Evolve Altadena

Preserving the soul and cultivating the future of Altadena

Resilience - Replenish - Reimagine

Vision: A Just Recovery

The following is a framework guiding the work of Evolve Altadena. It is based on the Just Recovery principles developed by Movement Generation.

Climate change supercharged the Eaton Canyon Fire destroying over 9,000 buildings and killing at least 18 people making it the second most destructive fire in California’s history and the most destructive fire ever in Los Angeles. The Eaton Canyon Fire, like all disasters, occured within the context of our society’s preexisting systemic racism and hit Altadena’s poor and working class communities of color hardest while the recovery efforts are deepening inequality.

We must protect and nurture the culture and soul of our home in partnership with each other and the land based on ancestral knowledge and practice for past, present and future generations. We must organize our community and demand a Just Recovery!

A Just Recovery Must Create Governance that Strengthens Our Community

In moments of disaster, our community has been and will continue to be abandoned by the powers that be.
- Just Recovery

Altadena’s unincorporated status means there were no governmental bodies that acted on our behalf during the fire and the recovery process. We must organize and demand the creation of structures that will plan for and act when the next crisis arrives and we must hold those structures accountable if they fail to act.

A Just Recovery Must Guarantee Our Rights

Our right to protect our community for future generations of Altadenans

Our right to know whether our soil and air is toxic
Our right to rebuild
Our right to keep opportunistic vultures out of our community

A Sustainable Recovery

We do not need the fastest recovery, we need the most sustainable recovery. Evolve Altadena acknowledges that our home exists on the lands of the Tongva people and they, along with other indigenous tribes, have lived with and managed fire for millenia. We must learn from and work with the Tongva, the indigenous tribes of California and the ancestral knowledge to build a more resilient Altadena.

Centering Ancestral Knowledge

Cultural Burns

Cultural Burns are fires set to clear the land of fuel and lessen the impact of naturally occurring wildfires. These Cultural Burns are a Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) that have protected the indigenous tribal communities of California from fires for millennia. It is a practice nearly lost to the genocidal urge to stamp out all native practices but is being revived in some areas and should be brought to Altadena.
Traditional Building Methods

Mainstream recovery efforts rebuild structures that are often of lower quality and just as vulnerable to being destroyed in the next fire. The Traditional Ecological Knowledge to build fire resistant homes has existed for millennia but we do not have the permits to build with natural materials. Traditional cob buildings and modern versions like Super Adobe are more resilient to both fire and earthquakes and can make our community more resistant to disasters.
Traditional Soil Care

Traditional Soil Care shows us how to make the land more resilient to future fires and help heal the soil. Natural methods such as mulching, composting and applying bio-char are ecologically friendly methods of soil remediation while plants, fungi and microbes naturally absorb heavy metals and other pollutants and restore the soil to a rich, absorbent and fertile state.

Our Home

Altadena is a community nestled in the foothills of Los Angeles. It is part of the lands that the Tongva have cared for for millennia. The area is historically Black as it is one of the few places families could buy a home in red-lined Los Angeles creating an unusually large community of Black families that have lived here for as many as 5 generations. It is one of the few historically Black and brown neighborhoods that has access to nature.