Quail Springs is dedicated to practicing holistic, low-cost ways of designing human environments, as well as facilitating deeper understandings of our relationships with ourselves, one another, and our local ecologies. We are continuously evolving our practices in watershed restoration, water advocacy, and dryland agriculture, and we endeavor to practice regenerative land stewardship. Ultimately, our goal is to share by example, focusing our efforts to provide environmental educational access to all, especially with our neighbors throughout the Cuyama Valley. Quail Springs is many things; you can learn more about our work on our website and on our Instagram.

Please see our website and the application link for a more detailed explanation of Quail Springs, our work, our history, and our community. 

Position Description

The Land Stewardship Director will be the main land-tender for our native plant restoration work partnering with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. This person will also contribute to additional Quail Springs programs on an as-needed basis. We seek someone with a balance of expertise in the following: site-specific native plants, project management, farming, infrastructure installation (eg. irrigation and fencing), public education, and an ability/willingness to engage in physical labor. While the main focus of this role is to execute the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden grant, the Land Stewardship Director will also participate in the general work of our worker-led nonprofit, offering their time and expertise as needed. The duration of this position reflects the current timeline of the grant: summer 2024-2027.

Project Description

The primary grant funded project relevant to the role—Plant with Purpose: Conservation Outreach in the Cuyama Valley—seeks to assist small farmers and ranchers in the Cuyama Valley, a severely disadvantaged, hyper-rural, high-desert, groundwater-dependent community. The project will develop climate-smart conservation practices to conserve soil and water while creating diverse healthy habitat in the Cuyama Valley, as producers fallow land to reduce groundwater use and comply with the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.            

Designed and implemented with local input and expertise by the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden (SBBG) in partnership with two Cuyama-based entities, Quail Springs and the Cuyama Valley Family Resource Center, the project will establish 1) a new network of underserved small farmers and ranchers to help them access conservation practices and the NRCS programs that can assist them; 2) six demonstration sites that will exhibit the benefits of establishing locally sourced native plants, address farmer needs and improve the practice; 3) a paid Cuyama Conservation Internship Program that will engage six 11th grade students to take part in nearly every aspect of the project alongside SBBG scientists and Quail Springs sustainability experts, encouraging a career path in conservation; and 4) conservation curricula for K-8 students.
 

Primary Responsibilities
 

BOTANIC GARDEN GRANT

• Lead Quail Springs team in our involvement as subgrantees in the project; Plant with Purpose: Conservation Outreach in the Cuyama Valley
• Communicating and collaborating with grantors and partners at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
• Harvesting and processing local, native seeds across sites in Cuyama Valley
• Creating appropriate infrastructure to propagate plants on site at QS alongside our Garden and Facilities Directors
• Installing native plants, irrigation, and fencing across six sites in the Cuyama Valley
• Supporting our Work Trade Director to facilitate an internship program for local high school students
• Supporting our Program Directors in teaching prewritten conservation curriculum to K-8 students of the Cuyama School District
• Supporting our Program Directors in the creation and facilitation of the Cuyama Valley Conservation Network (CVCN) of local small farmers and ranchers

OTHER QS PROGRAMMING

• Participating in additional QS grant work such as installation of composting and greywater systems in public workshops. 
• Offering expertise in California ecology, land-based living, and regenerative systems to aid in creating educational content for Quail Springs.
• Supporting in facilitation of land-based programming and hosting, both on and off-site. For example: prepping the site, giving tours, leading workshops, preparing meals, clean up, and communicating with the QS team and our partners.

ORGANIZATIONAL INVOLVEMENT

• Take initiative as needed to support the organization. We are a small organization, and we all find ourselves in unexpected roles. In our sociocratic governance model, all staff are involved in decision making processes that affect more than 2 circles
• Serve as director of your organizational domain (land stewardship and Botanic Garden grant) – planning,  visioning, and facilitating decision making processes as relevant
• Weekly attendance at team meetings 
• Participate in collaborative management of the land
• Participate in collaborative management 2 of cross-organizational circles
• Check and engage daily with our internal communication system (Slack)
• Time tracking, record tracking, and budget tracking

Qualities & Qualifications

Successful applicants are highly organized, flexible, solution-focused, forward-thinking, open to learning, and have an interest in equitable and resilient community structures. They will have strong computer and digital organization skills, or willingness to learn. They are personable, warm, and engaging, with a collaborative and playful spirit. Strong communication skills and an orientation towards leaning in during conflict will serve the successful candidate in this position. 

We are committed to the continuing work of dismantling systems which disproportionately hurt the most marginalized people in society — including black and indigenous people of color, people from working class backgrounds, disabled people, and LGBTQ people. We believe that these communities must be centered in the work we do. We strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other marginalized communities.