The California Conservation Corps (CCC), in collaboration with CAL FIRE, American Forests, and the Mojave Desert Resource Conservation District, helped plant 70,000 seedlings in the San Bernardino Mountains. Supported by $200,000 in California Climate Investments funding, the project’s goal was to re-plant an area in and around the Eaton Scout Reservation in Cedar Glen. The project is the result of interagency coordination and collaboration and helped invest in Corpsmembers from underserved areas by providing information about tree planting and reforestation and providing them with experience in the mountains to help cultivate interests in forest health.

Dozens of CCC Corpsmembers based out of the Inland Empire Center in San Bernardino participated in this project, including banding, staking, and protecting seedlings, and putting in 11,130 total work hours of watering, to ensure the seedlings would grow in an area heavily impacted by wildfire. CCC crews planted as many as 2,000 seedlings—consisting of ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, sugar pine, and big cone Douglas fir—per day.

“There was a lot of hiking back and forth,” said CCC Conservationist I John Lugo. “We had to grid out the location, 10 feet wide by 10 feet wide. We would get out in the line, take 10 steps, and then make a hole for the sapling to go into. Someone would fill in the soil around it and we’d move on to the next one.”

CCC Inland Empire Corpsmembers have worked on a variety of projects in this region of the San Bernardino Mountains over the years. The training and experience on projects, such as this, lead Corpsmembers to quality jobs in forestry, firefighting, and natural resources. It’s also individually significant for those who took part in the planting.

“I was personally affected by some of those fires,” said CCC Corpsmember Keith Huckabee of San Bernardino. “It looks completely different now. Just knowing that we’re helping this forest kind of get back to its natural state was rewarding.”