(All the pictures of native wildflowers were taken by me)
I am currently stuck in a Des Moines airport hotel room after my flight back to Connecticut was canceled and thought I would use my downtime to write this diary to seek input on a research project for which I traveled here to Iowa for fact finding. I am a longtime DailyKos member (I signed up in the summer of 2004) but have been too busy to contribute much lately. Nevertheless, I believe you guys can both advise me on approaches I can take to fund my research and critique some approaches I am now considering.
Last year I returned to school as a graduate student at the University of Connecticut in the Department of Plant Science working on a project commissioned by the New England Transportation Consortium (NETC) - a research cooperative funded by all six New England state Departments of Transportation - the goal of which is to find the most affordable, reliable, and expeditious methods for establishing meadows of warm-season native grasses and forbs - i.e. wildflowers - along New England roadsides. These meadows would replace the introduced cool-season turf grasses commonly used along highways, which require greater resource inputs and frequent mowing. State DOTs hope that, by transitioning to these more sustainable management practices, they can save on fuel costs and emissions, increase pollinator populations, adapt to changing climates, increase carbon sequestration, reduce erosion, improve water runoff soil infiltration, restore native ecological systems, and possibly increase soil rhizodegradation of petroleum pollutants given off by vehicles.
In essence, we are trying to carry out an updated version of Lady Bird Johnson's Highway Beautification Actthat includes all the updated knowledge ecologists have learned in the 50 years since passage of that bill. Iowa and Minnesota have successfully implemented this program but they started over 20 years ago before tax dollars dried up. New England states want to adopt these programs, but they believe they can do it on the cheap without taking the necessary steps to do so in an ecologically sound manner.
Unfortunately, we were provided just enough grant money to conduct preliminary research on establishment techniques, will probably need to conduct more establishment research, realize this project will need more time, effort, and money to properly carry it out, but expect little in terms of funds from the NETC in the near future. State DOT agencies are already strapped for cash - think of all the infrastructure projects that need funding.
One of the greatest roadblocks those of us working on this project and those looking to do large scale ecological restoration in New England face is the lack of locally grown New England ecotypes of native plant seeds.
Currently, most native plant seed used for ecological restoration and conservation projects in New England comes from sources in the Midwest, where land and labor is cheaper and an extensive farming culture provides vastly more knowledge and equipment necessary for growing, harvesting, and cleaning this specialized, low-profit-margin crop.
However, using Midwestern grown native plant seed on a large scale in New England is not ecologically sound or sustainable. Native plants grown in the Midwest have evolved to adapt to Midwestern environmental conditions, which are quite different from those of New England. New England has acidic, rocky soil and wetter seasons while the Midwest has relatively more alkaline, less rocky soil and drier seasons. Each region's plants have different genetic material and bloom at different times. Even if the original germplasm - seeds - were sourced from remnant plots in New England and grown by experienced farmers in the Midwest, these crops would probably eventually mix genetically with Midwestern populations, thus creating seeds for plants that might not persist when returned to the New England region.
We have struggled to find solutions to create a market for native plant seeds in New England. No large scale native plant seed companies currently exist in New England that could supply the amount of seed needed for DOT projects. No seed company wants to take the risk of growing New England native ecotype seeds if they are not guaranteed that state DOTs will buy their product; state DOT have very limited budgets when it comes to roadside vegetation and cannot make any financial commitments until they know how much the product may cost. Finding funding to conduct more research and develop solutions has been just as difficult.
Okay, so there's our conundrum. Here are some of our present solutions, for which I have some ethical qualms. I would like to know what you think of them and would also like any suggestions you may have. I realize a lot of you may be involved in government, non-profits, or corporations looking to do charitable giving. I am open to all suggestions.
Corporate Support
At the moment, I am considering approaching - through our school's foundation for soliciting corporate sponsors - three energy companies that are enacting some projects in the New England region (I am leaving out their names because I do not want to seem like I am bad mouthing them if I am seeking their funds). Two are involved with bringing natural gas and the other wants to bring hydropower to the region. Each has charitable programs tailored to environmental causes and ecological restoration, especially along the right-of-way corridors for their pipelines and electrical lines. The hydroelectric firm has already donated a substantial amount to a well-known non-profit, which has taken the money but explicitly said they did not endorse their plan for bringing electricity to the region.
These sources have great potential but are not a sure thing. They may not think helping restore pollinator habitats and native ecosystems are worth their funds.
Crowdsourcing
For a short while, I thought I would start a non-profit and try to crowdsource the research. I especially liked the idea of trying to get as many small donations as possible, with each donation, in essence, representing the voice of a voter. I could then turn to state governments and show them that there is popular support for this program and they might be willing to put some tax dollars into implementing it.
However, I started to see problems with this approach.
One: I didn't realize that academic institutions do not like graduate students creating non-profits to fund their research. They want all funding to go through them, so they can get a cut of the dollars. I actually have no problem with that since they do provide a great deal of resources in the form of facilities. However, I didn't realize they take as much as 58% of most research grants. Nevertheless, I would want to be transparent with where the money would be funneled and I don't think small donors would feel comfortable seeing a majority of their donations going to the overhead of a large institution.
Two: an urban beekeeper (who for now will remain nameless because I did not tell him I was writing this diary) who uses the profit from his company to conduct research on bee health has offered me his non-profit as a means to funnel research dollars to me because he wants to eventually use the meadows we create to conduct research on pollinator habitats. Since he is a small operation and all the donated funds would go either to my research or his pollinator research, I thought small donors would feel their dollars were well spent.
However, I mentioned the idea of crowdsourcing to him and he thought it would not attract large amounts of funding because most crowdsourcing goes to causes that tug at people's heartstrings. Most people think ours are worthy causes, but no one has a Sarah McLachlan moment when they think of Colony Collapse Disorder or the destruction of native ecosystems (However, I will note that these ecological projects have often led to the increase in native bird populations by providing nesting habitats and insects for their young. But I cannot guarantee that would happen in our case)
Using Prison Real Estate to Grow Seed and Providing Prisoners Marketable Skills
As I mentioned, two of the biggest barriers we face in New England for growing native seed is cheap land and cheap labor.
That's when I thought of the idea of using all the land enclosed by prisons throughout New England as places to grow seed. Inmates can be taught how to grow these native plants and can then help harvest and clean them. Horticultural-based prison training programs have shown some of the highest rates of lowering recidivism because trainees leave prison with marketable skills.
However, I know a lot of people probably see this as exploitation of prison labor and I am sensitive to that view. For those who do see it that way, I want to hear why. I am open to such arguments. The organization running such programs would compensate the prisoners and I hope would be a non-profit. Since no significant native seed companies currently exist in New England, these strictly New England ecotype crops would not compete against local or even Midwestern producers.
Nevertheless, even if we used this approach, we would still need to raise funds to start the venture. None of these approaches are a slam-dunk.
So there we are. Let me know what you think and share with me anything I can do to raise money for research.
Thank you for reading through this very lengthy diary.
[I'm not sure how I am supposed to designate a re-edit, but consider this my effort to do so]
I am now stuck in Charlotte, NC while I wait for a connecting flight back to CT.
I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. I will definitely try to Private Message (that is what PM means, right?) those who suggested I do so. I realize now that this diary became a source of information crowdsourcing and has been very effective.
Please understand there are several stages to what I am doing:
1) I am trying to research and fund the efforts to find the best ways to get these seed banks up and running.
2) The next step will be to find sustainable methods for paying for these programs for the DOTs.
3) There will have to be research continued research on establishment methods that are suitable for New England, which has its own distinct ecological makeup. A lot of research has gone into prairie restoration but New England does not have prairies. Our region wants to succeed to forest and whatever open grasslands we have are considered meadows. These are two rather different ecosystems and need to be approached differently.
However, right now the focus must remain starting these seed banks. All the other research on establishment methods must remain small scale because we want to limit the amount of non-ecotype seed we use.
Anyway, it's weird how much explanation this project takes.
Again, I want to thank everyone for their helpful suggestions. I will use this diary as a repository of ideas and resources to which I will continually turn in the course of my work. I will keep you all updated on our projects' progress.