1) Our Goal/Intended Impacts:

A.We want to improve our knowledge of the kinds and uses of native plants found here on the Olympic Peninsula, particularly how they benefit us medicinally, as a food source, and as a resource in other ways. Good resources would be the Clallam County Conservation District, and local native plant nurseries.

Native plants as a food source are highly nutritious and adding them to one’s diet has great health benefits as well as reducing the need for cultivated food crops and the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, mechanized cultivation and irrigation. Native plants are a significant resource with which to treat illness, wounds, insect bites, restore and maintain health. Having that indigenous knowledge can be critical in this time of climate disruption of natural and human systems.

B. We want to better understand the role and value of native plants in the greater ecosystem, particularly as food and habitat for birds, bees, insects, other animals.

C. We want to better understand how to use natives in our xeriscaping, (landscaping using native plants). We want to encourage and teach good planting techniques that does not use fertilizers.

D. We want to better understand how climate change is affecting our native species and take steps to mitigate that effect as well as restore habitat and plant more natives (re-wild landscapes).

2) Steps/How to Get There:

A. We will connect with local native and non-native plant nurseries, botanists, government agencies, and others who have knowledge of the above topics and work with them to help us improve our understanding of the kinds and uses of native plants.

B. We will develop a pamphlet or list of local natives and where they can be purchased that includes use and value as a medicine, food or landscape plant and make that available to the Fellowship and others.

C. We will invite guest speakers, including indigenous speakers, who have knowledge of the above mentioned topics. Sharing that information beyond the Fellowship membership is also an intention.

D. We will participate in local re-wilding projectsas we become aware of them as well as instigate a native planting program in conjunction with our Fellowship Landscape Committee. We will also be a resource for members and others to plant natives at their homes.

E. We will create a native plant section in our Fellowship library and publicize it among our membership.