This spring, CURes staff were busy leading tours of our beautiful Ballona Discovery Park and exploring the features of LMU’s Campus, giving keynote speeches, and carrying on research activities for our ongoing work in California and Maryland.
CATE JOURNAL
The Cities And The Environment Journal continued to share wide-ranging urban ecology research and practice. CATE’s March issue: Volume 19, Issue 1 featured research from the US cities of Los Angeles, New York, and Rio Piedras, PR, and African locations in Oyo State, Nigeria and the Tolon District of the Northern Region of Ghana. CATE editors also sent a call for papers for proceedings from our 2025 symposium, to be published later this year.
CAMPUS & BALLONA DISCOVERY PARK
On Saturday, April 11 former Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and CURes Drollinger Environmental Fellow Lisa Fimiani spoke to graduating seniors majoring in Urban and Environmental Studies. As part of their capstone projects the students posed important questions/challenges to Ruth and Lisa, who have a combined history in the Ballona Wetlands spanning 50+ years. The students were delighted to hear from someone credited in saving what’s left of the Wetlands, as Ruth took them through the process of navigating a complicated web of politics, community aspirations, and environmental concerns. Lisa added her hands-on ground-up experiences assisting with the Dunes Restoration, wildlife monitoring, and opening of Ballona Discovery Park in 2011, at the trailhead of the Ballona Wetlands. Later in the month Lisa led a tour of The General Federation of Women’s Clubs Playa del Rey chapter, in honor of Earth Month.
On Sunday, April 12 the Theodore Payne Foundation held its annual Garden Tour, where Lisa participated as a Docent educating visitors to the importance of the 30 years old garden which inspired many features in Ballona Discovery Park and countless garden restoration projects throughout the Southland, as part of The Gottlieb Native Garden mission.
Because life is full of synchronistic events, two Eagle Scouts came to CURes to find locations for their Solitary Bee Box projects, and staff supported the planning and research necessary to carry out both. A visit to The Gottlieb Native Garden was in order, and Naturalist Scott Logan took the Scouts through the process for managing bee boxes. The first set of bee boxes were installed in Ballona Discovery Park during May, and the second set will go in up on the LMU Campus late summer/early fall. The importance of bees, especially our native bees, is now being showcased as part of our educational opportunities for students and the community at large
We segued from bees to butterflies, sprucing up our two monarch butterfly gardens with the host plants used by these endangered butterflies, in anticipation for a successful summer of caterpillar development and transformation into the next generation of Monarch Butterflies!
Celebrating with Friends of Ballona Wetlands, LMU participated in their 11th annual Migration Celebration on Saturday, May 30th, with CURes showcasing our work in the community and Dr. Covino’s students explaining their studies of Tree Swallows in the Ballona Freshwater Marsh.
Our oldest resident Western Bluebird couple, Sage and Blue Ivy Carter, came back for the 5th year in a row to successfully fledge three babies this Spring, and didn’t seem to mind all the excitement on Campus over graduation the weekend of May 16-17.
RESEARCH
In April, members of the CURes team kicked off Year 2 of their Oak Wildfire Restoration project in Ojai at the Taft Gardens and Nature Preserve. We had the chance to meet with all the project partners to discuss progress and strategize plans for the next phase. We were excited to showcase the work there to Verena Kwan from our funding partner Edison International.
CURes’ research projects in Society and the Environment have been very active this spring. Our work with the Gateway Cities Regional Climate Collaborative included completing interviews with GCRCC partners and working to finalize a collaborative paper to assess and reflect on the process of co-producing a climate resilience roadmap for the region.
In May, we met with Maryland state agency partners to discuss ways to most effectively share the technical assistance resources we created as part of the Healthy Trees Healthy Cities project with The Nature Conservancy, as the grant period ends in late 2026. Following TNC’s announcement that they will no longer conduct urban forestry programs in Baltimore, Dr. Romolini led a team of partners to submit a $1M Amtrak Community Investment Program application to provide continuity to this work. Send us good thoughts for a successful proposal!
Dr. Romolini has also been working hard to develop the agenda for the June 17 Baltimore Ecosystem Quarterly Meeting. Lisa will be in Baltimore on 6/17-6/18 to participate in the BES meeting and complete a full-day tour of various Baltimore projects with CURes’ collaborators. We are excited to continue to build our presence and partnerships in Baltimore.
In early June, Dr. Strauss co-led a community workshop in the Oceano Dunes for Phase 2 of our work examining community perspectives related to the Parks.
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Roya has been organizing and helping to facilitate Restorative Justice working groups, through our continuing relationships with school districts to train their staff and administration on implementing restorative practices. We are proud to share that we have hosted trainings in this past academic year with the Los Angeles County of Education. We have also begun planning the K-12 Restorative Justice Practices Implementation Academy, set to take place from July 27-30 at the LMU campus, bringing together groups from all over the country for a 4-day training.
As we leave this semester, we are reminded that the work at CURes is never done. We look forward to a new Fall Semester at LMU, continuing to pursue our work to promote resilience in the communities we serve!