Meadow Restoration
While forest restoration treatments account for the majority of the land area treated in our collaborative efforts, TRT also implements meadow restoration projects, maintains and builds hiking and mountain biking trails, and coordinates and carries out projects designed to protect local wildlife species.
What is a meadow?
Meadows are wetland habitats that are dominated by grasses. They play a vital ecological role as they are biodiverse, important to a range of wildlife species, serve as a natural filter that improves our watersheds’ water quality, are an important source of carbon sequestration, and much more. These specialized habitats take thousands of years to form, yet face many threats to their resilience from human activities and natural events that cause erosion and stream channel incision.
TRT works to monitor meadow health, and when necessary plans and implements restoration activities to ensure that these keystones of forest health are stable and resilient. This work is wide-ranging, but can include activities such as grading and re-shaping stream channels and streambanks, building beaver dam-like structures, removal of nonnative plant species, re-routing roads and trails that are affecting water flow in a meadow, removal of conifers encroaching on meadows and aspen stands, and planting native seeds and plants to help bolster meadow ecosystems. Since 2016, TRT has helped to restore over 180 acres of meadow and riparian habitat in over 38 unique projects, with many more projects planned in years to come.
We also work closely with the Stanislaus National Forest and AmeriCorps to restore, maintain and install recreational trails. Many hiking trails throughout the Tuolumne River Watershed are built and maintained through these efforts, and a new mountain biking destination has benefitted from this collaboration as well. These efforts help to ensure that not only do we have a healthy and resilient ecosystem, but that people also have the opportunity to recreate in and experience this ecosystem, helping to cultivate environmental stewards.
