Volunteers lead efforts to restore habitats at Oakland's Joaquin Miller Park
A pair of volunteers has spearheaded the effort to restore a part of Oakland's Joaquin Miller Park - a city-owned gem in serious need of some love.
Tim Vendlinski and Dr. Robert Leidy would tell you that protecting the environment is in their DNA.
"I've always thought of it as, 'This is a calling to me,'" said Leidy.
And Vendlinski's passion took root early on.
"I ended up leading my first environmental march when I was 10 years old in 6th grade," Vendlinski said. "They were bulldozing the oak trees off our playground in our elementary school."
So in 2010, it seemed natural that the two friends and colleagues would lead the revival of part of the park. Leidy says the forest was cut in 1854, and the redwoods grew back, but the forest floor lacked vegetation that animals need for food and shelter.
"So it looked like a pool table with toothpicks sticking out of it, basically," Leidy said. "The understory - all the plants that grew under the redwoods - they had been trampled by park users."
With the support of the nonprofit Friends of Sausal Creek, Leidy and Vendlinski led efforts to restore 8.5 acres of wetlands and redwood forest in upper Fern Ravine Creek.
Before and after photos show the dramatic transformation from a barren forest in 2010 to a lush landscape 14 years later.
Thousands of volunteers helped weed out invasive plants, replace them with native plants, and build fences along trails. The result is a thriving, healthy ecosystem.
Vendlinski points out a nest of the dusky-footed woodrat that provides habitat for other small animals, while the protected headwaters ensure the survival of native rainbow trout.
"So that trout population, it doesn't live right here in the forest, but this clean water that's being generated by the headwaters, that's what the fish are swimming in downstream," Vendlinski explained.
The work was so successful that Friends of Sausal Creek won a California Department of Fish and Wildlife grant of more than $400,000 to expand the restoration to all 50 acres of the Fern Ravine Creek basin. It would also restore nearly half of the redwood forest that's left at Joaquin Miller Park.
Friends of Sausal Creek volunteer Caitlin Boise says the seeds of service that Leidy and Vendlinski have planted will bear fruit for generations.
"As an East Bay resident, I feel so lucky walking in here and experiencing this," Boise said of the park. "I find the hours and years of their lives that they've spent on this space extremely inspirational."
"There's no reason why the entire Joaquin Miller Park couldn't look like this," Vendlinski said. "It's a matter of vision and it's a matter of will."
"We're shepherds and caretakers of an asset, a beautiful ecosystem that hopefully will continue on through the centuries," Leidy added.
