A handful of neighbors gathered on a Saturday morning this fall to reduce the fire load of dead and dying brush from a wild urban oasis — a hidden-away space known as Beaconsfield Canyon in the Montclair district of Oakland, California.
The volunteers, many of them members of Friends of Sausal Creek, worked all morning, and a lot of flammable debris got hauled down the canyon and into a waiting dumpster.
I invited canyon volunteer Wendy Tokuda to write a guest post on behalf of this ever-changing canyon in the city. — BFN
Beaconsfield Canyon has changed! Fifteen years ago, it was overgrown with weeds, and trash was strewn about — a broken computer, tires in the creek, and bottles here and there.
Since then, neighbors and volunteers with the Friends of Sausal Creek have been restoring the canyon — hauling out garbage (including a washing machine), pulling out invasive plants and replacing them with natives like sword fern, mugwort, coffee berry, native asters, phacelia, and native grasses and blackberry.
As California’s fires became more dangerous, much of our work has morphed into fuel reduction — getting rid of the flammable overgrowth. We are slowly turning Beaconsfield Canyon into a nature preserve, a healthy, green urban oasis right in our own neighborhood.
Canyon regulars Albert Chiu and Wendy Tokuda kept tabs on the work. Photos by Barbara Newhall
More nature stories at, “The Center of the Universe? It’s a Little Beach in Michigan, of Course,” Also, “Insects I Have Known and (Tried to) Love.”
News we all need to think about & do something positive about.. perhaps bring our children along to help.
Teenagers always seem to show up on these work days. Your kids might enjoy the company as well as the beautiful setting.
Bravo to these caring, hard working citizens! People simply have to care about their environment enough to clean up after not only after themselves but others too. What a pity they have to make up for those who are less responsible. Washing machines? Computers? Tires? What the fork?!
For a long time the canyon was overgrown with (delicious) blackberries and not of much interest. I guess it seemed easy just to roll your old washing machine out the door and down the hill.
On the other hand, in all fairness to the owner of that washing machine — I’ve seen stuff get loose on that hillside and roll and roll and just keep on rolling.