Reforesting Fort Ord

Abstract

This thesis examines the potential for the conservation of Monterey pine biodiversity through the active planting of an experimental forest in the Impact Area of Fort Ord: a former US military firing range soon to become part of a national monument. It confronts the delicate balance between passive ecosystem restoration and destructive total-remediation of compromised landscapes. Through choreographing munitions disposal with planting and tactical access to establish a human-assisted forest, the thesis challenges the colonial freeze-frame of what species can be “native” and where. In doing so, it provides a framework for re-connecting communities to locked-up public lands, and envisions how experimental forests, designed landscapes, and collaborative management can cultivate identity and social investment in a newly designated urban national monument. Here is a place once forbidden to people and to pines, where finally there is a possibility for more than preservation.