This Place
Lake County, California happens to be ground zero for massive climate-change driven wildfires. From 2015 through 2018, Fire happened:
A decade before the mega-fires took 70% of the lands in our County, I ran for Lake County Supervisor on a platform of ecological regeneration. During the campaign and throughout my two terms in office I discovered that many people felt victimized by the state of the economy and struggled to imagine a positive future for themselves and for our community.
Almost by accident, I learned that much of this could be transformed with hands-on experiences that changed a person's internal story from one of isolation and disconnection to one of connection and community. This happened when people worked together on ecological projects --particularly projects that sparked the imagination.
After the fires, an even deeper magic emerged—people working together to restore devastated places. Learning how to use good fire. Learning to manage the land.
Starting in 2019, organizations that used to work in silos began to, out of necessity and desire, collaborate. Regenerative land management began. One example of this is the Tribal Ecosystem Restoration Alliance, TERA.
TERA is working with The US Forest Service, a number of non-governmental organizations, local tribal governments, and regenerative designers to bring indigenous land management techniques back. These include bringing back “good fire” to our lands.
From all this I came to believe that there is magic right where we live. We just have to learn how to release it.
Perhaps we start by changing the story we tell ourselves about what is possible.