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To provide Cal Poly students, faculty, staff and the public with a unique interdisciplinary environment in which to foster the Learn by Doing philosophy by providing educational experiences on a working ranch, supporting diversified agriculture and forest resources while maintaining the integrity of ranch operations.

  —Our Mission

Fuels Treatments in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI): Lessons learned at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

Saturday, May 20th, 2023  9:00am-3:30pm

This is an opportunity to learn about vegetation management for fire fuel reduction and enhancing ecological health in the wildland-urban interface (WUI).  
 
Want to learn more about fuel treatments on the WUI? Join this field workshop on Saturday, May 20th from 9:00am- 3:30pm to learn from experts in restoration ecology about how to integrate a whole systems approach to vegetation management and fuels treatments at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. Participants will improve their knowledge of designing, implementing and integrating fuel treatments to increase fire resilience and ecological health on the wildland-urban interface (WUI) using examples at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.
 
Restoration Ecologist, Program Director and Co-Founder at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Brock Dolman, will be joined by fellow Ecologist Dr. Grey Hayes to discuss sequencing forest/woodland treatments and explain the importance of integrating a whole systems approach to vegetation and fuels management. Participants will learn about how to use prescribed fire as tool for forest health, and applying ecological restoration principles to fuels reduction and fire preparedness.
 
If the registration is full, please sign up for the waiting list; we will tap waiting list people on a first-come-first served. 
 
Agenda
Time Item
9:00am Workshop begins, presenter introductions
 

Fire Fears and Water Woes: Brock Dolman and Dr. Grey Hayes

 

Slash, Trash and Biomass: Brock Dolman and Dr. Grey Hayes

 

Q & A

12:15pm

Lunch

12:45pm Woodland Burn Unit: Brock Dolman and Dr. Grey Hayes 
  Q&A 
3:30pm Workshop ends

Trainers, 

Brock Dolman, Restoration Ecologist, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center 

Brock Dolman (He/Him) co-directs the WATER InstitutePermaculture Design Program and Wildlands Program. He has taught Permaculture and consulted on regenerative project design and implementation internationally in Costa Rica, Ecuador, U.S. Virgin Islands, Spain, Brazil, China, Canada, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba and widely in the U.S. He has been the keynote presenter at numerous conferences and was featured in the award-winning films The 11th Hour by Leonardo DiCaprio, The Call of Life by Species Alliance, and Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution by Vanessa Shultz. In October of 2012, he gave a City 2.0 TEDx talk. Brock completed his BA in the Biology and Environmental Studies departments at the University of California Santa Cruz in 1992, graduating with honors. For over a decade, he has served as an appointed commissioner on the Sonoma County Fish & Wildlife Commission.

Dr. Grey Hayes, Education and Research Manager, Swanton Pacific Ranch 

Since 1986, Dr. Grey Hayes has focused on agroecology and natural systems ecology and conservation along California’s central coast. Dr. Hayes has published peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts in restoration ecology, especially in California's coastal prairie systems but also in other ecosystems in coastal California. He has also authored popular publications about restoration ecology, conservation, and community-based approaches to natural lands management. As a conservation advocate, he has led initiatives that resulted in the listing of species under the federal and state endangered species acts. Dr. Hayes has been recognized as a Switzer Environmental Fellow and has been awarded the prestigious Blue Circle Award for his watershed conservation work by the Santa Cruz County Resource Conservation District. Grey's life goal is to form deeper connections by more people with lands and species upon which they depend. 
 

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