California
Meet the seed collector restoring California’s landscapes – one tiny plant at a time
Deep in California’s agricultural heartland, Haleigh Holgate marched through the expansive wildflower-dotted plains of the San Luis national wildlife refuge complex in search of something precious.
She surveyed the native grasses and flowering plants that painted the Central valley landscape in almost blinding swaths of yellow. Her objective on that sweltering spring day was to gather materials pivotal to California’s ambitious environmental agenda – seeds.
“Over there it’s a brighter yellow, so I know those flowers are still blooming, rather than going to seed production,” she noted. “Versus over here, it’s these hues of deeper reds and deeper gold. That seed is ready.”
As a seed collection manager with the non-profit Heritage Growers native seed supplier, Holgate is tasked with traveling to the state’s wildlands to collect native seeds crucial for habitat restoration projects.
The need has become particularly acute as California aims to conserve 30% of its land by 2030, with the governor pledging to restore “degraded landscapes” and expand “nature-based solutions” to fight the climate crisis. And as the Trump administration systematically rolls back efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect public lands, the state’s goals have taken on even greater importance.
But the rising demand for seeds far outpaces the available supply. California faces an “urgent and growing need” to coordinate efforts to increase the availability of native seeds, according to a 2023 report from the California Native Plant Society. There simply isn’t enough wildland seed available to restore the land at the rate the state has set out to, Holgate said.
Bridging the gap starts with people like Holgate, who spends five days a week, eight months of the year, traveling with colleagues to remote spots across the state collecting seeds – an endeavor that could shape California’s landscape for years.
That fact is not lost on the 26-year-old. It’s something she tries to remind her team during long, grueling hot days in the oilfields of Kern county or the San Joaquin valley.
“What we do is bigger than just the day that we live. The species that we collect are going to make impacts on the restoration industry for decades to come,” Holgate said.
Seeds play a vital role in landscape recovery. When fires move through forests, decimating native species and leaving the earth a charred sea of gray ash, or when farmlands come out of production, land managers use native seeds to help return the land to something closer to its original form. They have been an essential part of restoring the Klamath River after the largest dam removal project in US history, covering the banks of the ailing river in milkweeds that attract bees and other pollinators, and Lemmon’s needlegrass, which produces seeds that feed birds and small mammals.
California has emphasized the importance of increasing native seed production to protect the state’s biodiversity, which one state report described as “the most imperiled … of any state in the contiguous United States”. Three-quarters of native vegetation in the state has been altered in the last 200 years, including more than 90% of California wetlands, much of them here in the Central valley.
For the state to implement its plans, it needs a massive quantity of native seeds – far more than can be obtained in the wild. Enter Heritage Growers, the northern California-based non-profit founded by experts with the non-profit River Partners, which works to restore river corridors in the state and create wildlife habitat.
The organization takes seed that Holgate and others collect and amplifies them at its Colusa farm, a 2,088-acre property located an hour from the state capital. (The ethical harvesting rules Heritage Growers adhere to mean that they can take no more than 20% of seeds available the day of collection.)
Workers dry the seeds collected in the wild over several weeks, clean them and send them off to a lab for testing. The farm cultivates them to grow additional seeds, in some cases slowly expanding from a small plot to a tenth of an acre, and eventually several acres. The process – from collection to amplification – can take years. Currently, the farm is producing more than 30,000lbs of seeds each year and has more than 200 native plant varieties.
The goal, general manager Pat Reynolds said, is to produce source-identified native seed and get as much of it out in the environment as possible to restore habitat at scale. The group has worked with federal agencies such as the National Parks Service, state agencies and conservation organizations, and provided seed for River Partners’ restoration efforts of the land that would become California’s newest state park, Dos Rios.
The benefit of restoring California’s wildlands extends far beyond the environment, said Austin Stevenot, a member of the Northern Sierra Mewuk Tribe and the director of tribal engagement for River Partners.
“It’s more than just work on the landscape, because you’re restoring places where people have been removed and by inviting those people back in these places we can have cultural restoration,” Stevenot said. “Our languages, our cultures, are all tied to the landscape.”
He pointed to Dos Rios, where there is a native-use garden within the park where Indigenous people can collect the plants they need for basketweaving.
“It’s giving the space back to people to freely do what we would like for the landscape and for our culture,” he said.
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Just three farms in California produce thousands of pounds of native seed each year, including Heritage Growers, Reynolds said, meaning that restoration efforts take significant long-term planning. In the case of the Klamath River project, it took at least five years of work – collecting the seed, cleaning it and amplifying it at multiple farms – to obtain the seed necessary to use for river restoration.
But before Heritage Growers can amplify seed, Holgate has to gather materials in the wild. Holgate, a sunny and personable seed collector who studied environmental science and management with a focus in ecological restoration, has developed Heritage Growers’ program over the last two years.
In late March, she headed out to scout the Arena plains area of the Merced national wildlife refuge, more than 10,200 acres of protected lands, including wetlands and vernal pools, in the San Joaquin valley. Her winter break had come to an end and collection season was kicking off again, meaning months of travel and logging upward of 1,000 miles a week as she and a group of wildland seed collectors visited dozens of sites across the valley and in the foothills. Collection days typically start when the sun rises, and stretch until it gets too hot to work.
In recent weeks, Holgate’s team had planned their collection strategy and surveyed sites to see what plants were available. Getting to the Arena plains area required a 30-minute drive down a bumpy dirt road.
In a large white pickup, she passed a large owl perched in a tree and navigated a narrow creekside lane. From her vehicle, Holgate often performs what she describes as “drive-by botany”, quickly scouting the land to see what’s available.
She maneuvered through a herd of curious, but cautious, calves before trudging through thick mud and carefully slipping through barbed wire fencing to take in the scene.
Equipped with a bucket, a sun hat and a backpack, Holgate was eager to observe the landscape, noting what was seeding and what needed more time. The work is simultaneously thrilling and sometimes tedious, Holgate said as she compared two plants that looked identical but were in fact different species. Seed collectors must be able to distinguish between species to ensure the materials they collect are genetically pure, she noted.
The temperature climbed to 89F as she meandered across the plains, noting which species were available and how ripe the seeds were.
Holgate monitored a herd of cattle approaching. When she began working in the area, Holgate viewed the creatures and the way they trampled through the vernal pools and chomped on the vegetation as a significant impact to the landscape, she said. But she later learned how grazing can benefit this ecosystem. The depressions cattle make as they move through the area allow seeds to nestle further into the ground, and their grazing reduces invasive grasses, allowing flowers to receive more sunlight and giving them space to bloom, Holgate noted.
Chasing down seeds is a nomadic lifestyle in which one has to be OK with long stretches away from home, and an inordinate amount of prepared road food, like bacon and gouda sandwiches from Starbucks, Holgate said, pausing as a coyote and its pup ran through nearby flowers, winding through the cows and heading just out of sight. Along with travel to distant locations from the wildlife refuge to Kern county in the south, Holgate has to return any seeds collected to the Heritage Growers farm within 24 to 48 hours.
But the mission is worthwhile, Holgate said. The seeds she collects are expensive, but if they can be amplified and expanded, native seeds will become more abundant and restoration projects can happen more quickly.
“We can restore California faster,” she said. “It’s the only way we are going to be able to restore California at the rate we want to.”
The seed collection team has 35 sites they will return to this season. Spending so many hours on the same swaths of land has allowed Holgate and her colleagues to know the areas on a far deeper level than they would if they were just hiking through. It’s left her with a familiarity she can’t shake – that dainty grass isn’t just grass, it’s hair grass, the lighter spots are Hordeum depressum, a type of barley, and the dots of yellow are lasthenia. Sometimes the plants seep into her dreams.
“I know that when I’m dreaming about a certain species, I should go check that population and see what’s happening. And normally there’s something going on where it’s like grasshoppers came in and ate all the seed, or the seed is ripe and ready, and I gotta call in a crew,” she said.
“I’ve really put my whole heart into this job. I realize it’s more than just getting a paycheck – and it’s more than just doing this restoration for the land. It’s doing restoration for people.”
With California’s June 2nd primary election nearing, Republican candidates for governor, Steve Hilton and Sheriff Chad Bianco, are set to appear at a forum in Clovis.
The Fresno County & City Republican Women Federated is hosting its “Celebrating 250 Years of America Dinner” and a gubernatorial forum on Friday, May 22nd, at The Regency Event Center, 1600 Willow Ave., in Clovis.
The forum will be moderated by State Senator Shannon Grove.
The discussion is expected to focus on major issues facing Californians, with questions presented via video by a panel of state and local figures, including Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp on public safety and crime; former Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims on border control and citizenship; William Bourdeau of Bourdeau Farms LLC on water rights and agricultural issues; California state Assemblymember David Tangipa on taxation and fiscal responsibility; Jonathan Keller of the California Family Council on parental rights and education; and Matthew Dildine, CEO of Fresno Mission, on homelessness and mental health.
Clovis Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce and Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig are listed as masters of ceremonies.
Doors are scheduled to open at 4:30 p.m., followed by a social hour at 5 p.m. Dinner and the program are set for 6 p.m.
Attire is listed as cocktail or business formal. Organizers said a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Veterans Home of California – Fresno.
GOP California governor candidates to face off at Clovis forum ahead of primary (Courtesy: Fresno County & City Republican Women Federated)
[RELATED] Top-two primary could pit same-party rivals as crowded Democratic field fractures votes
“This forum comes at a pivotal moment for our state,” FCCRWF event organizers said. “Bringing the top Republican gubernatorial candidates to Clovis allows Valley families, farmers, and business owners to get real answers on the issues that affect their daily lives, from water infrastructure to public safety and the skyrocketing cost of living.”
Individual tickets are $150, with discounts offered to FCCRWF members.
Table sponsorships are available at the $1,500, $2,500 and $5,000 levels.
Tickets and sponsorships are available online at FresnoRepublicanWomen.org.
Orange County’s top prosecutor said Amazon has agreed to stop California sales of certain e-bikes that can go faster than state speed limits following a series of fatal collisions.
The announcement, first reported by KCRA, comes on the heels of an April consumer alert by California Attorney General Rob Bonta that highlighted a rise in deaths related to e-bike and motorcycle crashes.
“We are seeing a surge of safety incidents on our sidewalks, parks, and streets,” Bonta said in a statement. “To ride a motorcycle or moped, you need to have the appropriate driver’s license and comply with rules of the road.”
Bonta’s alert stated that pedal-assisted e-bikes cannot exceed 28 mph. Throttle-assisted e-bikes are limited to 20 mph.
Amazon had continued to sell e-bikes with speeds over 40 mph. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Electric bikes and motorcycles have become increasingly popular in the last few years, particularly among teens. But the surge has been shadowed by a spate of deadly crashes.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer has charged at least three parents with allowing their children to ride electric motorcycles illegally, calling the vehicles a “loaded weapon.”
Spitzer noted in a post on X that Amazon said it removed e-bikes advertised with speeds over 40 miles per hour after KCRA contacted the company.
“The company said it has removed the examples provided and is investigating compliance for similar products,” Spitzer wrote.
That includes an Orange County mother, who faces an involuntary manslaughter charge after her son allegedly struck an 81-year-old man with an electric motorcycle. The 14-year-old boy had been doing wheelies on an e-motorcycle
A 13-year-old boy on an e-bike in Garden Grove died earlier this week after veering into the center median and hurtling onto the roadway. The boy was traveling at around 35 mph on a black E Ride Pro electric motorcycle, authorities said.
Amazon’s new sales limits come as the Los Angeles City Council pushes to keep electric bikes of off most city recreational trails, arguing they are a threat to hikers. E-bikes would still be allowed on designated bikeways, such as along the L.A. River.
Daniel Felix, 10, looks out from atop a gargantuan stump of an old-growth redwood on his tribe’s ancestral land. Once, this forest on California’s North Coast was replete with the ancient behemoths that can live beyond 2,000 years.
Only a fraction are left now, depleted by a logging company before the state acquired the forest in the 1940s.
This is unique public land, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, spanning 50,000 acres. Trees are plentiful here, but they might not live a millennium. California’s 14 demonstration forests are required to produce and sell timber to show — or “demonstrate” — sustainable practices. Money from logging — roughly $8.5 million a year — pays for management of the forests by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
Daniel’s tribe, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, has pushed to rein in the cutting — spearheaded by his late great-grandmother, Priscilla Hunter. They’re part of a diverse coalition that includes environmental activists, local politicians and other tribes.
Now they may finally get their wish. Assemblymember Chris Rogers (D-Santa Rosa) has introduced a bill that would nix the forests’ logging mandate, instead prioritizing values such as carbon storage, wildfire resilience and biodiversity.
The bill represents the latest chapter in a region legendary for fierce battles over logging, and it marks an uncommon alliance between tribes and the environmental movement.
Under Assembly Bill 2494, there could still be logging, but it would have to support those new principles, and the forests would be funded differently.
And it proposes another significant change. It would pave the way for giving tribes a say in managing the lands for the first time since they were forcibly evicted more than a century ago, and for integrating Indigenous knowledge — like cultural burning — into the forests.
“It’s what we dreamed of,” said Polly Girvin, Hunter’s former partner and a retired lawyer focused on Native American issues. “And to have it come true? I’m used to movements that sometimes take 30 years in Indian Country to get to the justice you’re seeking.”
Kids play in the stump of an ancient redwood during a potluck held after the spirit run in Jackson Demonstration State Forest last month.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
Some backers say the bill offers a new economic path forward for communities behind the so-called redwood curtain. With the decline of logging and cannabis, they see tourism driven by ultramarathons, mushroom foraging and other outdoor activities as a financial savior.
“If we had an increase of 10% of visitors coming to our county because of recreational opportunities, that would more than surpass all of the timber tax in our county,” Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams said, projecting an increase in money from a lodging tax.
But the push to reshape forest management is fiercely opposed by loggers and mill owners, who say their work is sustainable and provides blue-collar jobs in a region where they’ve dwindled. Already California imports most of its wood from Oregon, Washington and Canada.
“California has the most rules and regulations of anywhere in the world so all they’re doing is exporting the environmental impact to somewhere else, still using the product,” said Myles Anderson, owner of a logging company in Fort Bragg founded by his grandfather. “It’s pretty disgusting, really.”
Anderson believes the bill will greatly reduce logging, even stop it altogether. In his office, with photos of him and his father at a logging site decades ago, he points out it’s sponsored by the Environmental Protection Information Center. Why else would they and other environmental groups “support it if they didn’t see the same thing that I’m seeing?”
Last month, activists who have sought to rein in logging at Jackson held their first major gathering in about four years, galvanized by the bill that they see as a significant step in the right direction.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
A new but old fight
About five years ago, community members caught wind of plans to chop down towering redwoods within Jackson, near the coastal town of Caspar. Priscilla Hunter would come out to the forest “and could hear them crying — it was our ancestors,” said her daughter Melinda Hunter, the tribe’s vice chairwoman. “Then she had to protect [the trees].”
Environmental activists and Native Americans, not historically allies in the region, joined forces to fight it. “Forest defenders” camped out high in the canopy and blocked logging equipment with their bodies. Some were arrested.
The uprising harked back to the 1980s and 1990s, when iconic environmentalist Judi Bari led Earth First! campaigns against logging in the region. Many of the old tree sitters — white-haired and brimming with stories of Bari — have come out of the woodwork for the latest battle.
For them, it was a win. Cal Fire paused new timber sales and, citing public safety, halted some that were underway — including one expected to generate millions of dollars for Myles Anderson’s logging company.
“We were left with nothing,” Anderson said.
Then, last year, Cal Fire approved the first harvest plan since that hiatus. It riled up the sizable, ecologically minded community.
Jessica Curl, 47, remembers growing up nearby “in a terrain of trunks” as trucks carried out logs. Now the redwoods are regrowing, “gorgeous” and gobbling carbon, she said.
“We’re so lucky to live in an area where we have this amazing climate-change mitigation tool, that if we would just leave it alone would do this amazing work that we’re trying to think of all these cool, inventive things to do.”
Isidro Chavez receives burning sage, or smudging, after a run in Jackson Demonstration State Forest. Smudging is a ritual used to cleanse spaces and individuals of negative energy, promote calm and improve mood.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
Tears of grief, resolve
A group of “spirit runners” — a Native American tradition of bringing prayer — sprinted through the heart of Jackson forest as rain poured through the canopy. The mid-April event marked activists’ first major gathering since protests wound down in 2022.
Attendees gathered in a circle to wait for them. Misty Cook, of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, read a statement as eyes misted all around:
“All the living things around us, they miss us. They miss the language. They miss our touch, our hands, touching all of the things — the water, the plants. They miss the songs. They miss the beat of our footsteps and our voices, and they miss the children’s laughter and play, which was so important. They want us to gather them, to use them and to share them. Otherwise they will get sick and possibly die.”
Cal Fire launched a tribal advisory council to bring Indigenous perspective into Jackson. But some local tribes say it’s not enough because they lack decision-making power.
When the runners arrived, the circle absorbed them. Then they continued on to the site of a controversial proposed harvest, Camp Eight. They wrapped a bandana that belonged to Priscilla Hunter around a small tree — a quiet, somber act where she took her last stand. Runners took turns embracing the trunk.
Redwoods at the Capitol
In March, Rogers’ bill cleared a committee and is now in the Assembly Appropriations Committee’s suspense file. A hearing is set for Thursday.
Funding is a major point of contention. Environmentalists say funding these forests with timber operations incentivizes cutting bigger trees. Cal Fire maintains decisions are driven by forest health, not industry demand.
AB 2494 would fund the forests through a tax on lumber and engineered wood products. The shift could create “[o]ngoing state costs and cost pressures of an unknown but potentially significant amount, possibly in the low millions of dollars annually,” according to a legislative analysis.
The California Forestry Assn., a timber industry trade group, says the idea is a nonstarter.
Cal Fire declined to comment on pending legislation but Kevin Conway, the agency’s staff chief for resource protection and improvement, said its nearly 80-year history managing Jackson reflects “care and attention.” Since the state acquired the forest, “we have more trees on the landscape, more habitat and those trees are trending larger,” he said.
For the tribes who have rallied and prayed, a burning question is whether the land will again reflect their vision, or remain shaped by decisions made by others.
Buffie Campbell, executive director of the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council — co-founded by Priscilla Hunter and one of the groups supporting the bill — said young people wouldn’t be able to fathom the significance of the legislation passing. Maybe that’s a good thing.
“Maybe they don’t need to know about all the fighting that we have to do before they get to go out and enjoy and be tribal guardians stewarding their land.”
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