Convert the pasture lands to syntropic food forests and native forests, and then the birds and other native animals will have a place to live again.
Yes absolutely, though I find it a difficult spectrum between pure conservationism vs ecology. I want to plant as many natives as possible, but perfect is the enemy of good, and ultimately I believe creating habitat and restoring a functional ecosystem takes precedence over trying to wind back the clock on colonisation.
Reforesting with plenty of fruiting plants, both natives and non-natives that aren't too invasive, probably achieves the most reasonable balance. The land gets reforested, and you also get food, meaning that you don't need to buy produce that was grown by deforesting somewhere else.
Does your eco-community have any online presence?
You should have plenty of space if you can plant in the park! Public fruit trees are a great community service, and if you tell the park people that you want to plant native trees, they'd be foolish to say no. More fruit for you, more fruit for the birds, more fruit for anyone smart enough to harvest it, less grass and prickly stuff, more shade in the heat of summer. Everyone wins. Including the people at the persimmon nursery. :)
Projects like this are in desperate need of serious people to help them scale up. If even a small fraction of the people who see articles like this (or videos, or whatever) were to contribute some of their time and energy to the projects themselves, then the odds wouldn't be so against them, and that little bit of progress would become reforestation of entire regions. The question isn't whether it's possible for a project like this to succeed; the question is whether there are enough people willing to make it happen.
https://worldfloraonline.org/ is useful for verifying plant names and finding botanical descriptions.
As
meaning dry summer? Oof. Those droughts are the worst. Here's a quick-and-dirty list. For the sake of easy management, I won't list any vines or short-lived plants. Trees and shrubs and palms only. This is by no means exhaustive. No guarantees of accuracy.More Suitable
Depending on the exact temperatures and precipitation at your site, as well as the soil, these would probably do well.
More Questionable
These plants might be suitable depending on the specific climate conditions at your site. Some of them would not do well with too much rain in the wet season, while others would always require irrigation in the dry season. Some of them could survive the climate just fine, but fruiting is questionable due to the wet and dry seasons being inverted. Many more plants native to
Aw
regions could probably be included here, but these seem (potentially)more suitable for dry summers.* highly recommended if your conditions are suitable
Without knowing where you are, I can't recommend any seed/plant sources, but feel free to ask for more information about any of the plants that I listed. I also recommend these resources for information about food forests, especially in your climate.