About LandPaths
LandPaths is an environmental education and conservation leader with the mission to foster a love of the land in Sonoma County. We believe everyone should have access to the awe and inspiration of nature.
Annually, we engage thousands of participants like you in joyful, caring, and transformative relationship with the land. We do this mainly through creative outings led in both English and Spanish, environmental education, nature camps, and people-powered land stewardship of local open spaces.
Land Acknowledgement
Our community gardens, office, and preserves throughout Sonoma County are located on the ancestral homelands of the Southern Pomo, Coast Miwok, Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, and Mishewal people, past, present, and future. We recognize them as the first people and the first stewards of this land.
Initiatives
Community Care
Growing Community with Nature
Wildfires, flooding, and other challenges have dramatically increased globally and locally because of human-caused climate change. Reciprocal and joyful relationships between people and the land is a solution to climate disruption. From volunteer land stewardship days to community gatherings in local open spaces, you’ll find a range of creative, impactful opportunities to participate with LandPaths and make a difference.
Featured Outings
The Get Outside Book Club: The Last Fire Season
- Day: Saturday, May 4
- Time: 10am
- Place: Riddell Preserve, Healdsburg
- With special guest Manjula Martin
The Get Outside Book Club is the place build community around books and authors with connections to the natural world in Sonoma County. Seasonally, we’ll gather on a preserve stewarded by LandPaths in Sonoma County to discuss a work that connects with the region – memoir, graphic novels, cleverly written field guides, fiction – in conversation with the book’s author. That’s right! We’ll be joined by the author of the selected works, who will answer your questions, share insider tips from their writing, and participate in the discussion! Plus, we’ll have special guests (LandPaths’ staff and volunteers) who will speak to the ecologies of the place, depending on the book’s subject matter.
Register HereFamily Wildflower Walk at Bohemia Ecological Preserve
- Day: Sunday, May 19
- Time: 10am – 1pm
- Place: Bohemia Ecological Preserve, Occidental
Wildlife Camera Volunteer Training
- Day: Saturday, May 25
- Time: 9am – 1:30pm
- Place: Riddell Preserve, Healdsburg
- With Senior Stewardship Field Specialist Benjamin Bravo
Help us understand more about our wildlife at Riddell Preserve! Our goal with this pilot project is to understand the effects of forest stewardship on wildlife biodiversity, behavior, and movement patterns.
Sign UpBurn Pile Volunteer Stewardship Day at Riddell Preserve
- Day: Friday, April 26
- Time: 9am to 3pm
- Place: Riddell Preserve, Healdsburg
It’s wildfire fuels reduction time on the preserve! Now that we’ve pulled tons of French Broom and lopped Douglas Firs, it’s time to minimize the woody debris while it’s okay to do burn piles. The more people we have, the more we can do!
Sign Up HereStories + News
Stories from the Field
Enter the Big Tree Month Photo Contest – January 2024
January 2, 2024
Tags: big tree, big tree photo contest, growing community with nature, stewardship
It’s time for the Big Tree Month Photo Contest! Large and big old-growth trees in Sonoma County captivate LandPaths participants with their immense size and complex network […]
Reflections: Slow Restoration Community Forestry Project for Women and Nonbinary Participants
November 20, 2023
Tags: forestry, growing community with nature, riddell preserve, slow restoration, stewardship, wildfirefuelreduction
By Lara O’Herlihy, Stewardship Field Specialist This past October, fourteen strangers met for the first time at Riddell Preserve, LandPaths’ 400-acre protected open space preserve in the […]
Students Make More Nature and Science Connections through New Environmental Education Pathways Project in Sonoma County
February 5, 2024
Tags: environmental education, iooby, Rooting Youth in Nature
Students Make New Connections WithEnvironmental Education Pathways On a brisk and sunny day at Glen Oaks Ranch, 3rd graders from Flowery Elementary School chat merrily as they hike […]
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