Earth Systems Science, Inc.

Habitat Steward Going Strong

Jul 17, 2007

Greetings to all you wildlife habitat advocates. Greg has asked me to update you all on my activities since completing Habitat Steward training in April 2004.

Having obtained Habitat Certification for my yard within days of completing training, my first venture was to hold an open garden party/tour for all of my neighbors (about 80 people showed up) to acquaint them with naturalistic gardening. I have continued to give tours of my garden, some spontaneous and some as part of a tour of gardens organized by some community group.

I began attending meetings of various environmental and gardening groups and handed out flyers that I'd had made up advertising my offer of free landscape consultation/design and have now provided such services to over 100 "clients" (mostly homeowners, plus 3 schools and 1 church). One homeowner happened to be a biology teacher at Valley College and she asked if I would give a lecture to her biology class about habitat. In order to do that, I put together a PowerPoint slide show/lecture which I have now presented to more than a dozen interested community groups and biology classes.

Last September, I was invited to join the Board of Directors of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society and lead their new Audubon-at-Home program (which is a clone of the NWF/BWH program). This collaboration also offered me the opportunity to begin publishing a series of articles about creating habitat and sustainable gardening practices in their monthly newsletter, the Phainopepla. And just recently, the publisher of the Southern Sierran, Sierra Club's newsletter, has agreed to re-publish the articles in that newsletter.

And lastly, I have put in a proposal to begin teaching a recurring, adult education class at Pierce College along with representatives from the California Native Plant Society and the SFV Audubon Society on creating habitat. No word received about that yet.

All I can say is, thanks to Greg and his training program, I'm having a ball helping restore our vanishing habitat for our wild friends.

[Note: Alan Pollack was certified after the first NWF Habitat Steward training group in the greater Los Angeles area in Spring 2004 by ESSI led by Gregory Lee and Garry George.]