Using a manzanita burl hammer, Native Steward Gabriel Pineda drives living willow stakes into the Amah Mutsun Garden fence at Pie Ranch. Pie Ranch, which receives thousands of visitors annually, has begun using the Amah Mutsun Garden for public education programs.

Rapid plant growth at the Pie Ranch Mutsun Garden. Garden pathways and native plantings were mulched during the course of NSC this summer, keeping down weeds and mud and providing nutrients and moisture to developing transplants.

Tribal Elder Eleanor Castro leads a beading workshop with the Native Stewards. During NSC, the stewards participate in daily cultural and educational activities to strengthen a sense of Mutsun identity.

Native Steward Paul Lopez displays an abalone pendant necklace he made from Ender Nora's beading workshop.

Native Steward Paul Lopez uses an elk antler to flake an obsidian core in an arrowhead-making demonstration. Native Stewards learn and practice traditional crafts and skills at Stewardship Corps, keeping skills like flintknapping alive within the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.

Native Stewards tend hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) at the Amah Mutsun Relearning Garden at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum with AMLT Research Associate Rick Flores. By acting as seed bank, woodlot, native plant nursery, demonstration garden and more, the UCSC Arboretum provides unparalleled horticultural resources to the AMLT.

Native Steward Gabriel Pineda wraps white sage (Salvia apiana), gathered from the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum's Amah Mutsun Relearning garden, into smudge sticks for ceremonial use.

White sage bundles.

Pine needles (Pinus ponderosa), also gathered at the UCSC Arboretum, are bundled for basket-making.

Native Steward Paul Lopez, with the beginnings of a well-crafted pine-needle basket.

Native Stewards Natalie Garcia (left) and Abran Lopez (right) clear coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis) in Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve. Grasslands dominated by native grasses, perennials and forbs--including many traditional food and medicinal species--comprised the dominant vegetation in Quiroste Valley until as recently as the early 1900s, when fire suppression and removal of ungualtes allowed shrubs and conifers to encroach. In lieu of fire, the AMLT maintains these culturally significant grasslands primarily by hand.

Native Steward Natalie Garcia uses a chainsaw to remove encroaching Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in a native grassland at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve.

Native Steward Paul Lopez begins removal of a stand of Pampas grass (Cortaderia jubata) in the Costanoa Easement. The AMLT has been controlling the spread of the invasive Pampas grass at the Costanoa Easement for nearly two years, preventing the spread of the invasive grass into nearby Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve. In 2015, Native Stewards spent two weeks removing over 600 mature Pampas grass individuals. In the same 40-acre area, this year they removed over 350 individuals--many resprouts of former mature plants--in the course of only three days, demonstrating the efficacy of our previous restoration efforts.

Native Steward Nathan Vasquez with the root ball of a clump of Pampas grass, recently removed from the Costanoa Easement.

The August 2016 Amah Mutsun Native Stewards. From left to right: Abran Lopez, Natalie Garcia, Gabriel Pineda, Paul Lopez and Nathan Vasquez.

Project Assistant Jay Scherf picks up a hitchhiker in the Costanoa Easement.

Native Steward Abran Lopez records phenological data about culturally significant plant species at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Reserve, managed by one of AMLT's partner organizations, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. Since 2014, AMLT stewards, assistants, and volunteers have surveyed Midpen lands seasonally for notable populations of culturally significant species. The surveys - and the important information they generate about population sizes and ideal harvest times - have expanded the Tribe's traditional food, basketry, ceremonial, and medicinal plant resources and have allowed for the experimental reintroduction of native foods back into the Mutsun diet.

Tribal Elder Eleanor Castro holds a bundle of five-finger fern (Adiantum aleuticum), a basketry plant, while gathering in lands administered by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.