Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District (MPRPD) acquired the former Rancho Canada golf course in 2018 and dedicated the property for habitat protection and restoration. Rancho Canada golf course was one of the largest water users on the Carmel River, irrigating and maintaining an intensively managed landscape dominated by non-native turf grasses and invasive weeds. To protect golf course and infrastructure the riverbank was hardened with riprap causing the river to incise and channelize, disconnecting the river from its historic floodplain. This disconnect resulted in reduced rearing habitat for fish and wildlife, including threatened steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and California red-legged frogs (Rana draytonii). MPRPD implemented Phase 1 of the Rancho Canada Floodplain Restoration Project in 2025; a 3-year multi-phased effort to free the Carmel River from its channelized restraints, allowing renewed access to its floodplain. This restoration project, will provide latitude for the river to meander in its floodplain, increase complexity of the ecosystem, create new rearing habitat for endangered fish and wildlife species, reestablish native plants on the landscape, provide suitable habitat for regrowth of riparian forest, facilitate wildlife movement and increase connectivity, provide safe water refugia during varying river flows, and provide increased flood protection to the neighboring community.

Joshua Carpenter is a Resource Conservation Specialist for the Monterey Peninsula Regional Parks District. He holds a BS in Fisheries and Wildlife Science and a Master Certificate in Wildlife Management, both from Oregon State University. Joshua is also a TWS Associate Wildlife Biologist and holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Oregon. Joshua has had a broad and varied career in wildlife science and natural resources management, including work with the USFS, NRCS, USFWS, NPS, USGS, NOAA, Pacific State Marine Fisheries Commission, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.