MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — Middletown Rancheria has received a grant from Pacific Gas and Electric for habitat restoration.

The PG&E Foundation has awarded $500,000 to five grantees — one in each of PG&E’s five regions — through its Better Together Nature Positive Innovation Grant Program.

The projects selected are meant to preserve California’s unique biodiversity, focusing on land, air quality and water stewardship.

On the North Coast, Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians is receiving a Better Together Nature Positive Innovation grant to develop and implement a project to protect native plants and animals on tribal land in Lake County.

“Middletown Rancheria looks forward to bringing increased community engagement, cultural understanding, respect, and protection of its ancestral territories' native species and habitats, and providing local environmental stewardship, through the tribe's Natural Biodiversity Project’s goals of education, outreach, and promotion of cultural keystone species and habitats in the region,” said Tribal Chair Moke Simon, who also serves on the Lake County Board of Supervisors.

“Tribal ecological knowledge sharing and outreach in our vulnerable communities can lead to a better understanding of the human effects on the natural landscape and its plants and animals. With the funding opportunity provided by The PG&E Corporation Foundation, the tribe will continue to work in support of a more comprehensive understanding of the region's biodiversity needs and struggles through this project,” Simon said.

Other Better Together program award recipients are Farm Discovery at Live Earth of Watsonville, Little Manila Foundation of Stockton, Maidu Summit Consortium of Chester and the Marine Science Institute of Redwood City.

These grants are funded by The PG&E Corporation Foundation. Charitable donations come from PG&E shareholders and other sources, not PG&E customers.