Living Downstream
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Living Downstream is a program for people who'd like to learn about environmental topics of interest in the Umpqua Watershed of southern Oregon and the larger Pacific Northwest region. It is coordinated by the AmeriCorps member serving as the Environmental Education & Outreach Leader for the Umpqua Watershed organization in an effort to bring awareness of environmental issues to a wider audience.
Episode 40: Oregon Flora
In this episode of Living Downstream, we interview Stephen Meyers, a member of the Oregon Flora team. First, Oregon Flora as an organization is described. Following this, we discuss the cataloguing of Oregonian plants, how it's been done in the past, how it's happening now, including the role of citizen scientists, how invasive species get introduced, and more!
Episode 39: The Future of Energy- Lessons From the War In Ukraine
In this panel discussion, the topic of the war happening in Ukraine is explored. The war in Ukraine is yet another crisis that the world must face in addition to the already harrowing climate crisis, and one influences the other. With tensions so high with Russia, the United States and Europe has been cut off from Russian oil. What will this mean for energy management in the future? What oil drilling practices will this affect now?
Episode 38: Wetland Monitoring and Restoration
Cindy Haws, professor at UCC and founder of Umpqua Natural Leadership Science Hub (UNLSH), discusses our wetlands here in Oregon. She focuses primarily on amphibians, including what varieties we have here, what challenges they face, some basic identification tips, and what conditions they thrive under.
Cindy is familiar with several local wetlands due to her great surveying and restoration work at them. She describes a few in this interview, going into depth about what differs among them. Each wetland has different human impacts upon it, different problems with invasive species, and will need different restoration efforts to recover.
Episode 37: Energy Policy
Danny Kalke, an AmeriCorps member working at Alder Creek Community Forest speaks about a topic he has researched a lot about. Danny wrote his college thesis on energy policy, which he explains in this interview. He covers his views on not only energy policy in this country, but worldwide and how things might differ country to country.
Danny also discusses his experience work at Alder Creek, what drew him to the United Communities AmeriCorps program, and some of his previous experience with international conservation work in this interview.
Episode 35: AmeriCorps RARE and Floodplains
In this episode, AmeriCorps RARE member Kate Bentz shares with us about her branch of AmeriCorps, her host site, and an important project she's working on to better the community.
Kate is designing an online, easily accessible and accurate floodplain map. She describes the importance of it and also offers some basic information about floodplains so that we can better understand the significance and meaning of her work.
Saturday Apr 23, 2022
Episode 36: Earth Day - History and Progress
Angela Jensen and Kasey Hovik discuss the history of Earth Day and the progress being made to address the Climate Crisis.
Episode 34: Interview with a Lifelong Conservationist
Esteemed conservationist Jerry Mires offers some insight into his experiences of developing a love and respect for nature during his younger years and how that took him on a path of nature conservation and restoration. He describes his favorite environmental memories as well as some of his more challenging times. He also delves into his experience as a mentor and supporter of other environmentalists, such as Janice Reid, who speaks in this episode about her work and how it compares to Jerry's, and how Jerry impacted her in a positive way throughout her career.
Episode 33: Climate Change Mitigation
We are facing a climate emergency; we are in fact in a climate crisis. So for today's presentation, we are going to talk about mitigation- that is, how we can lessen the adverse effects and impacts of climate change.
When we talk about mitigation, there are many topics that can come up- from reducing emissions generally, to increasing our planet's ability to sequester and store carbon. But today we are going to focus on our forests here in the Pacific Northwest and talk about the Role of Our Forests in Combating Climate Change. Specifically, we want to focus on our region here in southwestern Oregon and the management of public forest lands with respect to climate change mitigation.
Episode 32: Wildlife Videography
Alan Lacy, a professional wildlife videographer, shares his experiences making nature films with us. He discusses in detail his path into the field of wildlife filmmaking, his process in making his earlier films, his more recent projects, and more. He also goes into what equipment he uses and offers advice and tips to anybody else who may be interested in a similar career path to himself. If you have an interest in wildlife videography, be sure to listen to Alan Lacy describe what to expect regarding terrain, animals, and more in this episode of Living Downstream.
Episode 31: Climate Change Panel Discussion
This episode of living downstream is a recording from a panel about climate change. The panel features several experts and members of the Umpqua Watersheds team. Beginning with an explanation of the greenhouse effect and how humans influence it, this panel goes on to discuss topics such as the effects of climate change on sensitive species, animal migration, drought, and other similar issues are discussed.
If you are curious about the impacts of climate change that we are currently seeing as well as what can be expected for the future, listen to these experts delve into this important conversation.