Habitat Restoration
The diverse habitats that make up Sonoma County Regional Parks provide important habitat and ecological services to support life in our region. These range from wetlands like the headwater creeks of Hood Mountain Regional Park, the vernal pools in Sonoma Valley and Laguna de Santa Rosa, beaches and saltwater marshes of Doran Regional Park and ponds, streams and estuaries in river and coastal parks. These habitats also include the oak woodlands of Helen Putnam and Ragle Ranch Regional Parks, the redwood forests of Monte Rio Redwoods Regional Park and Open Space Preserve and coastal prairies like Carrington and Wright Hill Regional Park and Open Space Preserves.
Habitat restoration offers multiple benefits to our environment, wildlife and communities. Wetland restoration supports native plants and biodiversity, improves water quality and stream flows, reduces erosion and sequesters carbon. Wetlands are also home to at least one third of all threatened and endangered species. Oak woodlands and redwood forest restoration enhances habitat for wildlife and mitigates the impacts of climate change. Dune and prairie restoration benefit numerous species unique to our coastal ecosystems.
Ways you can help:
If you see “Habitat Restoration” signs in our parks, please respect our work and avoid these areas. This will help control erosion and encourage native species to thrive.
Interested in supporting our habitat restoration program? Consider volunteering at an upcoming volunteer day.
Example Projects:
Shiloh Ranch Regional Park Riparian Restoration Project
(Left: Eroded Channel Before, 2023. Right: Restored Riparian Area After, 2025)
Shiloh Ranch Regional Park is located east of Windsor in Sonoma County in the foothills of the Mayacama Mountains. The 860-acre park features oak woodlands, seasonal creeks and a small pond that provides a vital year-round water source for local wildlife and birds. Over the last decade, erosion along a deteriorating spillway threatened to destabilize the pond and surrounding habitat. Creek channels above and below the pond actively eroded, which destroyed wetland and riparian areas and carried sediment downstream.
To address these problems, Sonoma County Regional Parks and partners launched a restoration effort to protect the pond, enhance wildlife habitat and improve trail conditions. Key actions included:
- Spillway Replacement: Crews removed a failing concrete spillway and installed a longer, gently sloped rock-lined channel with energy-dissipation pools to slow water and reduce erosion.
- Native Plant Restoration: Crews planted native trees, shrubs, and perennials to reestablish natural vegetation.
- Gully Repair: Crews regraded a severely eroded gully and installed check dams to slow runoff, raise the water table and retain more moisture in the adjacent meadow.
- Pond Management: Crews developed and implemented a long-term plan to manage invasive species and support pond health.
- Trail Improvements: Crews rerouted and upgraded trails to minimize erosion and improve public access around the pond.
Mark West Creek and Wetland Restoration Planning Project
Sonoma County Regional Parks surveyed the Mark West Creek Regional Park and Open Space Preserve and found over 20 locations to improve water quality and stream flow and create healthier habitats for salmon, including the endangered coho salmon. We received a grant from Wildlife Conservation Board to collect further site data and conduct planning and design for implementing projects. Plans have been developed for approximately 15 acres of wet meadow restoration areas including restoration actions such as wet meadow swales, biotechnical bank stabilization, roughened channels, wet meadow depressions, beaver dam analogs and native plantings.
As part of this planning work, the team created a Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (PBR) Guide in partnership with the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center and the Sonoma Resource Conservation District. Upper Watershed Process-Based Restoration (PBR) uses simple, hands-on methods to restore small streams and drainages that don’t hold fish year-round. These areas often suffer from erosion caused by logging, poorly built roads, undersized culverts or ditches that were dug to dry out the land.
Restoration crews use materials from nearby vegetation and forest management projects, like branches and logs, to help rebuild structure and retain soil in creek and wetland areas. Instead of chipping or hauling away this “slash,” they reuse it to slow down water, raise the streambed and reduce erosion. This helps the land hold more water, supports healthier forests and stores more carbon in the soil.
The main goals of Upper Watershed PBR are to:
- Stop erosion and sediment loss
- Slow down fast-moving water
- Refill underground water supplies
- Capture carbon from the atmosphere
- Create better habitat for plants and animals
- Bring stream systems closer to their natural state before development
By restoring these upper stream areas, Sonoma County is helping to protect wildlife, improve water quality and make the watershed more resilient for the future.
Monte Rio Redwoods Upper Watershed Restoration Project
Monte Rio Redwoods Regional Park and Open Space Preserve is a 2,030-acre park near the West County communities of Monte Rio, Camp Meeker, Tyrone, and Occidental. It contains a large coast redwood forest that has been logged for more than 150 years. Redwoods are especially good at storing carbon in their strong, rot-resistant wood, sometimes for hundreds of years. Research from Cal Poly Humboldt shows that restoring second-growth redwoods and helping them grow into old-growth forests can significantly boost carbon storage.
In 2023, Regional Parks teamed up with the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) to lead a hands-on training and restoration project at the park. They timed the work to coincide with a roadside vegetation clearing effort, reusing the cut branches and debris to fix four eroding gullies and about 100 feet of small streams that flow into Dutch Bill Creek.
OAEC also helped with the permitting process by working with the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This effort is part of OAEC’s Fuels to Flows campaign, which works to change permitting rules and make it easier to use low-risk, nature-based restoration methods.
Doran Dune Restoration Project
Doran Regional Park in Bodega Bay provides important beach and dune habitat for the western snowy plover and other shorebirds. About 30 snowy plovers regularly use the park in winter to forage and rest, and nesting was first seen in 2020.
Invasive plants like iceplant and European beach grass reduce the quality of this habitat for plovers and gives more cover to predators. Replacing invasive plants with native species improves the habitat for many animals, including pollinators, insects, and coastal birds. Native plants also help camouflage snowy plovers and give them better nesting and foraging areas.
Since 2015, Sonoma County Regional Parks and volunteers from the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) have worked together to remove invasive plants from the dunes. In 2022, funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supported a larger planting effort. Regional Parks and the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation collected local seeds and grew native dune plants in their nursery.
Crews and volunteers planted the area in 2023 and continue to care for and monitor the site. The native plants are growing well and snowy plovers and other birds have returned to forage in the restored dunes. Ongoing monitoring will help guide future restoration work at Doran.
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