Our Mission

WildPlaces works to deepen bonds between Nature and people by offering wisdom and teaching reciprocity through land stewardship and culture preservation activities. By delivering stunning stewardship projects and culture preservation, we protect and steward private and public lands and rivers of the southern Sierra Nevada, facilitate community and climate health, and broaden the base of the environmental movement.  

Our Vision

We envision an elevated and unshakable relationship between Nature and people where a profound ethic grows to confront and replace destructive, human-induced practices. We strive for culturally and ecologically healthy outcomes for all people and Mother Nature.

Click Here for our Diversity and Inclusion Position

Our Headquarters

Our headquarters is located on a beautiful and historic 12-acre rancho that straddles the Tule River as it emerges from the Giant Sequoia National Monument in the Sequoia National Forest. Please Click Here for more details.

About Us

WildPlaces is an organization that offers outdoor opportunities and stewardship programs to all people and in particular to under-represented communities within the Great Central Valley, where poverty is highest and access to cultural and environmental resources is lowest. Taking people into immersive, nature-based projects is what WildPlaces does exceptionally well while constantly improving its tactics. A modest staff of outdoor educators ensures that hundreds young people have the chance to escape some of the hardships at home in exchange for leadership training, teamwork, self-reliance, and the chance for paid leadership jobs. Offered free of charge, the programs are simple yet focused. They tackle the barriers that often keep communities from the benefits and medicine of nature.

Direct threats to the functions of the environment that provide health and habitat to people and wildlife plus economic stability through tourism are many and keep intensifying, and so the priorities at WildPlaces are:

1. Establish a post-wildfire response in coordination with USFS and Tule Indian Reservation that will repair high-Sierra meadows through willow plantings and erosion control, map all existing surviving Giant sequoia trees and grove conditions, and protect Giant sequoias by reducing fuels from the base of the trees. Giant trees and meadows function as carbon capture and water purifying systems without which hundreds of thousands of people, cities and farms are at risk for reduced water quality and quantity, reduced air quality, reduced tourism, economic collapse, and reduced physical and spiritual health of the peoples of California.

2. Strengthen relations with indigenous communities to deepen our use of traditional practices. Native traditions and stewardship practices of the first peoples of California have been around for thousands of years. Colonization tried to assimilate and destroy what was good; however, it failed. Traditional stewardship practices are alive today, and WildPlaces is in an incredible position to become the way of old wisdom. We will have on staff and/or planning leadership experts in the ways such as introduced fires, use of medicinal plants, ceremony, song, dance, sweat lodge, and storytelling.

3. We will seek out, support, and recruit part-time staff and volunteer leaders to implement the core programs after they examine and adjust programs to ensure cultural and ecological integrity.

4. Ensure that the staff, volunteers and advisory board consist of BIPOC and Two-Spirit leaders and maintain our commitment to fair and equal access to WildPlaces.  

WildPlaces’ actions soon gained traction and, with media coverage and tireless outreach, moved the organization to be established as a 501(c)3 project under the fiscal sponsorship of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE). With permanence in the southern Sierra, a few tools, some foundation and private money, and an old truck, recognition and awards followed. Partnerships and bridges between like and opposing interests were built. Organizations not traditionally considered part of the environmental movement became part of the movement. The development of funding strategies, staff, a Board of Advisers, and membership grew-- the foundation for our success was laid.

Over the years, thousands of native plants were planted, miles of rivers improved, thousands of volunteers and youth organized, dozens of wildlife and plant species tracked and monitored, and hundreds of acres of meadows, forests and woodlands restored-- all conducted on single and multi-day, place-based events throughout the year.  Students of all ages are brought from major cities like Los Angeles, Fresno, Bakersfield, and Sacramento as well as the often marginalized and disadvantaged communities of the San Joaquin Valley like East Porterville, Strathmore, London, Alpaugh, Arvin, and Lamont. All are brought into the magical groves of Giant Sequoias, bio-rich oak woodlands, meadows, grasslands, and the riparian habitats of local rivers to help not restore damaged and endangered habitat and improve water quality and biodiversity. Also gained is a connection to nature that improves us internally so that we can find a happiness and a deep reverence for Nature.

"It is the magic that dreams are made of, and we do it one tree at a time", WildPlaces' Founder Mehmet McMillan says. "While the world around may seem full of problems, we find in the deep woods our place in the family of things."

The teachers, parents, and the students themselves tell us over and over how their lives are changed by experiencing the outdoors with WildPlaces. Real needs are met with very modest financial resources while providing enormous social, environmental, and spiritual capital.

"We believe that anyone can and should be a part of the world’s wild places", says past Program Manager Anne Taormina. "If you haven't joined the movement, then consider WildPlaces as the platform to change your corner of the world. Don't miss the FUN!"  

Our Partners

WildPlaces' programs and projects are made possible by foundations, agencies, ethical companies and individuals who adhere to a nature ethic: 

• California Rural Legal Assistance

• Patagonia

• Adams Legacy

• Wild and Scenic Rivers

• WildSpaces

• California Wilderness Coalition

• Community Leadership Partnership (Hewlett, Packard and Irvine Foundations)

• The Rose Foundation for Community and the Environment

• Dolores Huerta Foundation

• National Forest Foundation

• Southern California Edison

• Steven Brye

• Tulare County Youth Commision

• United States Forest Service

• Edison International

• Bergen Farms Strathmore, California

• McMillan Brothers, LLC

• Lush Cosmetics Charitable Giving Program

OUR PROJECTS SITE MAP