Project Wingspan: Golden State – Native seed collecting and amplification in the Bay Area

Zoom Registration

Speaker: James Hart, Conservation Ecologist at Pollinator Partnership

Pollinator Partnership has initiated Project Wingspan: Golden State, a program with the goal to increase the supply of local native seed and plants in the Bay Area. It will be a collaboration with numerous partners and volunteers to locate native plant populations, collect seed, and multiply that seed. The resulting locally-adapted seed and native plants will be used by homeowners and land managers to create and enhance pollinator habitat.

Native plants in hills above Berkeley

James Hart will describe how Pollinator Partnership will organize collection events, provide volunteer training on proper seed collection techniques, and coordinate the tracking, cleaning, and growing out of some seed as live plants. He will explain how local-ecotype native plant materials are important because of the types of pollinators they support.

Originally from Tidewater Virginia, James developed a love of plants and the outdoors during family trips to the mountains of New England. These interests led him to pursue a degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he focused on botany and forest ecology. James has worked numerous seasonal positions over the years, and after graduating he took part in two terms as an AmeriCorps member, one in the Palouse region of eastern Washington State and one in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Through his time in California, James has grown passionate about the conservation challenges that the region faces and the solutions being implemented across the landscape. When he’s not working, you can find him reading, puttering in his woodshop, or playing music.