Prisons and nature aren't often thought of in the same sentence. People think of prisons as black holes for people, money and resources, says Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, a Washington trustee for The Nature Conservancy and a renowned forest ecologist. But through an innovative partnership, Washington prisons and prisoners are becoming a force for restoring nature instead.

“We’re saving money, saving resources, and saving lives,” she said.

Prisons and Nature?

Dr. Nadkarni became interested in working with prisoners to find ways to cultivate tree mosses to supply the floral industry, and thus reduce the amount of mosses harvested from the Olympic rainforest.

That program was successful, and the state Department of Corrections has funded a two-year grant to The Evergreen State College, where Nadkarni is a faculty member, to develop a broader Sustainable Prisons project.

It’s now working in two prisons, with plans to expand to four by next year, with projects ranging from raising endangered Oregon spotted frogs, to reclaiming wastewater, to massive recycling, and to propagating rare and threatened wildflowers for prairie restoration, which is where The Nature Conservancy comes in.

Sustainable Prisons and Prairie Restoration

Conservancy propagation specialist Daeg Byrne is working with offenders at Stafford Creek Corrections Center to grow threatened prairie flowering perennials. With funding from the Department of Defense’s Legacy Resource program, the Conservancy has been producing seeds and propagating plants on a small scale at our Shotwell’s Landing Nursery.

The partnership with Stafford Creek is part of our drive to implement large-scale plant propagation. Byrne is teaching the offenders how to propagate these plants, with materials supplied by the Conservancy.

Once the plants are of a certain size, they’ll be planted out into seed plots on Fort Lewis, where they’ll grow and continue to be harvested for more seed production and more restoration. “I've been amazed at the sense of pride and ownership that I've seen here,” he said.

What's Next?

Daeg will make at least five visits to the correctional facility. He’ll teach seed sowing, care of the plants, and introduce observation journals. With these journals, the offenders can take their own notes, measure germination rates and plant protocol data. In addition to generating valuable data for the project, it’s an opportunity for the offenders to learn about observational methods and participate in citizen science.

The project guidelines call for the offenders to sow 200,000 cells of six to eight species, in lots of 30,000. The labor pool from Stafford Creek will enable us to double our capacity to propagate seeds and grow native prairie plants.

Nature picture credits (left to right): Photo © TNC (Plants at Stafford Creek); Photo © TNC (Offenders plant native prairie seeds); Photo © TNC (Daeg Byrne).