wildflower tours, and answer the team's plant questions on a moment's notice. Amelia Ryan, ecological scientist and vegetation manager at Pinnacles National Park, also teaches propagation workshops and brings interns to assist on each visit. Shawn Milar, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, authored the 2017 funding plan for the project's first large pond, trained the team to operate excavation and surveying equipment, and oversees pond work to ensure no wildlife or habitat is not harmed in construction.

Though the project began in 2004, its pace accelerated in 2012 when Wildfarmers became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Community involvement remains central, and that community carries years of relevant experience, among them Carmel de Bertaut, a biologist and former Animal Care Coordinator of wildlife rescue in San Jose who now writes on Science and Environment for San Benito's BenitoLink. Support extends across all walks of local life, from the San Benito County Sheriff, Eric Taylor, to neighbors like painting contractor and cattle rancher Ron Brodie and retired San Jose Police Captain Ken Hawkes and his wife Sherrie.

The Wildfarmers Board of Directors brings an extraordinary range of expertise in land stewardship, both in California and around the world:

• Cecille O'Brien Greenleaf, VMD — Holistic Veterinarian
• Hedmon Okello, Ph.D. — Animal Science Advisor for 4-H; has led successful wetland restoration initiatives in his native Uganda
• Fadzayi E. Mashiri, Ph.D. — Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor and Certified Rangeland Manager (#118) with UC Cooperative Extension; has directed numerous restoration projects across the Sierra Nevada foothills and Central Valley
• Shefali Lakhina, Ph.D. — Co-Founder of Wonderlabs and the Burnbot fire technology venture
• Marcus Velasques — Commercial Real Estate Agent, Cushman & Wakefield
• Veronica Stork Executive Director (non-voting board member)
• Megan Fluke Executive Coach, Consultant

Executive Director, Bio

Veronica Stork is the founder and Executive Director of the Stork Peterkin International Foundation (dba Wildfarmers), which she established in 2004 and formalized as a 501(c)(3) in 2010. An indigenous woman from Sri Lanka descended from the Vannialetto "people of the forest". Stork holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine art. Her career has spanned exhibiting and selling her work in galleries and museums, teaching at the college level, and working in the corporate world, all while addressing critical ecological challenges.

Community organizing has defined her entire adult life. In the early 1970s, she rallied farmers in Colorado's San Luis Valley to dig an irrigation well and plant 1,600 saplings across 160 acres. In San Francisco soon after, she helped launch the city's first women's art gallery and helped establish organic, local food stores in three historically underserved neighborhoods, each staffed by volunteers and selling at just ten percent over wholesale. One of these stores thrived from 1976 until 2000, when it relocated and became the worker-owned cooperative now known as Rainbow Grocery.

Stork's passion for California's blue oak ecosystem took root during camping trips to the Sierra Nevada foothills in the 1970s and 80s. In 1982, she volunteered to edit a film on the role of fog in California's dryland forests, an experience that revealed to her the vital connection between coastal and inland ecosystems and would later shape her restoration vision. In the early 1990s, she founded the San Francisco Reef Society, growing it from three people in a small storefront to more than 375 members before relocating it to the Steinhart Aquarium in Golden Gate Park. For three decades, she also maintained a habitat for the endangered San Francisco garter snake, reflecting a lifelong, hands-on commitment to protecting vulnerable species.

In 2004, recognizing the ecological crisis facing California, Stork purchased 40 acres of blue oak woodland and founded Wildfarmers as a template project and living laboratory for habitat restoration. Her vision connects the full cycle of the landscape: coastal fog absorbed by blue oak canopies, excess water released through their roots, and streams carrying nutrients and minerals back to the ocean. The foundation's mission is to restore California's blue oak forests and the biodiversity they sustain, and to rebuild the human connection to these ecosystems through education and immersion.