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The article discusses the importance of managed rangelands in the San Francisco Bay Area, California to wildlife and native plants at a time of climate change. Topics include the land trust movement and their working lands programs like the locavore food movement, and the Conservation Lands Network report of the Bay Area Open Space Council on its plan for preserving biodiversity. It also references the paper "The California Serengeti" by California State Parks senior ecologist E. Breck Parkman.

The article offers some background information about Samuel P. Taylor State Park in Marin County, California and recounts the author's hiking experience to the Devil's Gulch. What became Samuel P. Taylor State Park was a prospering mill town that produced paper and blasting powder in the late 1800s. The author narrates a trip with her Aunt Ginny to find whatever might be left of a secret cabin her Uncle Van and his friends had built in Devil's Gulch around 1930, before the land became part of the park.

The article reports on various efforts to reduce use of plastic around the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Marine scientist Carol Keiper of the Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge has developed a program to teach students, including sixth graders at Benicia Middle School, about plastic pollution. Once they understand the scope of the problem, the students start working on solutions such as picking up trash. It is also noted that local governments are enacting plastic bag bans and other restrictions.