This spring we have a lot to be grateful for AND a lot of work ahead of us. With your help, we are aiming to raise $19k by the end of Earth Week, April 25th. The good news, is that we are already 1/3 of the way there - support at any amount goes a long way for on-the-ground restoration and programs across diverse local communities. Plus, we have some sweet gifts for all different levels of support:
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“It's been just over six years of work repairing the habitat to the point where beavers could be reintroduced to the area, and now we are excited that beavers will be the ones to lead the way forward in the restoration work” says Jeanine Moy, Director of the Vesper Meadow Education Program. “We have been working to bring together diverse people - from students and public volunteers, Federal agencies to local NGO’s, artists, scientists, and Tribal members to be a part of this effort. The ongoing success of this sort of coalition building demonstrates the power of people coming together to make positive change.”
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Native bunchgrasses and specific wildflowers are essential food for Mardon skipper, a rare and declining butterfly in the Vesper Meadow neighborhood. We are working with local partners to protect regional meadow hotspots for the Mardon as well as making valiant efforts to restore invaded pasture back to wet meadow at Vesper Meadow…and seeds are the secret ingredient! Read on to hear about how we are doing it…
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Jeanine and Stasie reflect on the Healing Landscapes program in 2024 and Stasie’s role as Indigenous Partnerships Program Manager.
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Interviews with Vesper Meadow Staff (part 1)
Jeanine and Stasie check in about the past, present, and future of Vesper Meadow restoration and programs
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Qá’pai. Tci tanq’ua’t Aiyanna Brown. Tsum aná du Shannin Stutzman. Tanketsí du Esther Stutzman. Tsum Komemma Kalapuya nau Hanis Coos.
Hello, my name is Aiyanna Brown, I am the daughter of Shannin Stutzman and the granddaughter of Esther Stutzman. I am Komemma Kalapuya, Hanis Coos, and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
I had the privilege of being The Healing Landscapes Intern 2024 for Vesper Meadow and The Understory Initiative (TUI).
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Support Operation Mardon Meadows!
Over the last few years, we have been working to grow partnership networks in southwest Oregon to address the needs of Mardon skippers and create a community that can effectively support their conservation:
This project involves a multipronged conservation strategy to monitor Poma populations and habitat, engage volunteers in conservation actions and habitat restoration, increase public awareness through education, art, and digital media. We will address the ongoing habitat degradation in the last two known meadows with viable populations of this southwest Oregon endemic species.
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In our pilot year, our Healing Landscapes program gave opportunities for Indigenous youth and families to engage in beaver-based restoration, connect to place, and engage in the worldview and practices that deepen and heal the human-land relationship.
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Building partnerships with Indigenous people is essential. Centering Indigenous voices and self-identified goals directly addresses historical injustices and land dispossession by uplifting Tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Read on for our summary of our January 2024 workshop for local, non-native-led organizations in conservation and environmental activism.
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Everything, and everyone really came together in 2023 - in ways we could never have imagined! At the heart-center of this network, is our team at The Understory Initiative: a group of hard-working, passionate, and thoughtful ecologists and restoration practitioners who serve as the Vesper Meadow extended-family. We are proud to share the year-end report from The Understory Initiative:
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Hot item of 2023! One of our biggest accomplishments this year was launching the Fire Ecology and Human Relationship Curriculum. We worked on this project with the Confederate Tribes of Siletz Indians for three years and are glad now to be sharing it with teachers and the public. Here’s an overview of the curriculum and how its debut has gone so far…
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Over a dozen different photographers, painters, printers, have contributed their work to this ensemble after having spent time at Vesper Meadow and finding inspiration there. It is also reflections of the land, community, and restoration as told through the eyes of artists. We are so grateful to work together with these artists to tell the story of healing the landscape.
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For Rianna’s capstone project at Southern Oregon University, she explored the riparian waterways of Vesper Meadow by snow and by sun. One of the components of her project was to document changes to Latgawa and Spencer Creek through photos, telling the powerful story of restoration over time.
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We are celebrating the 30th Anniversay of National Public Lands Day even though Vesper Meadow Restoration Preserve is privately held. But why? Firstly, all of our programs are designed to engage a wide and diverse public for the sake of education, community building, and environmental and social justice. And secondly, we believe that the urgent need for restoration across the greater landscape transcends the current land management and ownership.
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Artist-in-Partnership, Renée Rhodes, questions the relationships between mimicry, play, and care, and as the darkness of climate collapse and species extinction surrounds us. Exploring creative allyship with other species. her diverse art practices (dance, film, weaving, textile design, photography) demonstrate being in devoted relationship with a prairie and promote ways of seeing based on ecological inquiry and friendship.
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ArtBeyond artist Hannah Bakken Morris installed signs from her ongoing project, Words to that Effect, which is an ongoing project of site-specific installations that catalyzes a new engagement to the fence in the American West and its accompanying signs as a sprawling symbol of state settler powers. It provokes an imagining of release and possibilities to dismantle exploitative systems of people and land.
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Like many ecological restoration projects, we want to reduce the harms of past land management practices; for the waterway, wildlife, and our changing climate. What’s unique is our approach…
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Vesper Meadow is in the heart of butterfly country. After three years of data collection, we are excited to share some results with the help of students at Southern Oregon University.
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Thank you to all the partner organizations, scientists, students, interns, artists, volunteers, and generous supporters who have come together and made this year so wonderful.
Read on to see all our accomplishments in restoration, community building, Tribal partnerships, visits with youth groups, and more…
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Finally….Beaver Days! Its been a long road, and we are continuing on it.
We launched a huge volunteer-powered restoration effort in 2022 to advance Latgawa Creek restoration goals. Over the course of 13 days we worked with 80 volunteers for over 440 hours of volunteer labor, and over 60 elementary and college students for stewardship engagement.