Partnerships & Community

While partnering with Lance Ebel at Newleaf Environmental LLC I’m excited to assist with the development and implementation of various management plans focused on forestry, wildlife, and riparian restoration & resiliency. This work as an environmental consultant & technical service provider (with the NRCS) allows access to grant funding making long term management more widely accessible.

With the support of this lab at Portland State University I worked on my undergraduate honors thesis, worked as a microplastic researcher in marine and freshwater environments, collaborated on a book chapter about the effects of microplastic fibers on organisms and volunteered on a NOAA research survey.

After meeting the folks at The Forest Exchange, we realized we shared a passion for long term land use planning for the benefit of biodiversity, water quality, soil health and food harvest. Because of this we’re developing a baseline water quality snapshot using rapid stream assessment methods macroinvertebrate diversity surveys at their transforming property.

Through Portland State University I assisted in research & recommendations to Oregon’s Marine Reserves regarding selecting focal species for nearshore monitoring as well as ODFW’s Robin Bown to identify potential strategies for barred owl management for the conservation of the spotted owl.

Partnering with the CREATE Center in Sabah, Borneo allowed me to assist in the construction of micro-hydro dams to empower remote indigenous Ulu Papar villages to provide access to affordable, accessible, and consistent electricity as an alternative to the proposed Kaiduan Mega-Dam. Please explore this document compiled by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs on the background of the Kaiduan Dam. During the experience with CREATE we discussed the social & ecological impact of the proposed mega dam compared to the micro-hydro dam systems with the local people of the impacted villages & explored the resilience of the micro-hydro systems.

While working with the MESCOT Initiative - managed by the Batu Puteh indigenous community’s village based ecotourism cooperative (KOPEL) in Kinabatangan, Sarawak, Borneo - I assisted in two restoration projects. This included forest habitat restoration of the lowland rainforest through tree plantings & restoration of the oxbow lakes in an attempt to recover from the highly invasive salvinia molesta plant using physical removal & biocontrol measures using weevils. These restoration projects were accompanied by discussions around socially ethical & ecologically effective management techniques.