The Irvine Company Open Space Reserve encompasses. 17,000 acres of wilderness land, home to a wealth of plant and animal species in and around the cities of Anaheim, Orange, Irvine, Laguna Beach and unincorporated areas.
The Reserve was created to protect and enhance the natural communities found on these lands. The Nature Conservancy, an international non-profit conservation organization, was asked by The Irvine Company to develop and implement a stewardship plan for the Reserve that establishes long-term habitat management and restoration programs and opportunities for compatible public use.
The Reserve is now privately owned, but it will be turned over to various public agencies as communities planned by The Irvine Company are built. The Reserve, together with other land dedications by The Irvine Company, will result ultimately in more than 30,000 acres of the 63,000-acre Irvine Ranch being preserved as permanent open space. The Nature Conservancy's involvement helps ensure that appropriate habitat management and public access occur even before public ownership is completed.
The Irvine Company Open Space Reserve owes its rugged beauty to the dynamic natural processes that created and continuously shape the Peninsular Range of coastal Southern California. The deep canyons and wid-swept ridges that make up much of the Reserve's topography are the result of geologic activity and erosion. Movement along the network of faults that criss-cross Southern California has caused the land to uplift in places, forming the San Joaquin hills and the Santa Ana Mountains. Runoff from seasonal rains carves away at the hills and mountains, creating deep canyons lined with sandstone caves and outcroppings.
Fire has also played an important role in the creation and maintenance. of this diverse ecosystem. Many of the plant communities found on the Reserve rely on fire for their survival. Fire is responsible for removing standing biomass (dead plants, leaves, etc.), thus allowing new growth to receive sun, water and nutrients. Without periodic burns, plant communities such as coastal scrub and chaparral exhaust the resources they need to survive.