Tucked around Orange County’s many communities are thousands of acres of preserved wildlands that offer strolls through trees, hikes to scenic vistas and, when lucky, glimpses of the animal kingdom that also calls the region home.
Volunteers provide much of the manpower making that access possible, helping with projects that are restoring the county’s natural resources and the maintenance of the web of trails and paths that get people out of their cars and into nature. Volunteers act as guides introducing neighbors to the varieties of plants and animals that are unique to the natural habitats and also as defenders against invasive species and even dangerous fires.
“We could not do what we do without the volunteers,” said Derek Breaux, outreach and development director for the Laguna Canyon Foundation, which works with the OC Parks system to preserve the 22,000-acre South Coast Wilderness — it includes the Laguna Coast and Aliso and Wood Canyons wilderness parks and other nearby open spaces.
On a recent Saturday, a hardy team of volunteers headed several miles into the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park to help with maintaining the Stagecoach South Trail. Volunteers regularly help the foundation with “trail stewardship” by cutting back overgrown vegetation, removing invasive plants that shouldn’t be there and can kill off the native species and addressing erosion or ruts.
The foundation’s staff work on the trails throughout the week, but most weekends there are opportunities for the public to volunteer to help, allowing a lot more of the needed work to be addressed, Breaux said.
“Things like trail maintenance, there is so much that goes into it that people just don’t realize,” he said. “Most of the volunteers that come on our programs are just folks who enjoy using our trails.”
They are people who like “giving back to the earth,” he said, and in doing so, they “learn about all the hard work that goes into maintaining the pretty,…
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