The Mendocino County Resource Conservation District
Helping Landowners Keep Forests, Soils, and Waterways Healthy for 80 Years
One of the best-kept secrets in Mendocino County is the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (MCRCD), a special district of the State of California with a mission to conserve, protect, and restore wild and working landscapes in Mendocino County. It is a non-regulatory and primarily grant-driven public agency working to enhance the health of the water, soil, and forests through projects with landowners of all types. Their main office is in downtown Ukiah, with satellite offices in both Willits and Boonville.
Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs) were conceived during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to help mitigate man-made natural disasters. Today, RCDs continue to support and educate landowners on best practices for natural resource management, as well as assist on conservation infrastructure projects through grants and government contracts. The MCRCD, now with a staff of 16 and a dedicated volunteer board of directors, has been serving landowners and land stewards throughout Mendocino County since 1945, with programs that span across four categories: Soil Health and Agriculture, Water Resources, Forest Health & Resiliency, and Land Stewardship.
The Soil Health and Agriculture Program works with agricultural professionals around sustainable land management and productivity, emphasizing healthy soils and climate-beneficial agriculture. The program offers technical assistance, outreach, education, and access to regional partnerships. It also links land stewards to funding sources for the planning and implementation of climate- beneficial practices.
Financial assistance for sustainable agriculture practices has decreased due to state budget constraints, but it is in higher demand than ever because of climate change and rising operational costs. Through MCRCD’s work on the 2024 California Department of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) Healthy Soils Program, over 40% of the roughly $1 million awarded in Mendocino and Lake Counties has gone to projects supporting socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. MCRCD’s Soil Health and Agriculture Program will provide both technical and administrative assistance to these farmers through their full grant term.
One recently implemented Healthy Soils grant facilitated the installation of a 350-foot hedgerow at Foursight Wines & Mendocino Lavender in Boonville. This pollinator hedgerow contains diverse native flowering plants including trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses, all specifically selected to provide food sources like pollen and nectar, as well as nesting habitats, for pollinating insects like bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. As it grows, the hedgerow will provide ongoing food and shelter for local pollinators and other wildlife, while also serving as an educational feature of the lavender farm tours.
From 2021 to 2023, the Soils Program was part of CDFA’s pilot Farm to School grant with North Coast Opportunities, working with Laytonville and Fort Bragg school districts to increase farm to school education as well as school farm and culinary infrastructure. In 2025, the Soils Program will begin a new CDFA Farm to School grant with the MendoLake Food Hub in order to build lasting school access to local farmers and Food Hub infrastructure. MCRCD will provide hands-on food and agriculture education.
The Water Resources Program promotes and protects clean water and healthy streams, which are critically important to both aquatic ecosystems and human communities. Grant programs for road storm-proofing, streambank stabilization, and riparian restoration focus on water quality protection which benefits landowners by reducing erosion damage and preserving the water table. Salmon and steelhead benefit from stream habitat enhancement and the removal of instream barriers.
One example of stream habitat enhancement coupled with improved water security was implemented at Blue Meadow Farm, adjacent to Mill Creek in the Navarro River watershed. A 63,000-gallon storage tank was constructed to store water diverted in the winter for use in the summer. This tank, combined with a 39,000-gallon rainwater catchment tank, provides enough water for the food farm to operate, even during years of drought. By not diverting 63,000 gallons from Mill Creek in the summer and fall, that water remains in-channel to support valuable aquatic habitat for salmonids and many other species.
The MCRCD’s Forest Health & Resiliency Program promotes sustainable forestry and land stewardship focused on habitat conservation, sustainable timber production, watershed health, increased climate and wildfire resilience, and overall forest health on both public and private lands. The program has been increasingly active over the past several years as more state and federal funding has been made available for forest health and fuel reduction projects in order to reduce the risk of larger and increasingly catastrophic wildfires.
The Northern Mendocino County Forest Health Collaborative Project, funded by CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program and the California Climate Initiative, was created to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health. In this project, the RCD partnered with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI/USAL Forest), Humboldt County Resource Conservation District, The Trees Foundation, and local fire districts to implement critical forest health treatments across 1,400 acres in the South Fork Eel River watershed. Among other forest health treatments, this project reduced excessive fuel loads, created shaded fuel breaks, managed invasive species, and reintroduced prescribed fire to the landscape, all within BLM’s Red Mountain and RFFI/USAL Forest lands. These treatments have helped lower the risk of severe wildfires, improved containment options in case of future fire events, and strengthened the landscape’s long-term resilience to disturbances such as drought and disease.
Building on this success, the RCD’s Forest Health and Resiliency Program was recently awarded a $6.4 million CAL FIRE Forest Health Grant to support forest health and fuels reduction work on the Leonard Lake Reserve and Montgomery Woods State Reserve properties in central Mendocino County. Additionally, the RCD was awarded a $1.96 million grant through the North Coast Resource Partnership to carry out similar work east of Leggett, further extending its efforts to improve forest health and fire resiliency across the region.
In contrast to these large-scale projects, the MCRCD also leads efforts to assist smaller landowners through the North Bay Forest Improvement Program (NBFIP). Funded by CAL FIRE, the NBFIP helps private landowners develop Forest Management Plans (FMPs) and implement forest health and wildfire risk reduction measures on their properties. Since its launch in 2020, it has provided funding support to more than 25 Mendocino County landowners, helping them complete FMPs and implement forest health projects that enhance both wildfire resilience and long-term forest stewardship.
The Land Stewardship Program oversees lands set aside by Caltrans in the Willits/Little Lake Valley to mitigate the impacts caused by the construction of the Willits Bypass. The MCRCD has been managing this project since 2014. Through a partnership with Caltrans, project contractors planted over one million herbaceous plants, trees, and shrubs. It also has protected rare and threatened populations of Bakers Meadowfoam and North Coast Semaphore grass, created wetlands, and witnessed flourishing populations of elk, beaver, river otters, over 65 species of birds, and numerous aquatic species. Half of the 2,000 acres of the mitigation project is a working landscape utilizing carefully managed beef cattle grazing to reach some of the project’s goals. These grazing lands are under contract with five local ranchers, whose products are primarily sold locally.
The Willits Bypass Mitigation team administers a public outreach and education program that runs monthly educational tours of the lands. They publish a weekly blog and offer a YouTube channel that posts wildlife photos and videos captured on the project (check it out at https://mcrcd.org/ category/willits). The program also offers educational content to local school kids learning about natural history and conservation, and manages a room at the County Museum in Willits, open on Wednesdays, which serves as a classroom and also exhibits photographs and natural history displays from the project.
With 80 years behind it, the MCRCD remains as busy and vital as ever, supporting farmers, property owners, and other stewards of the land so they can improve the health of soils, waterways, forests, and the overall landscape. Their efforts result in improved wildlife biodiversity, water quality, wildfire resilience, and agricultural productivity, sharing knowledge and encouraging practices that will preserve those benefits for generations to come.
Find out more at mcrcd.org
Photos courtesy of MCRCD.
This article was collaboratively written by Setphanie Garrabrant-Sierra (Executive Director), Joseph Scriven (Assistant Executive Director and Water Program Manager), Seth Myrick (Soils Program Manager), Doug Turk (Forestry Program Manager), Christopher Bartow (Land Stewardship Program Manager), and Linda MacElwee (Navarro Project Coordinator).