The team monitoring outplanted blue oaks inside a Living Library enclosure at dusk, with sun over the coastal hills
Students record measurements on seedlings in a Blue Oak Living Library planting inside a protective enclosure at dusk, Hopland Research and Extension Center.

Why your support matters

Research on how to help our foundational trees adapt to climate change is expensive. Grant funding is uncertain in today's political climate. Some of our most important work, like building relationships with ranchers and Indigenous land stewards or maintaining the Blue Oak Living Library sites doesn't fit neatly into a grant cycle.

Private support gives our team the flexibility to move quickly when opportunities arise — for example, to rescue seeds from a threatened population before a drought kills the trees, to maintain monitoring through a funding gap, or to add new samples to our genomics analyses — and to train the next generation of students and postdocs who will carry this work forward.

California's forests and woodlands belong to all of us. If their future matters to you, we'd be grateful for your support. 🌱

Some examples of how funds are used

🌱
Genetic rescue through field gene banking

Transportation, equipment, and labor to collect, process and outplant acorns from at-risk populations before they are lost.

🧬
Genomic analysis

Sequencing and computational analysis to identify which populations carry the adaptive variation needed under future conditions.

📍
Long-term monitoring

Maintaining field sites and data collection over decades.

🗺️
Species distribution modeling

Modeling how tree distributions will shift with climate change to identify what and where conservation action will matter most.

Share the work

The most powerful thing you can do is help more people understand what's at stake.

Why trees matter →

Land partnerships

If you steward California oak woodlands and are interested in hosting a Blue Oak Living Library site, we'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch →

Institutional funding

Foundations and philanthropic organizations interested in supporting this conservation and research at scale are encouraged to reach out to discuss larger partnerships.

Contact Blair →