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ALICIA HAMANN:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Alicia Hamann, Director for Friends of the Eel River. And today we are going to talk about something that I am just so excited about, which is native plants. I have some really wonderful guests with me here today. Audrey Jackson, who is the Nursery Manager for the Wiyot Tribe. Hey, Audrey. Adam Canter, who's the Director for Natural Resources for the Wiyot Tribe. And Julie Weeder, who is the Program Manager for Friends of the Eel River. Hey, Julie.

So today we're going to talk about a variety of things. Some of the really great projects that the Wiyot Tribe has related to native plants, but also a new project that Friends of the Eel River is launching.

Yeah, so the Eel River Native Plant Network is, I guess, kind of launched already. We had a virtual orientation session about two months ago, and this project has been a couple years in the making. Where it came from was a couple years ago, I was reflecting on all the really amazing work that the Yurok tribe did to collect and amplify seeds for the restoration of the reservoirs. That took them about five years to collect, I think 60, maybe 80,000 pounds of seed. And I was thinking, gosh, PG&E is so eager to get rid of the Eel River dams as soon as possible. Where are we in this process? How many pounds of seed have we collected? And the answer is basically none. There are some entities that have started getting little baggies together, and I think are starting to think about amplification. But the reality is that the Eel River reservoirs actually have a larger acreage than the Klamath reservoirs.

And so if we, a high-end estimate of how many seeds we might need, say we had to do the whole thing with helicopter seeding, hopefully that wouldn't be the case, but say that was the case, we might need as many as 250,000 pounds of seeds to revegetate the Eel River reservoir. So it's a daunting task. And so I started talking to people about restoration practitioners and nursery managers about the availability of native seeds and native plants in the Eel Basin. And what I learned was that it's actually really hard to come by. And a lot of folks are having to source their products from the Central Valley or even outside of the state. So we decided that it makes a lot of sense to bring together everyone who has anything to do with native plants.

So if you're a tribal nation who is working on cultural revitalization or wanting to do restoration on your lands or a conservation property manager or nonprofit restorationists, RCDs, different state and federal agencies, we have been talking to all kinds of people about the way that they use native plants in their work. And we're just really excited about launching this program that ultimately is going to explore opportunities for increasing regional capacity to produce native plant projects. Julie, anything else that we should say about the Native Plant Network?

JULIE WEEDER:

I think I'll just add that really everyone that we've spoken to about this is very happy that it's happening. They're very excited to see what comes up and we're looking forward to the network being extremely collaborative and we're really providing a space so that the entities that need the native plants and the entities that are producing the native plants can really together determine how to increase that capacity. We have been having some one-on-one interviews with people. They usually run about an hour long and we have a set set of questions that just make sure we cover some themes and we've really been getting a lot out of those interviews. When you set aside the time to really dig into that topic deeply, you really get a lot of information about what the real limitations are, what people's experiences have been, We've really been being very good about taking notes during those and then we're finding some themes across those insights, as you might say, across those interviews and those will be used actually during our in-person meetings that are coming up soon.

HAMANN:

And just to give people a little preview of what we've been learning from the interviews, some of the things that folks who work with native plants are prioritizing is preserving local genetics, focusing on culturally significant species, trying to build capacity for amplification. And of course, something that is an ongoing task in any kind of restoration work is invasive species management. But what folks are finding is that there's some barriers to that capacity growth. There's some infrastructure in the region that would be really helpful that we are lacking, things like cold storage or seed cleaning facilities, or frankly, just nursery space. There's limited access to collection sites, which Adam, I'm curious if this is something that you all have encountered. If you have, I know that there's been a lot of really wonderful land returns recently to the Wiyot tribe. Has that helped with access to collection sites?

ADAM CANTER:

Definitely, Alicia. Unlike some of the neighboring tribes to the Wiyot, the Wiyot is centered around the Wigi, Humboldt Bay. Most of our ancestral lands are in private land holdings, which has really impacted Wiyot people's ability to gather on their ancestral lands. So, yeah, land return has been great, not only opening up more access to culturally important species, but giving us access to also collect seed from these plants to begin propagating and amplifying in our pretty new native plant nursery out here at the Table Bluff Reservation.

HAMANN:

Cool. One of the other things that we've heard from interviewees is ideas about what this network could do. So like I said, broadly, we are trying to increase capacity for production of native plants in the region. And specifically, what that might look like is investing together in shared infrastructure, maybe building an entirely new nursery in the Eel Basin or possibly supporting existing ones to expand, building a seed availability database. A lot of people talk about not knowing where to find the kinds of plants or seeds that they want. And lots of other things, some of which might have to do with workforce development or market forecasts to help the producers of native plants know what people are going to be interested in.

So yeah, a lot of things that we're hoping this network can do and so much overlap among all the various partners and the kind of projects that they're working on. So speaking of projects that partner organizations are working on, I guess I should have mentioned too that this native plant network is guided by a stewardship team. And we're really fortunate to have Adam Canter here as one of the members of that stewardship team. It's been really useful to learn from folks who are already doing this work and make sure that we're not replicating efforts that are already underway and supporting those efforts underway in whatever way we can. Audrey, I wonder if you want to tell us a little bit about the native plant nursery that the Wiyot tribe has and where that project came from.

AUDREY JACKSON:

So the Eel River Native Plant Nursery primarily started out of our Western Lily and Coastal Prairie restoration project and a huge help to us was Jane Dexter and Christina Cortez from the MRC Nursery who are also partners on that project. They really helped us get started in the nursery with irrigation, they really helped us a lot with that. They helped us build capacity, Jane kind of trained me a little bit on how to amend the soil and what not and how and where to collect some of the seed for some of the projects or the species on the project that we have. And we're still pretty new so we're still learning how to do our seed cleaning or our seed storage and stratification and it's awesome to see it grow.

HAMANN:

So you said that the nursery, it sounds like it came to life from the Western Lily Coastal Prairie Restoration Project. Can you tell me some more about that project and who's all involved in it?

JACKSON:

So that project, it is occurring on CDFW, California Fish and Wildlife Property, and it's just down the road from our Table Bluff Reservation. And this project was initially designed to help increase the western lily population, which had nearly gone to very, it had gone very low, the numbers had gotten very low after a plant botanist who was managing the area for the western lily had left.

So the numbers had gotten pretty low, and they wanted to take action, and they started this project, California Fish and Wildlife started this project, and MRC had a nursery and they had gotten involved and they helped us start our nursery so that we could grow plants here that were more native to this area than Petrolia, where the MRC nursery is located. And they helped us collect seed, and that project was really where I started learning that the plant genetics and the ecotype of where those plants are from is very important for the success of those plugs on a project, because I believe that we had sent seed for that project to be grown in the Central Valley, and it wasn't as successful as we had hoped, so we had to turn and grow the seed ourselves, so it was a learning process.

HAMANN:

Yeah, it's fascinating talking to so many different people who are involved in growing native plants about really how much like trial and error there is. And I sometimes lament that so much local and traditional ecological knowledge has been lost. Like maybe a thousand years ago, people knew a lot more about how to grow these plants in the right ways. And now here we are learning that again. But I would imagine that the tribes still hold some of that knowledge and that's really coming into use in managing your nursery. Is that the case?

JACKSON:

Absolutely. I know that that the Wiyot tribe has been stewards to land since time immemorial, so they've already done the trial and error process and bringing the tribes to the table for these conversations I think really helps us divert away from maybe not using our time the wisest going through those trial and error processes on our own.

HAMANN:

Totally, yeah.

CANTER:

I think that's well said. For a long time, restoration happened behind closed doors. These kind of elite groups of scientists, when tribal nations really hold, like Audrey said, knowledge since time immemorial about living in relationship to place. And when you're talking about native plants, it's so place-based and so local that with a watershed the size of the Eel River, over 200 miles from north to south, it's a lot of different ecosystems, ecotypes, vegetation and plant communities, a dozen tribal groups and nations that can mirror that biodiversity. And yeah, I think it's going to take all that knowledge together with lots of different groups to really make this a successful effort.

HAMANN:

Yeah, hear, hear. And that's really the vision behind the Native Plant Network is ensuring that we are talking to everyone who's working in the basin and has knowledge that they can share. And speaking of the whole entire basin, I want to go back to a little bit of what part of the thought process that spurred the development of the Native Plant Network, which is the pending dam removal on the Eel. I was just on the radio, what was it, like about a week ago with Michelle talking about dam removal and some of the wrenches that have been thrown into the process lately. And Adam, I'm wondering if you want to just comment a little bit on the significance of this moment for the Wiyot tribe and the role that the river has played, the incredibly central role that the river has played for the tribe since time immemorial.

CANTER:

Well, yeah, the Eel River is really the Wiyot River. Its name is Wiyot. And of course, it was mistakenly named the Eel River after the L.K. Wood party was gifted lamprey by Ki-we-lah-tah, this very kind Wiyot leader back in 1850. And it was one of the most productive salmon rivers on the whole West Coast. Millions of returning salmon that really, along with Pacific lamprey, helped to shape Wiyot culture. And for over 100 years, the majority of the water in the Eel has been stolen, has been taken out of the Eel River system and diverted into the Russian River through the Potter Valley Project, really devastating the river, causing all kinds of repercussions, increased summer water temperatures, reduced flows, overfishing when there was a salmon cannery industry down here at the mouth. For many years, it just devastated the stocks.

HAMANN:

The EcoNews Report, where we're talking this week about native plants with friends of the Eel River and the Wiyot Tribe.

CANTER:

The Wiyot tribe have been waiting for a long time for restoration of the river and have been working on dam removal for many, many years. And so it's just a super exciting time for the Wiyot tribe with the prospects of dam removal happening, hopefully sooner than later. And finally, the decommissioning of the Potter Valley project. So, yeah, super excited, but also proceeding with caution and concern, especially over some of the recent stories that have come out about the Trump administration getting people in Riverside County, all of a sudden, super interested in the river water and the Potter Valley project and wondering how they might be able to take some of that water for themselves down in Southern California.

HAMANN:

Yeah yeah and that if folks want to learn more about that or get involved in standing up for local control of our water and protection of of our plans for dam removal please go to eelriver.org there is an action alert there. In fact every second and fourth Thursday of the month there's an opportunity for you to call into the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District board meetings and tell them exactly how you feel about them getting involved in our long hard-fought plans for dam removal. So I want to turn back to talking about some of the projects that the Wiyot tribe is involved in and and just learn a little bit more about this native plant nursery that you have. How big is it? What do you guys grow in there? And what are some of the things that you're most excited about at that nursery?

CANTER:

Well, maybe I'll jump in first and then let Audrey speak. But if anyone that knows me knows that I'm a hazel head, I love hazelnut. And if you could pick one culturally significant species, hazelnut checks all the boxes. It's critical to the art of basketry. It has to be carefully tended and burned to produce quality basket materials. So there's lots of deep understanding of the land and fire ecology that's really needed to make those hazels produce good basket sticks. And of course, it produces super nutritious nuts that a lot of people say they've never seen a hazelnut on a hazelnut bush. But they really have to be tended and cared for and loved and pruned. And they really benefit from being in full sun, which which you actually see this really unique, rare form of coastal scrub, hazelnut coastal scrub that that where hazelnuts actually dominant without an overstory, really, really unique coastal vegetation type that has ties to the legacy of land management.

And for some years, even before the nursery started, we would go out and collect hazelnuts and learned pretty quickly just the research that to help them sprout, you need to stratify them in the fridge for a few months. Cold, moist stratification, it's called, which lots of seeds need promote germination and started growing those out and planting them on the tribe's properties and giving them out. But the we are also bulb farmers, like many of our California nation, tribal nations, and would move bulbs or geophytes. They're called botanically, which means earth loving because their their primary storage organ is is underground in the soil, making them very resistant and resilient to the California Mediterranean climate and drought and also easily moved and traded.

And so that was another focus early on of our nursery is we knew we wanted hazelnut and we knew we wanted to start propagating these geophytes or Indian potatoes, which that whole group is covers a lot of different species of bulbs from lilies, like the Western lily to to Brodeus and Triteleas, Calicordes, Fritillaries, the rice roots, checker lilies and just a group of plants that's that's really culturally significant to to to much of California's native peoples.

HAMANN:

Audrey, what do you want to add to that?

JACKSON:

I can't really give you a precise number of how big our nursery is, but we've definitely grown in capacity since I started working in the nursery. I started as a fisheries technician, but I kind of moved over to the nursery, like say a little over a year ago. And bulb amplification is like a huge part of what we do in our nursery, which Autumn had just talked about bulbs are what's called Indian potatoes. And we're growing things like Tritillia and Camas and Brodea in our nursery. And every fall we take all of those bulbs out of the ground and we separate off their bulblets, which are like new little baby bulbs. And then we collect seed from those same flowers after they've dropped their seeds. So now we're amplifying on like a double time regime, I guess we're amplifying through seed and through the bulbs.

So it's been really awesome to just see like how much we've grown in our capacity to grow geophytes since I've started. And I'm definitely learning as I go here with hazelnut. Hazelnut takes a really, really long time in stratification to pop. So it's been cool to see all the different processes that essentially we're just mimicking nature in the nursery because the nursery is kind of a, it's a fake environment to grow plants in. So you have to kind of help the plants in the nursery and mimic what mother nature does, which I think is really awesome to see that, I guess, ecosystem services are kind of a part of like growing stuff in the nursery. So you can kind of do it on your own outside or you can do it yourself in a synthetic way. I don't know if that makes sense.

HAMANN:

Yeah, it does make sense. And, you know, I'll say one of my favorite things about working on this Native Plant Network project is all of the stuff that I have been learning. As a non-botanist, I get to talk to people like you guys who are really knowledgeable. And for example, I had no idea that bulb plants or geophytes could be replicated also by seed. Like I didn't know that collecting seed from plants like that was a thing. Adam, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about all of the land back that has been happening and the restoration journeys that you are embarking on right now.

CANTER:

Definitely. Well, the Wiyot are leaders in the world for indigenous land return. One of the first indigenous groups to ever get land given back by a local government, by a municipality. Wiyot territory is so diverse, from the oak prairies of Kneeland, to the dark redwood forests, to the coastal prairies and shrublands around Humboldt Bay. The tribe really has a vision of getting back examples of all the habitat types within their ancestral territory, which in turn provide opportunities to practice culture. Every habitat type kind of has a cultural activity associated with it.

And recently, in 2022, in one of the first state-funded land return efforts, the tribe got funding from the Ocean Protection Council to get back 50 acres of spruce forest and a relic legacy coastal prairie, near King Salmon, called Mouralherwaqh. It's a really magical place, surrounded by development, and really looking forward to restoring the prairie there, which has really been taken over by a host of invasive plant species, Spanish heath, pampas grass, Monterey pine is kind of rapidly encroaching on the prairie there. So, right now we're in the planning phases and just got our coastal development permit for that property to be able to start doing some more heavy-handed restoration there.

And then, the end of 2024, the tribe got back over 350 acres of dunes and dune forests at Digawututklh, on what's now known as the Samoa Peninsula. The southernmost example of coastal beech pine, sick of spruce dune forest on the West Coast, and it's just a magical area. If you ever went out to Dead Man's Drop on the Kinetic Sculpture Race, you might have visited this forest, and it's now open to the public. So, I encourage people to go hiking out there, right across from Cookhouse Road in Samoa. And yeah, really, we haven't gotten any redwood forest back yet, but that's definitely a goal of the tribe as well. And yes, it's been great to start collecting seed from these recently returned properties for propagating to help restore them in the future. So, pretty exciting time.

HAMANN:

Yeah, hear, hear. And what, what a wonderful place to be too, where there's so much diversity of habitat types. And I'm just really, really pleased to hear about the way that our community is working with the tribe and supporting returning land to the Wiyot tribe. And I love, Adam, what you said about land stewardship being an opportunity to practice culture. I think that's something that is, is lost on some of us that, that these ways of being were so integrated and like I work in, in conservation restoration work. So to me, that feels like part of my culture, but that's definitely not the case for everyone living in the Western world. And so I just love, love the way that you framed that. Julie, do you have a, do you have a native plant fact or a fun anecdote for us?

WEEDER:

Yeah, there's, gosh, there's so many, I think, as Alicia mentioned for herself, I'm also not a botanist and I've been really enjoying just learning about the great variety of the plants and what they need. Some of the interesting things I've learned have to do with, if you have a species of plant that you're trying to get into production so that you can have enough seeds to really do something like re-handle a reservoir footprint, you know, you really need to amplify the seeds which means that you have big fields and you basically plant them and grow them out and then you collect the seeds from those and then you do that again. But it turns out that each seed is so different and it's typically not the shape and the needs of the seed are not going to work with normal farming equipment.

And so there's a need to really design and bootstrap contraptions to make the farming equipment work. Also just how unique each species is in terms of what sort of, how you can store it. You know, that some of them need to be processed in very, very different ways before they can be stored and just things that are not intuitive at all to a person coming into it like me. But I'm really just always struck by how much knowledge there is of this community and how much really all the tiny groups are doing on their own to collect tiny in terms of the number of people to collect these seeds and how successful they are and also the large seed companies, how efficient and effective they are in really supporting all these efforts. So it's really just been wonderful.

HAMANN:

I've been reflecting, I've been at a couple of like restoration conferences recently, and I've really been reflecting on this moment we're in where many like Western trained scientists are confirming things that Native people have known for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And I think there's a mindset sometimes that humans are so separate from the ecological world around us, but really, we have evolved along with that world and so have the plants and animals that humans have interacted with. And like Adam, you were saying about hazel and the way that it really needs to be managed with fire and needs human hands to really be its best. And I just I think that that's such an interesting insight that has unfortunately taken us a really long time to come to. But here we are now finally starting to understand that and it's just a really exciting, exciting time.

Julie, if people want to learn more about the Eel River Native Plant Network, or maybe attend an upcoming meeting, how do they do that?

WEEDER:

You know, we do have a website that recently was created called eelrivernativeplantnetwork.org. If you go to that website, you can learn about what we've done thus far. There's materials that you can review from our kickoff virtual meeting that we had back in March. And then you also can learn about our meetings coming up in June and September. And also through that, you can contact us directly if you have anything else you'd like to discuss. But we really encourage people to come out. The meetings are going to be super interactive, and nobody's going to be sitting there. You're not going to be lectured to for a whole day. These are opportunities to really talk to each other and be really generative in our ideas and our solutions.

HAMANN:

Yeah, and I really want to underscore that the intent of this network is to be collaborative and to get to some action as quick as we can. I know a lot of us have all been a part of those processes where we talk and talk, and we talk about talking, and we talk about how we'll talk, and then maybe sometime down the road we make some plans. But our goal is to have some prioritized opportunities by the end of this year. So if you want to be a part of that process, June 18th is our first in-person meeting here in Fortuna. We love you. If you have anything to do with native plants, please join us for that. And like Julie said, eelrivernativeplantnetwork.org is where you can find information about that. Adam, Audrey, any closing thoughts that you have as we finish out this edition of the EcoNews Report?

CANTER:

Yeah, thanks for having us and stay informed about the Eel River Dam removal process and write your representatives and tell them you don't want groups outside our region taking our water. Yeah, just enjoy the spring, everyone. It's a beautiful time of year to see flowers and the natural world.

HAMANN:

Yes, hear, hear. Well, thank you very much. This has been another edition of the Econews Report, and you can find us at the same time and place next week for another exciting episode.