Helman Elementary students help restore riparian habitat in Almeda Fire-impacted area

Ashland.news staff report

Some 180 Helman Elementary School students spent Thursday morning planting native plants and helping to restore riparian habitat in areas around Ashland Pond impacted by the 2020 Almeda Fire.

Third, fourth, and fifth-graders, guided by staff and volunteers, walked about eight-tenths of a mile from school to the site, where they were paired up and given materials to plant trees and learn traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge. 

Ashland Pond is a 22-acre open space that Ashland Parks & Recreation Commission (APRC) acquired in 1971. The land is adjacent to the Bear Creek Greenway, below Quiet Village on the north side of Ashland. The trailhead is off Glendower Street in Ashland.

Helman Elementary has partnered on projects with the Lomakatsi Restoration Project since 2006, according to Marko Bey, executive director of Lomakatsi.

“We formalized a relationship (with Helman Elementary) around environmental education, outdoor ecosystem restoration work, and what we call an ‘Adopt-a-site’ program,” Bey told Ashland.news Thursday. “This is the living outdoor classroom. Students have the ability to walk to the site from school.”

Bey said Lomakatsi received funding from state, federal and private sources in 2005 to conduct riparian habitat restoration at the site to provide shade for coho and chinook salmon along the creek as well as to beautify the pond and create wildlife habitat there — along with incorporating an environmental education component, such as Thursday’s event.

“For many years, we’ve been coming down here with hundreds of students planting trees,” Bey said, “and then, after the Almeda Fire, some of the trees that we had planted unfortunately burned up, so we’re here today, not only are we doing environmental education … ecological resilience work, we’re doing post-fire recovery planting.”

Over the years, Bey said Lomakatsi has worked with agencies at the site to remove most blackberries from Ashland Pond and transition it to include more native plants, such as willows.

The project on Thursday combines environmental education with ecosystem restoration, and also gave students a chance to learn from tribal members and Lomakatsi staffers about how the site was used for thousands of years.

Belinda Brown, tribal partnerships restoration director for Lomakatsi Restoration Project, also spoke with Ashland.news during the event, emphasizing that the cultural site where the project takes place is sacred to tribes and Indigenous people.

“You’re standing right now on a cultural spot that I just picked up some rocks, they call them the grandmother stones that the aboriginal people have used since time immemorial,” Brown said.

In addition to planting, students learned some of the techniques that aboriginal women used on the sacred sites for basket-weaving, Brown said. 

“These areas were our church, they’re our grocery store, they’re our pharmacy, and they’re our Home Depot,” Brown said. “These lands were very well taken care of before colonization and you’ll still see the stones and the sites as they were if you look hard enough.”

Abraham Jacobs taught students at the site about different stones, such as jade, known as “The Stone from Heaven,” that can be found in Southern Oregon, in addition to obsidian from Eastern Oregon. He also showed youth spear points and war clubs, giving them a peek at the types of items used thousands of years ago.

“I’d just like to let them know these types of things were around,” Jacobs said, adding that it’s important not to lose sight of Native American culture.

Brown echoed the sentiment.

“I think indigenous traditional ecological knowledge is really important due to the fact that we’re living with fires now,” she added.

The site experienced fires at five to seven year intervals, Brown said, but fires were also set to create basketry materials for women.

Men used fire to hunt and clear trails as well, Brown said.

“Fire is something that we need to live with,” Brown said. “It’s medicine for the land.”

Brown described “good fire” as helpful to the land.

“It’s been suppressed for 150 years and we’re looking at the consequences of the suppression of fire, so fire is a land management tool that needs to be utilized,” she said.

Jordan Pease, executive director and founder of the Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library in Ashland, received an out-of-state grant for $20,000 to fund the plants and staff time for the project.

He was on site for the project and shared how important it is to have kids’ “hands in the dirt.”

“I’d love to think that these young kids have some ownership and connection to the trees they just planted,” Pease said, noting that maybe one day, they’ll point out the tree they planted to their grandkids.

“I’d like to think that some of these kids will want to be foresters after having an experience like this,” he added.

Ashland.news photographer Bob Palermini contributed to this report. Email Ashland.news at news@ashland.news.