Marinka Horack, a volunteer with the Stewards for the Wetlands, shared Talbert’s remarks with a group of 20 Muslim youth who had gathered at the wetlands site to give back to nature by helping to clean up invasive plants on the site.

MAS Youth Give organized the initiative to increase the environmental awareness of its attendees as part of its social work activities.

Motivated to make a difference, the group quickly started removing the invasive Brazilian Peppertree plant that threatens the survival of native plants and adversely affects the food chain.

California was once a massive coast of wetlands for birds to stop at during their long migration along the Pacific flyway from Patagonia to Canada.

In 1920, a wealth of oil fields were discovered along the Pacific flyway, and 95 percent of it has now been replaced with oil refineries.

"Like a game of musical chairs, birds get kicked off the wetlands," Horack explained to the attentive audience.

As a result, many California birds are now on the endangered list.

"It takes a huge group of volunteers on a regular basis to come out and pull the Brazilian Peppertree in order to restore the habitat to its natural cycle," said Joanna Landry with MAS Give.

Following the event, the youth had a chance to reflect on the event and what they learned about it. "They liked being in nature, being outdoors.

A lot of them didn’t realize the effect of non-native plants on the environment," Landry said. "They learned a lot about how the wetlands used to be so large and how now it is almost gone."