Volunteers leave their footprints in the sands of time by restoring the dunes.

The ghosts, goblins and gremlins have returned to their hiding places for another year, but there’s something still stirring this weekend in Playa del Rey.

It’s the return of the living dunes.

At least it will be if the El Segundo Sand Dunes restoration project, led by the environmental group Rhapsody in Green, is successful.

This Sunday from 9 a.m. to noon, volunteers will continue to restore the ecosystem of the coastal sand dunes on the western side of Los Angeles International Airport. New volunteers over the age of 10 are welcome and will receive training, said Jon Earl, director of Rhapsody in Green.

“We work hand-in-hand with scientists, but our resources are limited,” Earl said. “Volunteers are the wild card that will restore endangered areas. That’s what we’re trying to demonstrate.”

The sand dunes cover 302 acres, 200 of which are being restored. The beach slopes upward to the dunes, which in some places reach up to 200 feet above sea level. Vegetation covers much of the area.

From 1928 to the mid-1960s, developers built 800 houses on the dunes, Earl said. Roads and sidewalks were installed, and residents installed exotic ice plants and acacia.

Noise from planes using the airport reached unhealthful levels, however, forcing Los Angeles city officials in 1966 to begin relocating the residents and removing the houses, Earl said.

But the houses and the exotic plants introduced by the residents had displaced the native plants that had supported an array of insect, bird and animal life. What was once a hot spot of biological diversity had become a habitat unable to sustain many of its unique native species, said Rudi Mattoni, designer and manager of the restoration project.

The dunes’ El Segundo blue butterfly is now listed as an endangered species, and the fate of 10 other plant and insect species is equally precarious, Mattoni said. Some plants and insects previously found in the dunes have already become extinct.

A small team of biologists began to restore the dunes about six years ago, Earl said, but found it slow going.

Enter Rhapsody in Green. For the past six months, about 80 volunteers have gone to their adopted acre of the dunes once every three weeks to remove the exotic plants and replace them with coastal buckwheat shrub, a favorite of the El Segundo blue butterfly, El Segundo spine flower, blue lupines and other native grasses and shrubs.

These native plants will provide cover and nourishment for several indigenous species such as the El Segundo goat moth, the Jerusalem cricket, horned lizards and various beetles, Mattoni said. In the future, five species of birds, including the California quail, will be reintroduced.

Doug Byers, 47, lived with his family from 1950 to 1975 at what was once 8601 Rindge Ave. in the dunes. When he returned as a volunteer, he saw “the same spectacular view I remember when I was 6.”

One day, as he worked around the plot where his house used to be, he found a little green plastic jet from a toy aircraft carrier that he and his brother used to play with.

“I’d like to turn this place back to the way it was before I lived here,” Byers said.

Mattoni noted that people who worked in the Dunes for a time “tend to be at peace with themselves. There’s a mystical quality to working with nature.”

The importance of saving endangered insects and plants is a reflection of a certain world view, he said. “If you view nature as a whole, all living things have equal value.”

This Sunday, the volunteers will plant seeds that will blossom into wildflowers in the spring.

“This area once had the greatest wildflower display in all of Southern California,” Earl said. “Once the dunes are restored, with minimal monitoring, the area should be able to live forever. It’s one of the few permanent things we can do in life.”

What: El Segundo Sand Dunes Restoration Projection.

Where: Meet at the Rhapsody in Green sign on Pershing Drive, midway between Worldway West and Sandpiper Street, Playa del Rey.

When: Sunday, 9 a.m. to noon, and every third Sunday.

Admission: Free.

Information: Call 654-5821.