LandPaths

Geographic areas served: Sonoma County

Programs: People powered parks: landpaths champions community conservation on our own lands and lands we assist in managing for agency partners. Landpaths owns four unique preserves in sonoma county: bohemia ecological preserve and grove of the old trees in west county, rancho mark west in northeast santa rosa, and riddell preserve in the healdsburg area. Totaling over 1,000 protected acres of land in sonoma county, the properties are diverse in habitat values, from old growth redwoods, serpentine soils and associated plant community, madrone and oak woodland, to salmon bearing creeks. Our preserves originate with shared values between the landowner and landpathsvalues of land stewardship and community engagement. Landpaths actively takes care of these lands with on-going community investments to remove non-native plant species and planting natives to improve native wildlife habitat, repairing old ranch roads to improve water quality and steelhead spawning habitat, and building trails for future public use. Landpaths people powered parks model has also assisted agencies transition properties to public parks. Landpaths currently assists with: (1) bayer farm, landpaths farm-based park in the lowest income area of santa rosa in partnership with the city of santa rosa, serving 40 families with garden allotments, and over 1,000 community residents and school-age youth, many visiting repeatedly throughout the year(2) healdsburg ridge, with 155 acres of natural open space, with the city of healdsburg, and (3) willow creek, a permit-for access model landpaths introduced to the county and critical component to the protection of the 3,300 acre property by ca state parks. People powered parks foster individual and community commitments to nature and community.

environmental education: in our own backyard is a nature awareness program built to enhance student connection and confidence in the outdoors. In our own backyard, school-based, provides an in-depth experience with 4-full day field trips, and 2 classroom visits over the course of the school year, averaging 20 hours in the field per student. In our own backyard curriculum correlates with many of the state and federal science, math, language arts and physical education standards, and anticipates strong alignment with common core and next generation science standards. In our own backyard serves approximately 850 students, primarily from schools with over 50% of the student body qualifying for free and reduce lunch. Landpaths piloted a teen-focused program, inspired forward. Built on the in our own backyard model, inspired forward is a field-based program, with 4-full day field trips. Inspired forward is an unique offering to youth-at-risk providing experiential learning opportunities and tackling teen issues of gang prevention, drugs and other challenges through developing a strong sense of belonging, confidence, and leadership while role-modeling positive choices.

public outings: landpaths is sonoma countys lead public access organization, working county-wide and providing over 150 free to the public outings annually with over 5,000 participantsall with an exemplary safety record. Diverse by design, landpaths outings include themed hikes, farm tours, camp outs, kayak trips, spanish-language and stewardship projects allowing residents and visitors to discover the countys beauty. We tap our communitys local knowledge and experience in creating the outings and shaping engaging programs. Our passion is to invite all sonoma county residents outdoors, sparking their curiosity in nature through positive and relevant nature-based experiences.