During this webinar, you will hear the story of how a team of guerrilla gardeners in Oxnard, California, USA, a low-income farming Latino community facing urban decay, changed the way urban green spaces and public landscaping were viewed. When MiniNature Reserve began their work in 2022, the city had a clear inequity between access to green spaces. In poorer areas of the city, the few parks that existed were full of trash, parkways were only dirt, and the few natural spaces on the fringes were restricted or toxic. Meanwhile, in more affluent neighbourhoods, manicured water-intensive landscapes predominated. The narrative was clear: access to nature and beauty came with a fee.
But utilizing guerrilla gardening and community building, demand a change in the way folks viewed green spaces and parkways in cities. Blending direct action, fun events, and education, the group has been able to transform barren parkways into native habitats that sustain community with food and materials - all with minimal funding. All of this has even impacted local legislation – changing the city’s landscape standards which only allow grass in parkways.
Chúk Odenigbo, Consulting Director of Evaluating Impact at Tamarack Institute
Diego Magaña, Co-Founder, MiniNature Reserve
Diego Magaña is a globally recognized multi-disciplinary artist and cultivator of community. He is most known for co-founding MiniNature Reserve - a grassroots nonprofit organization based in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area with a mission to help disadvantaged communities transform neglected urban spaces into thriving native habitats. Under the guidance of Indigenous leaders, plants from these "MiniNature Reserves" are implemented into programs for cooking, art, and practical items (e.g. rope making). The goal is to make the community less reliant on corporations for their daily needs by facilitating the reintroduction of TEK (traditional ecological knowledge) into urbanized contexts.
Aside from MiniNature Reserve, Diego is also a locally respected musician, vocalist, composer, and media producer, having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Performance and Composition at California Institute of the Arts. This diverse work in climate, music, media, and community organizing has earned him world recognition including the World Expo Osaka, Japan, Walking Softer Young Leaders Award, El Concilio Latino Leadership Award, and twice as a recipient of the Cheetos and Good Bunny Foundation's Deja Tu Huella Award.