Natural Highs on the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve
An Earth Day Update Five Years After Gaviota Coast Ranch Saved
By Keith Hamm | April 21, 2022
Under the bright blue of a breezy April morning, the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve was awash in the rolling green, woodland gray, and springtime yellow classic to the Gaviota Coast. Laura Riege was at the wheel along Jalama Road, a curvy ribbon of asphalt through the heart of the preserve, its nearly 25,000 acres fanning out from Point Conception along maritime terraces before climbing un-fragmented through the westernmost canyons and ridges of the Santa Ynez Mountains. First stop: Ramala Field, a flat expanse of former farmland surrounded by hillsides of mature oaks. Riege pulled through a gate to one of her project sites — you might say she’s checking on her babies.
Once a bean field, the 120-acre space is now home to roughly 4,000 young oak trees, each grown from an acorn or transplanted from a nearby woodland. As the restoration manager, it’s Riege’s job to orchestrate the conversion of abandoned agricultural acreage into landscapes more befitting this nature preserve.
Ramala West is the biggest of five such sites, all fenced with hog wire to keep out destructive rooting by feral pigs, and each tree — more than 6,000 in all — is carefully planted in a gopher basket and caged early on to protect against browsing deer and rabbits. “One of the coolest parts about this restoration site is that you can see it from Jalama Road,” Riege said. “That’s important, I think, for the public to be able to connect to what’s going on out here.”
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