‘Eco-Teams’ Battle Forest Litterbugs

Victor Prito understands litterbugs because he used to be one, big-time. Rotting food, broken glass, spent bullets--he and his South-Central homeboys would leave them all behind after picnicking in the Angeles National Forest.

Now, he is helping to clean up the forest under La Educacion Ambiental, an ecology education program that employs inner-city, bilingual youths to teach Spanish-speaking and other visitors respect for Los Angeles’ back yard.

Every weekend this summer, Prito, 22, and his fellow “eco-team” members are fanning out along the trash-strewn streams that wend their way through Big Tujunga, San Gabriel and Arroyo Seco canyons north of downtown Los Angeles, handing out plastic garbage bags and politely urging visitors not to set illegal fires or wash dishes in the water.

The program, which began last summer in the Mt. Baldy Ranger District near Azusa, has been recognized as a model project by the U.S. Forest Service, which expanded it this past weekend to include the San Bernardino National Forest and the Big Tujunga area near Sunland.

“A lot of people don’t like the cops to tell them what to do,” Prito said this past weekend as he chatted with families picnicking near piles of discarded toilet paper, diapers and other refuse along Big Tujunga Creek. “But it’s like we’re one of them.”

Latinos are not solely responsible for the litter, water pollution, graffiti and other urban problems that beset the 650,000-acre forest north of the city. With 30 million visits last year, the forest experienced six times as much vehicular and foot traffic as popular Yosemite National Park, U.S. Forest Service officials estimate.

But based on rangers’ observations and a 1988 study, the Forest Service estimates that Spanish-speakers make up about 65% of the visitors in some areas of the Angeles National Forest. Since only a handful of forest rangers speak Spanish, something had to be done to bridge the communication gap, forest officials said.

Partly because of low literacy rates among recent immigrants, researchers working for the forest recommended face-to-face contacts with Latino visitors, rather than just additional signs announcing rules that they never faced in their homelands. But with fewer federal dollars available, the Forest Service cannot afford to hire more bilingual rangers.

Ergo, the $176,000 eco-team program, which is jointly funded by the Forest Service and the two nonprofit groups, the Los Angeles Conservation Corps and the California Environmental Project.

“It’s been our saving grace, really a godsend,” said Mike Rogers, supervisor of the forest.

The program won an award this spring from the U.S. Forest Service and is being looked at by other forests near urban areas, such as Seattle and Salt Lake City, said Lyle Laverty, recreation director for the Forest Service.

Laverty said Congress allotted $174.6 million this fiscal year to maintain the country’s 156 national forests, about 40% less than the $300 million the Forest Service estimates is actually needed to do the job.

“We have to find other ways to accomplish this work, and this eco-team program is one of those ways,” Laverty said.

Prito and other young workers earn about $50 a day and are recruited through the conservation corps, which hires inner-city youths and trains them to maintain natural resources in the Los Angeles area.

Prito said he and the rest of his gang used to go up to the canyons several times every summer, packing guns that they fired off when they got drunk. When they headed home, they left a trail of litter behind them.

“What I did wasn’t right, but I didn’t care back then,” Prito said, explaining his transformation from destroyer to redeemer. “Then I learned what it does to the wildlife.”

Clad in shorts and T-shirts displaying the program’s logo in Spanish and English, Prito and 10 other eco-team members this past weekend heard a litany of Big Tujunga Canyon’s problems before fanning out for the first time along the meandering creek.

Littering is so prevalent that volunteers fished out about 1,000 diapers along a half-mile stretch recently, recreation officer Julie Molzahn told the team members. Visitors routinely hurt themselves jumping off walls or rocks into the shallow water, and one man who was paralyzed in a diving accident recently won a $1-million settlement from the Forest Service, she said. Using nets to catch fish is illegal, but people use them anyway. Charcoal and wood fires are also prohibited because of fire danger, but visitors have been cutting down willows for fuel.

“We also have motorcycle gangs and white supremacist activity,” Molzahn said as the group began a tour of the beleaguered canyon.

But the eco-teams only encountered large family groups Saturday in the Delta Flats day use area near the entrance of the canyon.

“Gracias,” said Gloria Pinon, 20, of Pacoima, as she accepted a black plastic bag from Prito and listened to his description of the program. “What you’re doing is for our own benefit, not for nobody else. I hope it works because this place is a mess.”

Tom Spencer, recreation officer for the Mt. Baldy Ranger District near Azusa, credited the program with reducing litter and water pollution in busy San Gabriel Canyon last summer. At the behest of the eco-teams, visitors regularly filled trash bags and lugged them to the side of the road, something new for the garbage-laden canyon. The visitors also voluntarily paid $63,907 in parking fees after the eco-team reminded them the money would be used to maintain the forest. That was 48% more than was paid the summer before.

Initially, forest officials were concerned that some visitors would react violently when approached by eco-teams members. In case of emergencies, the teams are equipped with two-way radios and they avoid approaching people with guns.

But although the teams have encountered gangs partying in the forest, all 25,000 contacts they made last year were peaceful, said Scott Mathes, co-founder of the California Environmental Project and team leader.

“That’s why they don’t wear uniforms, because they would look too authoritative,” Mathes said.