Indigenous-run nonprofit hopes to reconnect with land, food, culture on Sebastopol farm

On a small plot of land in Sebastopol, you can hear everything ― the sound of a squirrel nibbling a walnut, water trickling through the soil and blue birds fluttering their wings as they perch on apple trees as the smell of burning sage and potatoes drifts from an old farmhouse.

The tranquility of Heron Shadow Farm, a 7.6-acre plot of land in the center of the agricultural mecca of Sebastopol, has drawn Indigenous people in the Bay Area seeking to ground themselves and reconnect with the land and their culture by practicing traditional forms of agriculture and giving back to their community.

“This is the building and returning of Native hands to Native lands,” said Sara Moncada, CEO of the Cultural Conservancy. Heron Shadow is run by the Cultural Conservancy, a native-led intertribal nonprofit in the Bay Area. They also have bases in San Francisco and the College of Marin.

The farm provides opportunities for ecological restoration, growing native food crops, cooking, educating the community “or just having a safe space for Native people to come and sit under a tree and relax and reconnect with the landscape,” Moncada said.

The previous owner of the idyllic spot had long wished to return the land to Indigenous people. In 2019, the owner found the Cultural Conservancy through word-of-mouth and sold the land to the nonprofit for half price.

Being on Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo territory, conservancy leaders first reached out to leaders of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, who asked and granted the nonprofit permission to cultivate the land and use it to reconnect with their cultural and agricultural roots, Moncada said.

Then COVID-19 hit, creating challenges, but the isolation also granted them uninterrupted time on the farm where they could set other projects aside. “It was a gift of focus,” Moncada said.

What organizers and volunteers practiced was “really listening and waiting to hear what rises organically when you sit still long enough,” Moncada said. “Especially when you invite community to come and listen, because they all hear, experience and feel different things and you get all of that good dialogue together.”

Last year, they cultivated their first acre of land on the Heron Shadow and grew and donated over 8,100 pounds of fresh produce, more than 50 Native seed packets and 275 plant starts to Native communities.

Since 2019, when they inherited the land, Native coordinators, volunteers and interns have been working together on projects small and large.

They’ve conducted cultural burns on the small grassy fields, built a greenhouse filled with large twisting varieties of dry-farmed squash, glass gem corn and amaranth, built a traditional tule canoe and held a community ceremony for its first launch, as well as welcoming four interns to learn alongside them.

“It was a source of pride for (the Coast Miwok community) to be able to do that, and to take it out and launch it,” said Redbird Willie, of Pomo, Paiute, Wintu and Wailaki ancestry. He is the land manager and sole full-time resident of the farm.

“We're not just, you know, farming and doing crops,” Willie said, sitting at a wooden table in the 1930s farmhouse, under a line of twine, which was used for drying herbs and medicinal tobacco. “We're also supporting culture.”

In one of the gardens, you can find Elk Clover, ginseng, tobacco plants, Flannel Bushes, rue, elderberry, deer grass, sedges and dozens of other medicinal plants that tribes have used for generations.

A Choctaw and Salvadorian intern, Jordan Torress, 30, of Petaluma, said he’s learned many lessons from being on the land.

“The world can seem like a grim and dark place sometimes,” Torres said. “Coming to a place that's like entirely community-oriented, we're actively trying to solve problems of food sovereignty and changing the environment for the better. It’s a place of positivity and active change.”

They’ve also launched their first Native Seed Library, planted over 50 trees in their fruit orchard and hosted elders to tell stories and pass along traditional food and land practices.

Moncada said having a plot in Sonoma County in the present-day and giving the community access to ancestral lands is a rare gift for Indigenous people, with the extraordinary cost of land in Sonoma County.

“It's out of reach for the majority of Indigenous community,” she said. “So the reality of being able to walk through a land project that restores 7.6 acres of that land in the heart of Sonoma County’s crazy agricultural system, I mean, what an honor.”

Not in their lifetime, or even her father’s lifetime, did she anticipate the possibility of land projects accessible to Native communities, she said.

“We're returning the relationship between Indigenous people, food and the land,” Moncada said. “And that relationship can be very individual to every human being, but it can also be collective ― that means that the sky's the limit.”

You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8511 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @alana_minkler.