Stunt Ranch Biodiversity Hike for Healing and Environmental Justice

The ‘Stunt Ranch Reserve Biodiversity Hike’ was an event with the primary objective of connecting UCLA students to the local ecology and biodiversity found in Los Angeles and providing space for discussions surrounding environmental justice and health equity. The event was a collaboration between the Environmental Health Sciences Student Association at the Fielding School of Public Health and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. The event took place at Stunt Ranch Reserve, a centre up in the Santa Monica Mountains maintained by UCLA. The event consisted of a hike and discussion led by Ashley Jahja and guides who specialise in local biodiversity and environmental research. The guides, Madeleine Zuercher and Chenlu Di from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB), led discussions surrounding native species and wildlife, and the importance of biodiversity in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. The final event had 26 participants and garnered widely positive feedback, with strong interest in participating in similar events in the future.
As the organizer of this event, I spent two months conceptualising and executing this event. I reached out to David Blake, the assistant director of the La Kretz Center, to coordinate booking the reserve for Saturday, May 4th. He also helped me advertise the event and circulate volunteer recruitment postings to find suitable guides for the hike. He shared with me documents on the history and biodiversity of the reserve and gave me examples of past events that were held in Stunt Ranch Reserve to give me inspiration as to what the event could look like. I wanted to find someone to speak on the local biodiversity, who ended up being Madeleine Zuercher, a PhD student in EEB. Chenlu Di, a postdoctorate in EEB also aided in speaking about food webs and biodiversity conservation. With my small team, I helped develop engaging lesson plans for the hike. I also put together an event proposal to secure funding for the event from the Fielding School of Public Health. To spread awareness of the event, I enlisted help from David Blake to circulate a flyer I made to the EEB and IOES email listservs. I also circulated the flyer to the BIPOC Climate Network email listserv and departmental listservs around Fielding School of Public Health. Within the RSVP form I attached to the flyer, I coordinated a carpool system to ensure that the event was as accessible as possible for all participants.
Originally, I wanted to pose this hike with the heavy emphasis on education of environmental topics. This event also help spread awareness of Stunt Ranch Reserve as a research site and ecological event space, which UCLA students can use to host events such as this one. Throughout the hike, the other guides and I talked about potential research opportunities and restoration events that Stunt Ranch Reserve is a venue for. However, this event occurred the weekend after the UCLA encampment in support of Palestine was dispersed and the UCLA community was terrorised by violent counter-protesters and police brutality. In light of this, I shifted focus to provide a safe and calming space for participants to decompress after the traumatising week. I connected with my team to check in and see how they were impacted by that week’s events and made sure that everyone felt comfortable to perform their responsibilities. Overall, the event was very successful, with every single participant giving glowing positive feedback after the event concluded. We had a total of 26 participants, ranging from UCLA graduate and undergraduate students, UCLA alumnus and unaffiliated participants who work in environmental sectors. The participants were mostly grateful to have a therapeutic and supportive environment to decompress and learn about nature.