Research theme

Ecological restoration

Bringing back native woodland, meadows and soils on land cut over and mined since the Gold Rush, while evaluating how robotics and AI can help.

Our project sites are degraded land, much of it ancestral forest that was cut over, mined and left unmanaged for decades. Where oak and pine woodland once stood, some of these places now carry dense, fire-prone brush, depleted soils, and little of the structure a forest needs to sustain itself.

We aim to bring our project sites back toward vibrant, functional ecosystems and establish scalable processes for effective, economical land restoration. Our methods include pruning and thinning to shape forest growth, water management, and soil improvements to work towards resilient landscapes that require minimal inputs to maintain.

Projects

All projects
An open-topped steel ring kiln beside a heap of cut brush, with a small stepladder and long-handled tools leaning against it.

Active Underway

Biochar from fuel reduction

Fuel reduction (clearing fallen and dead wood, pruning low branches, thinning) leaves wood that has to come out anyway. We turn it into biochar on site in flame-cap ring kilns, so little of it has to be hauled, and mix the biochar back into soils the Gold Rush left degraded. Fuel reduction and kiln burns are underway; soil trials and carbon estimates come next.

San Domingo — Forest carbon sequestration with biochar, Wildfire resilience, Ecological restoration, Water management & soil restoration

Oaks against a clear blue sky above a slope of gray, shredded wood mulch, with green shrubs and a patch of dry grass coming up through it.

Active Underway

Woodland Hilltop restoration

Restoring a mixed pine and oak woodland on 22 acres next to downtown Murphys, where a fire-prone thicket of manzanita and toyon grew up after past clear-cutting and gold mining. The work includes contour swales, native wildflower seeding, targeted thinning, walkable trails, an access road and pruning oaks so they grow as trees.

Woodland Hilltop — Ecological restoration, Wildfire resilience, Water management & soil restoration

Field journal

All 7 entries
  • A small plant with deep blue, bell-shaped flowers and round, toothed gray-green leaves grows from bare reddish soil, with a shaded path behind it.

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Seed-mix wildflowers on bare ground

    One of the native wildflowers from the seed mix we sowed at Woodland Hilltop Arbory, in bloom on bare ground beside a path in mid-June. We…

  • A freshly bladed trail of bare red soil, ridged with the cleat marks of a tracked machine, curves along the edge of a green meadow below oaks, with lupine on the bank and a chainsaw lying in cut grass. +1 photo

    · San Domingo

    A new trail along the spring meadow

    On the morning of May 2, 2025, a newly cut trail of bare red soil curved along the edge of a meadow at San Domingo Arbory. The soil still…

  • Small yellow-and-white tidy tips and pale blue baby blue eyes flowers grow among flat stones lining a shallow swale. +1 photo

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Wildflowers in the swales

    Tidy tips (Layia platyglossa) and baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii) are blooming in one of the rock-lined contour swales at Woodland…

  • A single spike of deep blue-and-white lupine flowers rises from wood-chip mulch, with young lupine leaves at its base and blurred green shrubs and trees behind. +2 photos

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Lupine through the wood-chip mulch

    Lupine (Lupinus sp.) was flowering through the wood-chip mulch at Woodland Hilltop Arbory on April 6, 2025, among low, leafy shrubs, on…

  • Seen from a drone flying low over a hilltop, two tall pines and an oak stand at the edge of a slope of wood-chip mulch and low gray-green plants, with wooded ridges and wispy clouds beyond. +1 photo

    · Woodland Hilltop

    A low drone pass over the mulched hilltop

    On the afternoon of March 23, 2025, we flew a small drone low over the top of Woodland Hilltop Arbory, skimming the masticated ground.…

  • A gloved hand holds a smooth brown acorn topped by a thick, golden, fuzzy cup, with yellow dust on the glove's fingers and leaf litter and wood chips on the ground below.

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Golden-cupped acorn on the hilltop

    An acorn with a thick, golden, felted cup, held in a work glove at Woodland Hilltop Arbory on October 28. Yellow dust, probably fuzz from…