Citizens and scientists: The EarthCorps approach to science- and community-based ecological restoration

Background/Question/Methods and Results/Conclusions

Across the Pacific Northwest, public agencies and community groups are taking up the cause of earth stewardship—bringing community members, land managers, and scientists together to restore and maintain local greenspaces. This community-based ecological restoration requires a fluency in both the art of community engagement and the science of restoration ecology, and EarthCorps—a Seattle-based non-profit organization dedicated to restoring ecosystems, building community, and developing leadership—provides an excellent case study of both of these tasks:

• Community Engagement. Since 1993, hundreds of young adults from around the world have participated in a full-time, intensive training program in environmental restoration and community leadership. Each year, schoolchildren, youth, and adults provide 100,000 hours of hands-on restoration work at local parks and natural areas through our environmental stewardship volunteer program.

• Science. EarthCorps is also laying the groundwork for a long-term citizen science monitoring program within the region, in order to give community stewards the scientific tools they need to accurately monitor and make appropriate management decisions about their sites.

In this session, we will discuss EarthCorps’ approach to engaging communities and using science in ecological restoration—with a focus on our work to create robust systems to document and measure the progress of community-based environmental restoration efforts toward the end-goal of creating healthy, self-sustaining habitats that helps human and natural communities thrive.