Wildfires don’t just burn homes—they leave behind a toxic legacy. When cars, buildings, and everyday materials go up in flames, they release heavy metals, asbestos, dioxins, and other contaminants that seep into soil and water, threatening communities long after the smoke clears.
Environmental scientist Danielle Stevenson is pioneering an alternative to the costly “dig-and-dump” approach that simply moves contaminated soil elsewhere. At fire sites across California, Danielle is harnessing fungi and native plants through a process called mycoremediation—using nature itself to break down pollutants, pull heavy metals from the ground, and help devastated landscapes heal.
Toxicologist Danielle Stevenson cleans up carbon-based pollutants and heavy metals from contaminated sites using fungi and plants. She’s als
e360: How did the sites look different after the work that you did on them?
Stevenson: They became basically beautiful meadows of native plants that were flowering, and now there are bees and birds and all sorts of life coming through. We had a very high success rate. In three months we saw a more than 50 percent reduction in all [petrochemical] pollutants. And then by the 12-month period, they were pretty much not detectable.
Someone somewhere, in your astrological journey, told you that Saturn equals suffering...but I am here to tell you that planet remediation is a REAL thing.
Some ways to remediate your Saturn may include:
Leaving the closer parking spaces for the elderly.
Offering help even it isn't accepted.
Picking up litter you didn't waste.
Giving your seat to someone pregnant, elderly or disabled.
Listening the first time.
Showing genuine gratitude.
Find a form of cultural expression.
Give anonymously.
Heal.
If you'd like to dive deeper into planet remediation, consider the house, sign, and planetary degree of the planet you are trying to heal. Lean into the themes of that planet in terms of how you could be of service.
Illegal gold mining has ravaged the Peruvian Amazon, leaving behind pollution and denuded landscapes. A group of miners are working with a U
"Sunlight dapples the once-denuded forest floor as saplings spread their branches and leaves overhead, slowly forming a lush canopy.
Beside each young tree, a sign notes its species. Lupuna, says one, the colloquial Peruvian term, and below that its scientific name, Ceiba pentandra — in other words, a kapok tree, known for its cotton-like fibers. Huito, says another sign, or Geinpa americana, which produces edible gray berries.
Each sapling is distinct, a reflection of the Amazon's stunning biodiversity, with so many different species that you might go acres without finding a repeat.
Yet this young forest did not spring up naturally. It has been carefully recreated by humans in an area that was, until just three years ago, a heavily contaminated moonscape.
This land was stripped of its dense vegetation by miners scouring the subsoil for tiny specks of gold, using mercury to separate the gold from the sediment. Many thought that a healthy forest would never thrive in impoverished, mercury-laden topsoil and that the piles of sandy tailings, the residue from the gold mining effort, and the pools of wastewater were irremediable...
"It feels good to see the forest grow back," says Pedro Ynfantes, 66, the miner whose legal mining concession of 1,110 acres includes this 10-acre patch of land where this young forest is located. "We don't want to deforest. When we had the opportunity to let the forest grow back, we took it. It's much better this way."
The opportunity he refers to came via U.S. nonprofit Pure Earth, which works with communities across the Global Southto remediate environmental problems left behind by mining, much of it illegal. Their biggest targets are mercury and lead contamination...
Security forces have launched anti-mining operations down the years, even blowing up the miners' equipment deep in the jungle. But most local politicians, including Madre de Dios' members of Peru's national congress, broadly support the miners, who are a powerful constituency in the relatively sparsely populated jungle region.
Restoring the forest
Pictured: France Cabanillas works for the nonprofit group Pure Earth, which is spearheading an effort to plant saplings in areas of the Peruvian Amazon that were devastated by illegal gold mining.
Now there's an effort to address the damage. Initially working with the region's legal miners, most of whom were here before the 2009 gold rush kicked off, the nonprofit group Pure Earth is using this patch of Ynfantes' land as a pilot project to show how the rainforest can be regenerated after the last traces of gold have been plucked from the soil.
It took a sustained outreach effort. Many miners are wary of or even downright hostile to foreign NGOs, which have repeatedly called for gold mining to be banned or severely curbed in the Peruvian Amazon — steps they say would cost them their livelihood.
"I am feeling optimistic," says France Cabanillas, Pure Earth's local coordinator, who has been appealing to the frustration of many miners at the heavy toll they have taken on the jungle and their desire to minimize their environmental footprint for the next generation.
"We still have a lot to do but this pilot is going well. Down the years, the miners have been getting a lot of stick but not much carrot when it comes to their environmental impacts," says Cabanillas. "We are offering them a carrot, allowing them to remediate their own impacts. Many of the miners do not want to be destroying the rainforest."
Before the miners plant the carefully-selected mix of tree species, they had to prepare the earth. Most of the topsoil had been washed away by the miners' heavy use of hoses.
That preparation involved adding biochar (burnt organic material) and even molasses, which contain fixed carbon and minerals, along with various other nutrients. The miners also had to dig tiny moats around the saplings to prevent all of this new planting from being washed away. Now, after three years, the forest is visibly coming back.
The rejuvenated rainforest also mitigates the impact of the mercury used by many of the illegal miners.
Research done by Pure Earth shows that the barren, sandy soil emits mercury. But in a rainforest, the ecosystem actually absorbs some of the metal, boosting public health."
This stuff above is doing WORK. The People's School of Agroecology Work Brigade helped us dig out some goat paddock last fall and this spring, these little black mushrooms went wild. While I do have to watch for these spores showing up in my dry lots, that area of the gardens is now extremely fertile.
These wine cap mushrooms below were grown in an outdoor woodchip bed that was built by community members during a Low-Tek Mushroom Cultivation Skill Share facilitated by Cosmic Serpent Wellness.
We stocked these in the store for a few weeks this year (2025). We dehydrated a bunch to preserve for the winter and offer in store. Got a flush or two in early spring and then discovered that we're gonna need to do some level of irrigation in coming years, while also managing slugs. The flavor on these is strong but I dig it.
