Taft Gardens Wildfire Restoration

In 2025, with a grant from Edison International, the team at CURes began work on the Wildfire Restoration Project, aiming to restore 10 acres of oak woodland in partnership with Taft Gardens and Nature Preserve in Ojai, California. Founded in 1981, The Taft Gardens and Nature Preserve is a 264-acre nature ecological preserve and education center in the Santa Ana Canyon. The site is an extraordinary example of native California Mediterranean ecosystems that have been augmented with native gardens from Australia and Africa. Sadly, the preserve was severely damaged by the Thomas Fire in 2017. Since then, restoration of the native gardens has been ongoing.

CURes is proud of our 15-year history of leading large, collaborative, community-based projects and restoration projects. We are excited be a part of this project, to partner our strengths with a diverse team of Indigenous leaders, community-based organizations, and ecological experts to restore this significant oak woodland. In addition to the oak woodland restoration, our team will assist in creating accessible educational materials about the importance of oaks in ecological resilience, and the implementation of educational and cultural programming featuring the oaks and their connection to Indigenous culture. It is important to our team to recognize the Chumash Indians as the original stewards of this land, and to center their counsel in its restoration and benefit to the community.