Neighborhood Habitat Certification Program

Restoring Habitat and Protecting Water

Participation is open to residents of Butte, Glenn & Tehama Counties in Northern California.

The goal of the Neighborhood Habitat Certification Program is to support community members interested in converting unused lawns to natural, drought-tolerant California landscaping and habitat.

Every yard counts! By acting now, we can conserve & protect valuable water resources, and rebuild needed wildlife corridors within our community.

Help Save the Central Valley Wetlands

Central Valley wetlands are of hemispheric importance, providing the most important stopping point on the Pacific Flyway for five million migratory waterfowl, which makes up 60 percent of the Pacific Flyway waterfowl population and 20 percent of the continental population.  These wetlands also provide essential habitat for hundreds of other species, including resident waterfowl, such as mallards, other waterbirds, such as Tricolored blackbirds, White-faced ibis and Sandhill cranes, as well as other wildlife.

Local, state and federal agencies have invested in refuges for decades to protect their value for birds, other animals and nearby communities. Destroying them would only endanger California’s already fragile wildlife and degrade the other services refuges provide, such as groundwater recharge, water quality improvements and recreation.

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Save the Lives of Birds in Your Yard!

Heavenly Bamboo, a common ornamental shrub in our area, is TOXIC to Cedar Waxwings – one of our most striking local birds. The plant is not a true bamboo, but an evergreen shrub. The red berries emerge in fall and produce hydrogen cyanide, also toxic to cats.

In an effort to help the Cedar Waxwings, here is a strategy that we suggest to get rid of the Nandina in local yards: cut off the flowers when they bloom, remove berries and throw them away in the trash – not on the ground – or cut the shrubs off at the base and put a herbicide called glyphosate on the stump.

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