Our Missions

Reciprocity

We practice and teach reciprocal relationships with the land — the understanding that harvesting from an ecosystem carries a responsibility to give back. This means tending, planting, protecting, and restoring the plants and habitats we rely on. Reciprocity is both a cultural value and an ecological practice.

Tribal Resources

California's native ecosystems were shaped for millennia by Indigenous land stewardship. We support the revival of traditional ecological knowledge and the practical resources tribal communities need — access to culturally significant plants, land, water, and harvest sites. We work alongside, not in place of, tribal leadership.

Education

Ecological restoration begins with ecological literacy. We run community wild harvest walks, school programs, and public documentation projects that connect people to the native plants, fungi, and animals of California. An informed community is the most durable conservation force there is.

Wild Agriculture

Industrial agriculture has separated food from ecology. Wild agriculture asks: what would it look like to grow food within native ecosystems rather than replacing them? Our research areas include:

• Food safety testing of wild-harvested California plants
• Plant disease research, including sudden oak death (SOD) and its effects on forest food systems
• Propagation and cultivation of native food plants
• Integration of wild harvests with home and community gardens