Naturalist For You

Connecting everyone to local wilderness!

Naturalist For You was founded in August of 2006 as a direct response to the Irvine Company’s threat of developing the rural foothills of Orange at the gateway to the wild and scenic Santa Ana Mountains. Their large-scale residential development known as Santiago Hills II included over four thousand single-family homes from Jamboree to Limestone Canyon, posing significant environmental impacts that could not be adequately mitigated. When most of the wildlife habitat and agriculture had been lost to urbanization in the City of Orange, this land served as the last refuge for declining wildlife species and an escape for residents seeking relief from the excessive pollution of the city.
Recognizing that the majority of the urbanized population of Orange was not familiar with the threatened land and were deprived of exposure and access to the benefits of outdoor recreation and education opportunities, NFY was designed to facilitate positive memorable experiences in these irreplaceable biologically diverse environments for the public benefit to raise awareness through guided interpretive walks, thus building advocacy for the preservation of our remaining undeveloped natural areas in Orange and throughout Southern California. We offer this gift of experience to children who never heard the chorus of frogs in the creek, quail or gnatcatchers calling in the aromatic sagebrush never seen a roadrunner darting by with a snake in its beak or a mule deer peacefully browsing a wildflower meadow, horned lizards licking up harvester ants because they have grown up in landscapes where natural flowing creeks, woodlands, meadows and shrublands have been replaced with concrete, asphalt, strip malls, tract housing and gas stations.

Accomplishments:
* We successfully reached a settlement with the Irvine Company to pause development of the Orange Hills site (wildlife corridor and prehistoric Native American village site).
* We hosted 72 guided nature programs for schools, the general public, and private hosts.
* We coordinated 42 volunteers, including 8 interns from UCI and Cal State Fullerton and 3 students from Santiago Canyon College.
* We recruited, trained and certified 13 new naturalists to assist with guided nature walks/hikes, outreach, school field trips and community events.

Goals:
* NFY currently relies on volunteer and part-time/contract staff. We are working on a staffing structure that can meet the administrative needs of the organization so that program specialists can be effective in their role.
* We have found passionate and reliable supporters to fund the Save Orange Hills campaign, but need to also channel philanthropic efforts to Naturalist for You to keep its nature programs affordable to the public.
* Create more advocates in the community and mobilize them to demand that the City Council and Planning Commission deny the development of the Orange Hills site into housing and instead preserve it as a wildlife corridor.

* Pledges towards the conservation purchase of the Orange Hills. (Immediate needs: $83,000,000)
* Fiscal impact analysis of the Orange Heights project (Immediate needs: $50,000)
* Finances - create more streams of income revenue to pay for IT support, tour guides, staff (full time: event coordinator, marketing, IT support, social media, administration/ops person). (Immediate needs: $200,000)

Southern California

We look forward to acquiring the Orange Hills and donating the land to OC Parks as Orange Hills Regional Park. This conservation purchase would permanently protect vital habitat for mountain lion, white-tailed kite, Crotch's bumble bee and other threatened and endangered species by connecting Irvine Regional Park (the oldest regional park in the state) and Peters Canyon Regional Park, tying together 1,245 acres, thereby saving the link to the Santa Ana Mountains. Within the park, there will be the establishment of multi-use, environmentally sensitive public trails, special conservation areas for fragile species, and protection for a prehistoric Native American village site. Naturalist For You is prepared to offer enriching public nature programs in this new park for the benefit of the under served population from West Orange, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Garden Grove who do not have access to undeveloped natural areas in their neighborhoods.