FRIENDS OF TICE CREEK 

“The land ethic simply enlarges the boundary of the land to include soils, water, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. Man-made changes to the land are of a different order than evolutionary change and have effects more comprehensive than is intended or foreseen. The property owner has an ethical responsibility for maintaining healthy ecosystems.” 

--Aldo Leopold

Friends of Tice Creek is dedicated to regenerating a healthier Tice Creek by working in community with the Tice Creek watershed.  As a committee within Sustainable Rossmoor, our members and allies seek to achieve balance between our land’s precious ecosystems and the human community of Rossmoor.

Our perspective is inspired by the visionary environmentalist Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic as described in A Sand County Almanac.  When we speak of the land or watershed, we mean not only the creeks and marshes, but also all native wildlife including fish, birds, deer, and coyotes, along with their habitat including all native plants, shrubs, and trees.

Our mission of creek renewal and land stewardship is based on the principle of reciprocity.  We see our role as insuring that Rossmoor’s human community uses and manages our open space in a way that will facilitate and never block nature’s inherent ability to regenerate itself through all its cycles.

Some of our strategies for a healthier creek: 

• Community science and Water Quality protection  
• Riparian wildlife habitat, aquatic wildlife, bird counts 
• Ecological landscaping and tree canopy preservation by replanting oaks 
• Celebrating the serenity and beauty of biodiversity in a re-wilded Tice Creek
• Pursuing local (or community) issues in the face of the climate crisis

In April of 2024 our neighbor, the town of Lafayette, adopted this Land Acknowledgement which Friends of Tice Creek, acknowledging our shared border, adopts here as a context for environmental stewardship and planning within Rossmoor. 

“We acknowledge that Rossmoor is part of the unceded, ancestral homeland of the Bay Miwok people. The Bay Miwok and neighboring Ohlone people have lived in and moved through this place for thousands of years. They stewarded and shaped this land for hundreds of generations. We express our appreciation and gratitude for this profound legacy, which enhances and contributes to our lives to this day. We will strive to honor this land and strengthen our ties with the Indigenous communities that continue to live and to work in our East Bay region as our neighbors and community members. We acknowledge and honor them and their ancestors, elders, and next seven generations.“