Meadow Restoration

The North Fork Mono Tribe works with a variety of partners to assess and restore meadows across their ancestral homelands. The Tribes conducts culturally-informed biological assessments, tree and brush removal, and is working towards implementing cultural fire to support the restoration of meadows. The Sierra Nevada mountains have thousands of meadows that - without Indigenous stewardship - have expereinced extensive encroachment, which disrupts their function as the sponges that water the forest. When trees start growing too close to and then in the meadows, they take too much water, which dries out the soil, makes it more difficult for the meadow to absorb water. A properly functioning meadow is clear and open, absorbs water like a sponges in the wet season and feeds creeks, spring and surrounds vegetation thoroughtout the year. A dry meadow cannot perform this essential function.

Meadows where the NFMT has or is currently working:

Sierra National Forest

• Texas Flat Meadow

• China Meadow

• Benedict Meadow

• Beehive Meadow

• Peckinpah Meadow

• Chipmunk Meadow

• Poison Meadow

• Meserve Meadow

• Exchequer Meadow

Inyo National Forest

• Agnew Meadow

• Reds Meadow