El Rinconcito Verde (“little green corner”) is an experimental, community-based botanical forest park. It covers approximately 54 acres, and includes a branching canyon and its sides. The Baja Montecito residential community overlooks it from the east. The park’s name was chosen by the 10-year-old winner of a naming competition held in the local schools.

Baja Ecovillage founder Mark Lurie worked with the town of Cantú’s leaders to protect the land from development, which occurred in 2005. Mark also created the park’s 200-year plan. This plan calls for the main canyon and its slopes to be planted with nonnative trees such as Italian stone pine, Brazilian pepper, Canary Island pine, Norfolk Island pine, coral tree, olive, magnolia, and silk oak. Native species such as valley oak, California sycamore, California laurel, bigberry manzanita, and Mexican fan palm are being planted in the park’s western canyon and on its slopes, as well as on the town-owned slope east and below Baja Montecito.

The park is managed by Zonas Verdes de Punta Banda, our local nonprofit conservation group. Residents and visitors of Baja Ecovillage are invited to join in the work of preserving and improving the park: tree-planting, care and protection of seedlings and saplings, trail-building, erosion control, bench-building, and forest inventory and measurement.