Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Park ranger Michael Bacon is one of several guides who will be on hand when some 5,000 children participate in Forest Conservation Days.
Forest event focuses on conservation
By Shari Kaplan
Sanborn-Skyline County Park in Saratoga will soon be an open-air classroom with trees for walls and stones or weathered benches for desks. From March 20 through 31, the Northern California Society of American Foresters hosts its ninth annual Forest Conservation Days at the secluded 3,642-acre park.
The weekdays are for fifth-graders convening at the park from schools throughout the county, while the weekend of March 25 and 26 is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Society of American Foresters, now in its centennial year, co-sponsors Forest Conservation Days with the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department. The SAF is a national nonprofit organization whose goal is to advance the science, education, technology and practice of forestry and to ensure the health and proper use of forest ecosystems now and in the future.
"[Forest Conservation Days] is a community outreach program that focuses on inner city youth. It brings children into a wooded setting to show them how trees grow and the link between the forest and wood products in our daily lives. It also illustrates the care we must take to sustain the forest, so that we have it for generations to come," says Laura Alber, a consulting forester, SAF member and FCD volunteer. FCD has grown and evolved to include Boy and Girl Scout troops, as well as the general public, she says.
"It's a whole educational process about life and ecology in the forest," agrees Sanborn-Skyline resident ranger Michael Bacon. "Some of the kids who come here are so flat-out out of their element that it's amazing. They're used to seeing urban creeks lined with asphalt!"
To give young and old alike a taste of forest life, foresters with different specialties, park rangers and other individuals with environmental careers lead nature walks and run various displays and demonstrations.
Volunteers take visitors to more than a dozen areas of the forest and park for visual, audio or tactile lessons--an old tree with mushrooms growing on its bark facilitates a short talk on fungi and decomposition, while a portable sawmill and an old steam donkey--an antiquated apparatus once used to haul cut trees to waiting trains--offers a look at the making of paper and lumber.
Another site reveals that forests can be filled with Native American artifacts, remains of old mines, or miners' equipment or other hidden items. In fact, in forests slated for tree harvesting, registered professional foresters must first conduct an assessment to see if they contain anything of historical value. If so, an archeologist is called in. Elsewhere in the park, AmeriCorps volunteers provide exhibits on riparian life and river restoration--complete with real salmon fry.
Visitors are also welcome to eat lunch in the picnic areas, or take a hike along Sanborn-Skyline's many trails to enjoy the park's trees, flowers and wildlife in the springtime.
Sanborn-Skyline County Park is at 16055 Sanborn Road in Saratoga. FCD activities are free, although there is a $4 vehicle fee to park. For directions or more information, call Tamara Clark-Shear at 408.358.3741 ext. 131 or the Sanborn office at 408.867.9959. Information about the SAF is available on the Internet at www.safnet.org.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
