As the year comes to a close, it’s a lovely time to take stock and reflect on the lessons, celebrations, and lamentations of the past 12 months. More than that, it’s a time of great gratitude and thanks to YOU for all you’ve made possible this year. Read on to get the PLTeam’s take on 2022 and what lies ahead in 2023.
Lovina englund
Seasons come and go year after year, bringing with them the changing birdsong, hues of nature’s color wheel, and bounty and energy from the earth. As I reflect at year’s end on what shines brightest in my heart, I can say that the entire year was imbued with generosity.
Generosity came to me at many points this past year, during times of hardship and during times of elation. No matter the timing or form received, I feel as if your generosity, like blades of grass woven into a basket, could hold all the challenges and joys that came my way. My wish at the year’s end is to honor the generosity that came from you and others. Giving hands like yours accomplished so much on behalf of the lands you love with each passing month.
In January, your generosity helped leverage project grant funding from the Innovia Foundation to begin working with the spring 2022 Design Build studio class at the University of Idaho, teachers at Troy School, and landowner Judy LaLonde to create a new environmental learning pavilion on the Neuman Conservation Forest in Troy. Because of you, this structure exists today serving young and adult learners in the community of Troy. The pride of place and land ethic instilled in each of the students, both at Troy School and those who participated in the UI Design-Build course, will perpetuate throughout their lifetimes.
In February, your generosity helped to close a project protecting native Palouse Prairie grassland, a highly imperiled and species-rich landscape. Thanks to you, year after year, bright blooms will dot the Lone Jack Mountain hillside—alive with the buzz of busy pollinators—where some of the most colorful and diverse Palouse prairie plants to be found in the region.
In March, your generosity helped leverage grant funding to advance a conservation project that will soon protect a restored wetland in a creek meadow of the upper Potlatch River watershed. This brought impact investments from philanthropy sources across the Pacific Northwest to our community—dollars that are only available to accredited land trusts working on conservation projects that emphasize protecting climate resilient landscapes. Because of you, this project will cross the finish line in early 2023 and this land will forever provide a natural refuge in a climate uncertain future.
In April, your longtime investment in our mission demonstrated to a foundation partner, named the Cadeau Foundation, that the Palouse Land Trust was a vibrant, successful organization worthy of being selected to receive the largest charitable gift we’ve ever seen come through our door. Extraordinary gifts like this from trusted funders come on the shoulders of your generosity. People like you, whose belief in our mission is creating a path to long-term financial security that upholds our promise of perpetuity.
In May, alongside the incredible collaboration and support of the community through recreation groups like MAMBA (Moscow Area Mountain Bike Association) and Palouse Road Runners, your generosity helped close a funding gap on a project that both protects open space and working forest land, but also creates the first permanent trails easement on Moscow Mountain. Because of you, there will be an expanded trail system from Idler’s Rest opening up in 2023.
In June, your generosity, together with our agency partners, helped showcase techniques and funding sources that are advancing reconstruction of Palouse Prairie across the region. Alongside dedicated staff at the Latah Soil and Water Conservation District, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Thorn Creek Native Seed Farm, we held a day-long field tour to several local sites and conserved properties where landowners have undertaken these ambitious efforts to create a more biodiverse landscape and connected habitat corridors for pollinators and wildlife. Because of you, this knowledge is being transferred to other lands and moving the ball down the field for Palouse Prairie protections.
In July, your generosity helped leverage resources to bring helping hands to address forest health and fire mitigation on protected properties owned by elderly retirees. In collaboration with the knowledgeable and dedicated team at Idaho Firewise, high school-aged teens from area rural schools working for the Youth Conservation Corps under the Clearwater Basin Collaborative thinned and pruned trees and shrubs on nearby forests. Because of you, these young teens made connections to these elderly stewards who are taking a long view of land conservation and fire prevention.
In August, your generosity helped advance land protection goals in the Palouse River Watershed Regional Conservation Partnership. Working alongside our partners at the Palouse Conservation District, the Palouse Land Trust will implement up to $1M in land protection projects within the Palouse River Watershed over the next few years. Because of you, we are able to leverage these conservation dollars, putting conservation on the ground where it matters most.
In September, your generosity helped add on a new team member, bringing us to a mighty staff of four. This is a big boost not only for keeping up on tasks at our preserves, but is opening doors to find new ways for mission impact through relevancy and community. We have already seen an extraordinary increase in volunteer hours served on conserved properties and growth of our Americorps service member program. Because of you, we will be launching our Learning Landscapes program in 2023, pairing the traditional skills of a land trust—working with landowners to protect land—with place-based education in partnership with teachers, school districts, and communities.
In October, your generosity helped leverage project grant funding from the Washington Farmland Protection Program, bringing state conservation dollars to a local farm family that has spent years undertaking practices that not only regenerate the soil and cut down on fossil fuel consumption, but keep the bounty of the soil directly marketed in our local community. Your generosity is supporting local food systems, mitigating climate impacts, and protecting fertile soils—our most valuable resource.
In November, your generosity helped leverage project grant funding from the Cross Charitable Foundation to advance yet another land protection project, one that is slated to protect a prairie grassland along a transition zone between agricultural land and forest near Ball Butte. This area south of Potlatch is experiencing pressure for land use change from open space to low density rural home sites. Because of you, the land trust can charge forward on this conservation priority project in 2023 starting when we welcome our new Conservation Project Manager to the team in early January.
In December, you helped a landmark achievement for the land conservation community come to pass. After years of hard work and persistence by the Land Trust Alliance, land trust members across the country and our allies on Capitol Hill — and in the face of well-resourced opposition — Congress finally passed the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act. Because of you, land trusts across the nation were able to advocate for this monumental policy to go into effect, protecting the tools that allow us to advance private land conservation.
These achievements are just a small testament of the profound impact your generosity is having on local land conservation. It is an extreme honor to be in my position at the land trust, receiving your generosity and letting it flow to the lands you love. Your generosity will echo in the mission of the land trust and the whispers of nature for many, many years to come. With profound thanks and warm wishes into the new year.
mARCEL rOBICHEAUX
Some of you might know that I've done some traveling before working for Palouse Land Trust. I've been to many different natural places, some protected, some not. Hiking in Patagonia, kayaking on the coast of Maine, leading troubled teens through red rock Escalante country in southern Utah, and much more. I don't share this to brag, only to offer a foundation to this story.
Fall of '21 when I began working with Palouse land Trust, I was introduced to Idler's Rest Nature Preserve. For someone who's stood below hanging glaciers and stood on top of Cascade volcanoes, Idler's Rest seemed to be small and, well, humble. Please, don't throw your tomatoes yet! Wait until the end, and if you then deem my story to be rotten tomato worthy, throw away.
One of my privileges has been the ability to travel. Another has been an able body to take me across some incredible landscapes. What's more, falling prey to expert syndrome, it's easy for me to forget where I got started: a small child exploring a wooded backyard much like Idler's Rest Nature Preserve. This was another privilege, to have behind my home, acres and acres of houseless roadless natural space where I was free to roam, explore, play, and build stick forts. That was my primer, the rest is history.
Now here I am, tending to a small nature preserve. As I removed downed trees blocking the trail and walked with school groups through the cedars I became more familiar with Idler's nooks and special places. As I planted trees alongside volunteers I let myself wonder what the forest would look like in 50 years. Would I live long enough to see these trees grow big and great? As I took down the stick forts left by children just like the child I once was, I realized that this place offers to many folks what my natural backyard offered me - a first primer to playing in the woods, adventure, respite. Slowly I realized that Idler's Rest Nature Preserve is that beloved natural backyard for so many who call this area home. And so, I want to thank you all for this opportunity to have come full circle, to be part of an organization making sure that any child can have a wild backyard like what I grew up with.
It is an honor to care for a place that is a treasure to so many. Thank you all and happy New Year.
Jaime JovaNOVICH-wALKER
Much like the previous two years, 2022 seems surreal, different, about 12 years long. So much has happened, so much good - and so much challenging. Looking back over the past year one thing shines brightly through: YOU!
It’s so easy to lose hope, to feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of the turmoil and uncertainty that surrounds every day, but you haven’t. You’ve been there to support the staff and board of directors in making good on the promise of forever. You’re literally creating and building Moscow Mountain’s first ever permanently protected public trail. In the new year, completing the conservation easement and dedicating the trail that will connect Idler’s Rest to the trail corridor on the mountain will be a treat I can’t wait to share with you.
In the face of a changing climate, you didn’t throw your hands up in frustration of the sheer magnitude of the challenge facing us. No, in fact you doubled down on being part of the solution, of supporting the protection of our most climate resilient and connected landscapes. From the Robertson and Olson families outside of Deary, to working farmers and prairie enthusiasts in Whitman County, you’re supporting wonderful landowners and projects that will protect animals, plants, insects, and people, too, from the impacts of change. And there’s so much more to come in 2023!
You even worked some magic you might not even be aware of. We often talk about “leveraging support,” but what does that really mean? Well, to put it simply, when grant and other funding opportunities arise, it’s not as simple as writing an application and waiting for the check. Many funders look to the community and their level of support and commitment when deciding where those critical dollars go.
Your generous financial and volunteer investments in PLT allowed us to secure multiple grants that helped to fund the completion of the Neuman Conservation Forest Environmental Learning Pavilion along Judy’s Trail in Troy; Land Trust Alliance, Doris Duke Foundation, and the Oregon Community Foundation dollars for acquisition costs of the Robertson project; and you’ve proven to local funders like the Innovia Foundation, Latah County Community Foundation, and the Co Op’s Change for Good Program that conservation matters to our communities.
And you made something possible that even I wasn’t sure I would see this year: the addition of a fourth PLTeam member to help put even more conservation progress on the ground. Thank you for believing in the value of outreach, education, and community conservation, which allowed us to welcome Marcel on full time to advance those initiatives. I can’t underscore what the added capacity means, but I sure hope you can experience it when you volunteer with us next season, visit Idler’s Rest, or help with community programming.
A team of four was a huge milestone this year. But almost as quickly as our team grew, it shrank again when we learned that Karl would be taking the next steps in his conservation career and moving on from the land trust. It was a bittersweet time, one filled with excitement for his new adventure coupled with sadness at losing a colleague and friend. Moreover, it was an unexpected hiccup in the robust project pipeline you’ve helped to build over the past several years. But just a hiccup it is - I’m anxious to introduce you to a new Conservation Projects Manager PLTeam member in the new year!
On a personal note, you filled my cup and lifted me up when things got tough. I can’t adequately thank you for the outpouring of care, concern, and offers of help as Lovina navigated her devastating leg injury early this year. It was a time when nothing was certain and I had to pull up my britches and very poorly fill Lovina’s leadership shoes. Your confidence and belief got us all through and your well wishes and good, healing energy had Lovina back in the saddle in no time.
And about that Conservation Celebration in the great outdoors I was so excitedly planning? Yeah… thanks for understanding the reschedule… followed by the postponement… followed by grudgingly accepting when the weather and Covid had me beat and having to cancel the darn thing altogether. I dare not set a date for next year, but it’s going to happen, I swear!
Thank you for all you do for the lands we all depend upon. For championing our history and heritage, supporting our rural way of life, for conserving the best of our past for our future. Thank you for speaking for those without a voice, and advocating for clean, healthy habitat and waterways. Thank you for protecting special ecosystems like the native Palouse Prairie, and advocating for treasured spaces we all love. Thank you for building up and inspiring the next generation of conservation leaders. Thank you for giving me purpose, and for standing together as a force for good in our communities today, tomorrow, and forever.
Happy New Year.