Ary Amaya is 27 acres into an Indigenous-led reforestation of L.A. She’s far from done

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Ary Amaya barely squints as she stands awash in the midmorning glare, which reflects off the dew clinging to the tall grasses that carpet the ground. Anchoring herself on a dirt path that crests a large hill, she scans the descending slope covered in walnut, toyon, oak and elderberry trees.

The double Bruin, now in the final year of his master’s program in ecology and evolutionary biology, knows the land well. She explains how the trees, some of which she and her research team have planted, make up a “food forest” — a collection of plants and trees she says are culturally significant to the Indigenous peoples who are the stewards and keepers of the land.

The hill is part of a 12-acre open space in northeast Los Angeles, acquired in 2022 for the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation of Southern California. It was named the Chief Ya’anna Regenerative Learning Village in honor of Chief Ya’anna Vera Rocha, the tribe’s late chief.

Amaya says the acquisition marked the largest land rematriation to date by Indigenous peoples in Los Angeles.

At the center of the rematriation and reforestation work is the Anawakalmekak International University Preparatory of North America, a community-based charter school in the El Sereno neighborhood of East Los Angeles. The K–12 campus, currently the only Indigenous school in the city, serves Indigenous peoples from across the United States, Canada, and Central and South America.

Amaya, an educator at the school since February 2021, has helped develop scientific curricula centered on Indigenous practices, language and knowledge. Her understanding of these “Indigenous knowledge systems” was engrained in her long before her graduate program and employment at the school.

She is a descendant of traditional farmers and medicinal knowledge keepers from the towns of Amatlan de Jora, Ixtlan del Rio and Huajicori, in the southwest regions of Nayarit, Mexico. Amaya was born in Santiago Ixcuintla, Nayarit, before moving to East Los Angeles with her mother and sister.
Her role at Anawakalmekak, where she started as a community organizer before evolving into a hybrid teacher, has opened up a channel between the school’s Indigenous-led reforestation and UCLA.

With the support of her graduate advisor, UCLA ecologist and environmental biologist Elsa Ordway, Amaya has brought in Indigenous migrant youth to assist in her graduate work — specifically the reforestation of the village and 15 acres at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park, an open space in Los Angeles’ Montecito Hills neighborhood. The two sites bring the scope of Amaya’s current work to 27 acres and counting.

Five of these youths, all high school students at Anawakalmekak, make up Amaya’s “Ketsal Youth Research Scientists.” Every week, they engage in ground observations at the village or the park, monitoring newly planted trees and measuring the canopy of mature trees. The changes in canopy coverage, which can be observed using airborne and satellite imagery, can signify environmental impacts that cause changes in the ecology over time, Amaya says.

(This story was published in UCLA Newsroom written by Madeline Adamo))