Native American Habitat Restoration LLC was incorporated this summer. Our cohort of Native American and Indigenous interns are preparing to start two additional habitat restoration projects in the mid-Willamette Valley properties this fall. They are still completing academic and experiential service-learning activities with plans to become emerging owners and operators of the company in the next two to three years. We are currently planning and conducting climate adaptation projects in collaboration with two partners to document how we can integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge practices into existing Western science principles and local practices.
We are currently reaching out to existing and new partners who are all committed to restoring degraded Mid-Willamette Valley forests, wetlands, and farms using principles that will also strengthen climate resilience. Our goal is to develop collaborative partnerships that will enable us to protect and revive local ecosystem health, first by increasing soil and plant biodiversity while integrating climate adaptation practices into our work plans.
We plan to refine our ecosystem restoration model through 2030 as a member of the Task Force on Best Practices for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030. In 2021, the United Nations announced this decade-long initiative and gave 8 examples of biodiversity throughout the planet. There are no examples from the North American continent on their map. In July, Elderberry Wisdom Farm was accepted as a member of this Task Force. We are developing the Native American Climate Adaptation Project and refining it in collaborative efforts with our partners so it can serve as a best practices model for ecosystem restoration using Traditional Knowledges.
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