Back to Natives Restoration, a green industry nonprofit with a focus on habitat restoration and native plant education, is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a nonprofit charity and landscape contracting firm.

Back to Natives (BTN) was incorporated in 2007 when BTN Executive Director Reginald Durant saw a need for habitat restoration in local wildlands. Non-native invasive plant species were crowding out the native plants that local wildlife need to survive. He also realized that habitat restoration would be more successful if community volunteers did the work.

"The more people that go native with their landscaping, the more habitat we create for native animals," says Durant, the association's executive director. "Native birds and butterflies - for the most part - do not care if the natives they depend on are growing in home gardens, parkways, or surrounding commercial buildings. With the loss of habitat we have to make the most of the green spaces we have left – and maybe if people see more habitat happening around them, they'll be more likely to want to protect the open spaces that remain."

BTN currently works with the city of Santa Ana, Calif., to restore a portion of Santiago Creek, as well as with the USFS in the Cleveland National Forest where BTN is restoring a portion of the San Mateo Wilderness and some areas near Elsinore Peak.

For more information on Back to Natives Restoration, visit www.backtonatives.org.