Creek Lands Conservation

02/25/2026

We're proud of our partnership with People's Self-Help Housing!

Thanks to a partnership with Creek Lands Conservation, students at Creston Garden Apartments are helping build a neighborhood garden. In the process, students will learn impactful and sustainable practices to care for nature within their community. Thank you, Creek Lands Conservation!

01/15/2026

We’re growing something beautiful in North San Luis Obispo County 🌱 and it’s more than just food and habitat gardens!

Rooted Resilience is a project sprouted from a simple idea: children and families in affordable housing deserve cultivation of vibrant community spaces to learn, play, and connect with the land. With support from , and in partnership with and , we transformed abandoned sand pits and concrete playscapes into thriving native and harvest garden centered outdoor learning spaces. Creek Lands hosted an initial workshop series to seed native habitat before our winter rains, as well as foundational nature journaling, natural history, and garden planning.

Now, students are identifying plants, sharing stories, strengthening bilingual English-Spanish learning, and savoring the land in a new way (acorn cookies and minty yerba buena tea being fan favorites!). Teen garden caretakers are stepping into leadership roles and families will get to taste the fruits and vegetables of their winter labor.

These spaces are more than ecological restorations but also cultural shifts. They’re places for families to reclaim their heritage, build communal resilience through stewardship, and where partnerships rooted in trust and collaboration blossom into lasting change. Together, we’re restoring joy, ecological integrity, and food access one garden bed at a time.

11/15/2025

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the sold-out State of the SLO Creek Watershed event last month! Thanks for all the great feedback about our work in SLO Creek. We loved connecting with partners and friends old and new, and enjoying the amazing food, drinks, and live music! It was wonderful to have the community come together to celebrate SLO Creek. THANK YOU for supporting Creek Lands Conservation and our partners as we continue restoring and safeguarding SLO Creek for generations to come🐟

10/22/2025

ONE DAY AWAY! Join us tomorrow Oct. 23rd at the Octagon Barn to celebrate SLO Creek and learn about the work we’ve been doing to restore this incredible local waterway! There will be food, beer and wine, live music, and a silent auction. Link to register in bio!

10/10/2025

Join us at the SLO Octagon Barn on Oct. 23rd at 4:30 pm for the State of the SLO Creek Watershed event! You’ll get the inside scoop on what’s planned for your local SLO Creek estuary in Avila Beach, and so much more. Come for the science and stay for the party—there will be a silent auction, food truck, live music, and beer and wine🍻 Register today at the link in bio before tickets sell out!

08/19/2025

Arroyo Grande Creek had a diversity of engineers hard at work this spring! A keen beaver began building on the foundation of nets our teams set up during our recent fish passage barrier removal project. By morning, she had woven an array of sticks and rocks to strengthen her new dam - swipe to see mama showing her baby how it’s done. 💙

08/18/2025

Creek Lands Conservation is excited to host our biggest event of the year, the State of the SLO Creek Watershed, to celebrate our community's collective efforts to restore San Luis Obispo Creek!

With generous support from the Harold J. Miossi Charitable Trust, Creek Lands scientists and educators have collaborated over the past 3 years with local stakeholders and partners to develop the SLO Creek Resiliency and Rewilding Action Plan. This is a strategic roadmap for impactful restoration in the SLO Creek watershed, home to native and endangered wildlife and cherished by our local community.

Come hear about key findings as we highlight current work in the watershed, and learn about what’s next for a resilient and thriving SLO Creek. The SLO Creek R&R Action Plan sets the foundation for future restoration work — come find out where we’re headed and how you can stay involved!

Following short presentations and a panel discussion, stick around for a celebration including beer and wine, a food truck, live music, and a silent auction. Space is limited — register today!: https://my805tix.com/e/watershed

We can’t wait to celebrate SLO Creek with you!

08/05/2025

Food is a powerful connection to land. At City Farm SLO and Prefumo Creek, our CC YES students learned about regenerative agriculture and grazing, then checked out a riparian restoration to support biodiversity.

We harvested summer crops, shared meals from the farm, and tested water quality. Students got a taste of the landscape by making sea lettuce “chips” and snacking on manzanita berries and sweet wild fennel on their treks around the Morro Bay estuary!

Locally and responsibly sourced ingredients were highlighted all week long thanks to additional local sponsors like Bread Bike Bakery in SLO, Sun Shine Health Foods in Morro Bay, and NOSH foods from Grocery Outlet Los Osos. Check out some of our favorite recipes that came together like this California wheat sourdough, organic peanut butter, sun warmed berries, and local honey drizzle! 🌱🍞

07/29/2025

CC YES campers got their hands and hearts in the Morro Bay State Marine Preserve again this year. Many took their first paddles, kayaking as teams across the estuary to explore shifting dune ecology thanks to Sub Sea Tours. We also can’t thank our partners at Morro Bay National Estuary Program enough for a magical afternoon on the mainland! Groups got to model watershed pollution, and devise stewardship strategies they could lead back in their communities. By the end of the day we had hiked above the clouds to journal and reflect on a magical day traversing up the watershed 🛶📓

07/21/2025

From freshwater creeks to coastal estuaries, Central Coast Youth Environmental Steward (CC YES) campers explored the heart of our watersheds!

This year, our program included first time hikers to program alumni join together, eager to connect and reach new heights - including Bishop’s Peak! We hiked ancient volcanic mountains, identified native species, harvested edible plants, and crafted gifts from the land for our loved ones. Our young stewards deepened their connection to place through play, learning, and hands-on ecology exploring the diversity of habitats and specials species in the chaparral, oak woodlands, and dune scapes of our home place. 🌊🌾

06/10/2025

Our WSP corpmembers, Shannon and Maeve, have been working hard all year to support Creeklands projects! ⚡️🌊💪

The main things they have been working on are steelhead trout redd surveys, flow monitoring, and monitoring after the removal of the stream gauge on Arroyo Grande Creek.

Their redd survey efforts have been focused on SLO creek, and they found almost 20 redds, one Pacific lamprey carcass, and one actively spawning steelhead (see our previous posts for more details on redd surveys). They thoroughly enjoyed the surveys, as they got to enjoy the serenity of our urban stream.

Flow monitoring efforts were focused on SLO and Stenner creeks, helping to gain an understanding of how water use from these streams effects flows. Flow monitoring days involve long hikes, and slow days sitting by the creek.

Stream gauge removal monitoring has included both flow monitoring in the creek, as well as monitoring and managing the post-construction planting. They have been keeping track of how many plants have survived, and spend long days removing invasives to help our native plants grow. The creek is recovering well, and the plants are thriving!

Shannon and Maeve have loved their experience with WSP so far, and can’t wait to see what summer will bring! So stay tuned 🌞