Stewardship
Protecting the land is the easy part.
Stewardship is the rest of the job — restoring the meadow, repairing the trail, monitoring the stream, thinning the forest, picking up the trash. Every protected acre needs hands. Most of those hands are volunteers.
Land stewardship is the recognition of our collective responsibility to retain, manage and enhance the quality and abundance of our land, air, water and biodiversity.
Ways to help
Six volunteer roles, every season.
No experience needed for most of these — show up, get trained, get to work. Crews of every age and ability are welcome.
Participatory Science
Bluebird boxes, phenology, bumble bees, eDNA, mycology — real scientific data collection on protected land.
Water Quality Monitoring
Cosumnes River program — temperature, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen. UC Davis Caldor Fire study since 2021.
Land Steward Program
Property monitoring, land management, and guides for Open Preserve Days and volunteer-led hikes.
River Cleanups
Pick a date that works for your friends, family, or organization — work together to enhance the watershed.
Trail Workdays
Brushing trail corridors, building new trail routes, general trail maintenance. Often at Acorn Creek and Salmon Falls.
Stewardship Workdays
Range of land stewardship tasks — large group projects on remote properties to small site-improvement work.
Project · American River Headwaters
Healthy forests, biodiverse meadows, fire-resilient land.
We envision spectacular beauty, biodiversity, and healthy forests across the American River Headwaters. The work spans the French Meadows partnership with PCWA and Tahoe National Forest, the SOFAR vegetation thinning project on the South Fork, the Leek Springs Meadow restoration, the Acorn Creek oak mitigation, and the ongoing Cosumnes River Trail work. Every project has a public document, a volunteer signup, and a story worth telling.
Project · Resilience response
When the road washes out, we dig the culvert.
Significant flooding in recent years has caused severe damage to ARC properties — flooding at Chili Bar Park impacted the boat launch area; a landslide at Lewis Ranch washed out the main road. Our Resilience Reserve covers urgent and ongoing land management — materials, labor, equipment, repair, cleanup, replacement. The work is unglamorous, expensive, and not optional.
Stewardship in numbers
15,000+
Acres ARC actively manages
5+
Major active restoration projects
Weekly
Workdays open to new volunteers
2021
Year UC Davis water-quality partnership began
Active restoration projects
What's underway in 2026.
American River Headwaters
Long-term forest restoration vision — partnerships with PCWA, Tahoe NF, French Meadows partners.
SOFAR vegetation thinning
South Fork American River project — fuel reduction, understory restoration, wildfire resilience.
Leek Springs Meadow
Sierra meadow restoration — open to volunteer signups every season.
Acorn Creek oak mitigation
Oak woodland restoration at Salmon Falls Ranch, alongside trail expansion.
Cosumnes River Trail
Phased trail and habitat work along the upper Cosumnes corridor.
Resilience Reserve
A restricted fund for storm response, fire response, and unplanned land-management costs.
The work doesn't stop at the deed
The next workday needs an extra pair of hands.
Sign up for a workday, pick up a phenology survey, fund a culvert repair through the Resilience Reserve. Every contribution — labor or capital — keeps protected land actually protected.