{"id":24472,"date":"2023-04-07T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T18:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/?p=24472"},"modified":"2023-07-10T21:58:06","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T21:58:06","slug":"a-place-where-plants-and-people-can-flourish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2023\/04\/07\/a-place-where-plants-and-people-can-flourish","title":{"rendered":"A place where plants and people can flourish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
For many decades now, people in the United States have increasingly valued convenience. With fast food restaurants and meal delivery services becoming the norm these days, it\u2019s hard to imagine a lifestyle that includes gathering food from the earth \u2014 planting crops and waiting months for them to grow into ingredients to make meals. Most people at grocery stores stock their carts with packaged items from a shelf, not even thinking about where they came from originally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This disconnect between people and food points to a greater issue: the separation between people and the earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\nMembers of the Songaia community connecting to the earth, courtesy photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, studies show that humans stand to benefit tremendously from nurturing a strong relationship with the natural world: Over time, people who are more connected with nature are happier, feel more vital and have more meaning in their lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are people who approach life this way, reports University of Washington Bothell alumna Anita Higgins \u2014 including those who live at Songaia, a cluster of properties located in Bothell, Washington, where she also resides. The people in this intentional community chose to live a more sustainable lifestyle, sharing resources such as child care and cars. Meals are prepared and enjoyed together, and the majority of their summer produce comes from a shared garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSongaia was first imagined more than 25 years ago,\u201d Higgins said, \u201cand today, it is a strong, established community of 50 people sharing and stewarding more than 12 acres of land on five contiguous properties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From birthday candles to planting trees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Higgins works at Songaia as the community\u2019s garden steward, which includes oversight of the Native Forest Garden, an experimental bio-cultural restoration project on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish tribes. The creation of this forest was, in part, a gift to one of Songaia\u2019s members, Patricia Newkirk, who wished it into existence on her 70th birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe wanted to do something that she had never done before,\u201d Higgins said, \u201cand that was to plant a native forest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Songaia had a large meadow covered with grass that was giving way to blackberry bushes, and Newkirk had the idea of transforming it into a Miyawaki forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAkira Miyawaki was a Japanese botanist and an expert in plant ecology who specialized in seeds and natural forests,\u201d Higgins explained. \u201cHe was active worldwide as a specialist in natural vegetation restoration of degraded land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Focus on diversity and density<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
As Higgins explains, \u201cThe Miyawaki Method of restoration recognizes that focusing on the diversity and density of native plant species aboveground creates the conditions below ground for relationships to emerge more quickly. The relationships between the plants and the web of life in the soil \u2014 fungi, bacteria and invertebrates \u2014 create the foundation for a resilient forest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
One central aspect to the project was the Songaia community\u2019s intention to re-introduce plants of cultural significance to local Indigenous communities. Among the collaboration partners were Linzie Crofoot, an Indigenous educator at the NW Indian College, a Tlingit and Haida Tribes Center Council member, and a Colville-Okanagan descendant; as well as Tayna Greene, then one of Crofoot\u2019s undergraduate students and colleague at the Nakani Native Program in Seattle; a Tulalip Tribal community member; and a Snohomish, Sauk-Suiattle, Duwamish, Snoqualmie and Colville-Wenatchi descendant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLinzie and Tayna taught us that ecological restoration is incomplete without collaboration with those Native communities who stewarded this land since time immemorial, before European colonization,\u201d Higgins said. \u201cThey also taught us that the native plants endured the same harms as the native humans, losing their land, breaking up communities and even losing their names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGiving plants their traditional Lushootseed names back became a goal of the project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building reciprocal relationships<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In her time studying ecological restoration at UW Bothell, Higgins observed a pattern that would influenced her ways of thinking about the Native Forest Garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRestoration projects that had the most success \u2014 where diversity, function and resilience were all enhanced and maintained over time \u2014 were the projects in which a community of humans had developed a relationship with the site,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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