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| Working in 37 cities in 20 different states and one U.S. territory, 40 TogetherGreen Fellows will help engage thousands of people to protect habitat, wildlife and water and save energy. The TogetherGreen Fellowship program invests in high-potential leaders, providing them with the tools, visibility and a peer network, as well as $10,000, to help them lead the conservation actions needed to shape a greener future. Sample Fellows projects awarded this November include creating green jobs in Alaska, using environmental education with a twist on the Texas-Mexico border, and working to create better bird habitat in Ohio. For complete details on the 2009 Innovation Grants projects and partners, visit www.togethergreen.org/grants. To read about the 2009 Fellows projects, visit www.togethergreen.org/fellows. Now in its second year, the TogetherGreen initiative has helped nearly 170 environmental projects receive the support and resources they need to facilitate people-powered conservation action. Many projects work with inner-city audiences and those previously underserved or not engaged with the environmental community. Applications for 2010 TogetherGreen Innovation Grants and Fellowships will be available online beginning in winter 2010 at www.togethergreen.org. |
 Ajamu Brown will map for a more sustainable Brooklyn as a TogetherGreen fellow |
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| David Lamfrom Uses Nature Photography to Hook Students on Conservation | |
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Though it only began in March 2009, David Lamfrom’s 2008 TogetherGreen Fellowship Project, Tortoises Through the Lens, has made a big impact in the endangered desert tortoise’s fight for survival—and in the minds and hearts of the people who share the tortoise’s habitat. As part of his Fellowship, David is providing opportunities for young southern Californians to experience the California Desert – its biological diversity, and its cultural, natural and historical importance. Together, participants will create a book about the desert tortoise, an increasingly rare icon of the American Southwest. Proceeds from the book will be used to support further Desert Tortoise conservation action. The students will also exhibit their photography at the Desert Light Gallery in Mojave National Preserve in May 2010. |
| David’s project kicked off with a meeting of 13 students where he reviewed the project's expectations and tprovided them with cameras and instructions on how to use them. The kids involved are a cross-section of California’s diversity, with white, Black, Hispanic and Native Americans participating. Since the project started, students have photographed wildlife and wildlands throughout the Mojave Desert, including Mojave National Preserve, and Joshua Tree National Park. The students also visited Sequoia National Park to learn about how global climate change affects the Sierra Nevadas and the Mojave Desert. In addition to the students in the program, more than 1,000 individuals were reached through David’s campaign to raise awareness about the tortoises’ plight, and an estimated one million or more people will be educated by the project’s end! The project has been covered in the Los Angeles Times, the High Country News, the Victor Valley Daily Press and is looking forward to future coverage in National Parks Conservation Association Magazine, Audubon Magazine, and the North American Nature Photography Association’s Currents Magazine. Through the photo project and educational outreach, David’s poised to make a big impact on the future of the desert tortoise. |
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 Student photos taken in David Lamfrom's Tortoise's Through the Lens project |
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| Fellows Spotlight: Chris Bowser Involves Hudson Valley Volunteers in Protecting the American eel What is your TogetherGreen Fellowship all about? I work for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Hudson River Estuary Program and Hudson River Research Reserve, in partnership with the Water Resource Institute of Cornell University. That’s a mouthful, but the point is that a lot of groups are working together to educate people about the Hudson’s ecology, and to promote citizen science as a way to study local resources like streams and fish. One of these fish is the American eel, Anguilla rostrata. These eels are born in the Atlantic Ocean north of Puerto Rico, drift and swim up into East Coast rivers, then spend a decade or more in freshwater before retracing their journey back to spawn in the Attlantic. This is a long-lived, migratory, and delicious species that is treasured and traded worldwide for food. Eel numbers have declined dramatically, so looking at their migratory patterns is key to understanding stressors and solutions. |
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 A baby eel is transparent like glass  Chris and a few volunteers in the Hudson Valley watershed. |
How is your project innovative and why is it important? We’re using one great resource –local volunteerism– to study another great resource, eels. We’ve started to study the small juvenile eels that swim into Hudson River tributaries each spring, and we’ll be continuing this sampling with TogetherGreen support. These “glass eels” look like transparent toothpicks, and are caught in cone shaped fyke nets placed in the stream. Every day, students, interns, and volunteers take the glass eels out of the net, count and weigh them, and release them upstream. At the same time, we’re recording conditions of temperature, water level, and lunar cycle. All of these factors seem to play a role in eel migration. Every site is different—urban and rural, freshwater and brackish, high school samplers and watershed groups—but the sampling protocols are similar across all the sites. Through TogetherGreen, we’ll be working with the Hudson River Valley Greenway to expand our sites and to develop better outreach tools and classroom programs for a wide range of audiences. Students, educators, and local groups have really gotten into this project, and we’re thankful to Audubon and Toyota for this opportunity to make a good project even better. How can other people get involved in your project? School groups, environmental organizations, and individuals in the Hudson Valley are welcome to get in touch with me to find out about existing projects, or to propose new sites (email is best: chbowser at gw.dec.state.ny.us, or contact me through the TogetherGreen website). This species is found all along the East and Gulf Coasts, and with appropriate permits the monitoring program could be replicated beyond the Hudson Valley. Sure, I love eels, but the important thing is to get involved in local conservation and sustainability efforts that are personal to you. What are you looking forward to in the months ahead related to your Fellowship? I’m looking forward to the re-discovery of these little creatures by students and volunteers, in creeks and rivers they’ve lived near their whole lives. It’s thrilling to uncover a few more clues on the trail to understanding this species. Every day, every stream tells another part of a larger story. Most of all, I’m looking forward to watching the reluctant students of March become the confident scientists of June, and beyond. |
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| Audubon New York Brings the Classroom Outdoors for Hundreds of NYC Students Nearly 200 New York City students took part in Audubon New York’s TogetherGreen Innovation Grant project, Highbridge Park is For the Birds! Students learned about, explored, and then helped restore the natural community in their neighborhood. For many, it was their first time in Highbridge Park, even though they live nearby. On outdoor walks and explorations, students learned to identify various bird and animal species. Wildlife that might have been frightening to some students in the past now excites and interests them. You can see how enthusiastic they were in this video!  Highbridge Park For the Birds students birding in Central Park and planting a garden The students also actively participated in both removing invasive plant species and planting native species in the Park. Students learned about the threat invasive species pose to native plant species and, by extension, the importance of providing habitat for birds and other wildlife through planting native plants. “By being involved in the removal and planting of plants, and in trash removal, students not only learned about these threats in the classroom but experienced them and were directly involved in correcting the problem,” said Pam Musk, Director of Centers and Education for Audubon New York. Throughout the program, students kept journals to document the information they learned. Through prose and drawings students created a log of their activities and of the wildlife they saw. Classroom teachers remarked that students’ writing skills improved dramatically over the time period of the program and that many students now enjoy writing as a result of journaling! Through TogetherGreen, Audubon New York was able to expand its For the Birds! to a new underserved community and work cooperatively with The New York Restoration Project (NYRP), which was already working with the residents of the neighborhood. By joining forces with NYRP, Audubon New York was able to immediately offer For the Birds! to interested classrooms. We asked Audubon New York’s Pam Musk if she had any advice for the 2009 Grantees. Pam suggested: Be sure to include your partners throughout the process. I think I made the mistake of trying to take on too much of the administration of the project with the intent of lightening the load of other staff! The project and I could have benefitted if everyone had been thoroughly involved and aware of all the elements of the project, not just those pieces in which they were directly involved. Communication and integration with your partner are vitally important! Back to Top |
| Grants Spotlight: Audubon Washington Protecting Tribal Grasslands for People and Birds |
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What is your TogetherGreen Innovation Grant about? Working with the Yakama Nation and the Kalispel Tribe, Audubon Washington aims to improve grassland management along Toppenish Creek in Washington, so that once again grassland birds – such as the Bobolink – and other species can thrive alongside agriculture. Historic approaches to managing Washington’s grasslands – overgrazing, wetland drainage, and conversion to cropland – have yielded disastrous results. Seventy percent of this unique habitat has been lost, coupled with a steep decline in quality of the remaining land. Grassland bird populations, so vital to a healthy ecosystem, have plummeted and one species – the Upland Sandpiper – is now extinct in the state. Healthy grasslands benefit not only birds but humans, too, by providing better forage for livestock and a higher-quality hay harvest with few weeds. Together, Audubon Washington, and members of the Yakama Nation and the Kalispel Tribe will work together to determine best management practices for the grasslands. Young people from the Yakama and Kalispel reservations and older expert birders from local communities will do site assessments, which will inform Yakama Nation management guidelines to be shared with other tribes. By allowing grassland birds, specifically the Bobolink, time to breed and by producing healthier grasslands, at least 1,350 acres of Yakama land in the flood plain of Toppenish Creek will be restored. |
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 Stephanie Wendt of the Yakama Nation studies the grasslands |
How is your project innovative and why is it important? Audubon has not typically worked with tribes, despite the common values that unite us: respect for the lands and waters that sustain us and the significance of wildlife. As part of the partnership, Audubon volunteers will provide a service, such as bird population monitoring, in exchange for access to lands generally closed to non-tribal members. Meanwhile, students from the tribal areas will learn scientific techniques (including the use of remote-controlled airplanes, mimicking Northern Harriers, to conduct field assessments!), and the Yakama Nation and Kalispel Tribe will begin to develop eco-tourism ideas around the birding trails that cross their lands. This innovative project creates a unique partnership to protect habitat, which will attract birds, which in turn can attract visitors and new dollars to communities looking for new sources of income. In addition, successful alternative grazing and haying techniques will be incorporated into written management guidelines by tribal lands managers, and will be shared with public lands-grazing agencies. The emphasis on “written” guidelines illustrates a modification in approach for tribes, whose tradition is one of oral rather than published communications. |
How can other people get involved in your TogetherGreen project? People can get involved in one or more of the three stages of the project: a) pre-field study planning and volunteer recruitment b) training for and doing field study, community outreach c) post-field study work, including data compilation, drafting of guidelines, presentation of new grazing approach to tribal members and community Who can get involved? Audubon citizen-scientists and others interested in birds and mentoring students, high-school teachers, adult tribal representatives – both professionals in natural resources as well as community leaders – and, of course, high-school students to do field studies and post-study work. Incorporating young people into the teams will get kids outdoors! Older team members will help inspire and train the upcoming generation about nature and conservation, and inform students about potential careers in the natural sciences. The pool of citizen-scientists will help the Yakama Nation and Kalispel Tribe carry out annual site assessments for five years. These citizen-science volunteers – both adults and young people – will form the nucleus of a network that will eventually assess and help to safeguard habitat on the larger scale of Washington’s 74 Important Bird Areas. What are you looking forward to in the months ahead related to your project? We have a lot of goals for this project! First: to publish the second of two birding trail maps that feature Bobolink sites located on tribal land. We want to consult with tribes on study parameters and selecting sites, and on ways to integrate IBA and tribal methodology. We’ll need to introduce the project to Audubon Chapters and recruit adult volunteers from Spokane and Yakima Valley Chapters, too. In the long-term, we also want representatives from Audubon, the Pend Oreille County Washington State University Cooperative Extension (WSU), and the Yakima Basin Environmental Education Program (Yakima Basin) to recruit 15 local high school students for pairing with Audubon citizen-scientists for each grassland site. Back to Top |
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| Travis Audubon Restores a Wetland to Life with TogetherGreen Funding–and Volunteers Blair Woods is a habitat sanctuary located on Austin’s eastside and owned by Travis Audubon. Surrounded by African American and Hispanic neighborhoods, Blair Woods represents an accessible and beautiful place for urban families to explore Texas’s nature and wildlife. But to the detriment of Blair Woods’ wildlife, native plants, and human visitors, non-native plants have been boldly overtaking this sanctuary, overrunning trails and crowding out native shrub species.  (Neat piles of invasive brush and volunteers gather cut down non-natives) With a 2008 TogetherGreen Volunteer Day Grant, Travis Audubon’s members and volunteers began removing the non-native plants and restoring Blair Woods to its former glory. More than 150 volunteers removed 165 yards of invasives, planted 68 native plants, and constructed two trails using the mulch and logs from the invasives they had removed! To top it off, 117 of those 154 volunteers were new, and had been engaged thanks to new TogetherGreen outreach. Due in part to their success last year, Blair Woods received a second Volunteer Day grant for 2009-2010, as well as a TogetherGreen Innovation Grant to restore the Blair Woods pond and riparian habitat – keeping that momentum going! “Leveraging these two grants has changed everything,” says Nancy Manning, executive director for Travis Audubon. “The Austin American Statesman printed two articles about our restoration work at Blair Woods and as a result, people are coming out of the proverbial wood work to volunteer.” And it shows – in one day this Fall, volunteers removed 225 cubic yards of invasive woody vegetation, collected 65 bags of trash, and planted 30 native plants around the pond. With TogetherGreen support and Travis Audubon’s lead, Blair Woods is slowly, but surely transforming back into the great home for wildlife and native plants – and the amazing place for Austin residents to explore and learn – that it should be! Back to Top |
Pennies for the Planet Funding Focus Shifts to Endangered Coastlines This winter, the second season of Pennies for the Planet is underway, and the focus shifts to endangered coastlines. Change collected from December 2009 through the end of next summer will be divided equally among the following three Audubon projects:
With your help, a little change can make a big difference for threatened coastlines and wildlife. Back to Top |
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A Face(book) is Worth a Few Eco-Friendly Prizes! More than 400 environmentalists, volunteers, and students are now TogetherGreen fans on Facebook. If they all held hands, they would stretch the length of the Empire State building! But we want the TogetherGreen Facebook page — where you can learn about our Fellows and Grantees, watch our Volunteer Day videos, and more —to grow bigger and better. That's why we're offering all of our fans the chance to win some great TogetherGreen prizes! All you have to do is become a TogetherGreen fan on Facebook by January 15, when we'll randomly select a few dozen fans to receive a free TogetherGreen t-shirt or reusable shopping tote. (Those of you who are already TogetherGreen Facebook fans are eligible to win, too.) So join us today and remember — act now, shape tomorrow! Back to Top |