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Abstract
This thesis examines the potential for the conservation of Monterey pine biodiversity through the active planting of an experimental forest in the Impact Area of Fort Ord: a former US military firing range soon to become part of a national monument. It confronts the delicate balance between passive ecosystem restoration and destructive total-remediation of compromised landscapes. Through choreographing munitions disposal with planting and tactical access to establish a human-assisted forest, the thesis challenges the colonial freeze-frame of what species can be “native” and where. In doing so, it provides a framework for re-connecting communities to locked-up public lands, and envisions how experimental forests, designed landscapes, and collaborative management can cultivate identity and social investment in a newly designated urban national monument. Here is a place once forbidden to people and to pines, where finally there is a possibility for more than preservation.