THE good THINGS
ENVISION WINTER 2022
Evision: Winter 2022
cover: Simone Badaruddin back cover: Shalom Yemane editor’s note illustrations: Chloe Montague
THE
good THINGS ENVISION MAGAZINE WINTER 2022
Letter from the editor As the weight of the COVID-19 global pandemic fell on our shoulders, massive climate events ripped through the planet in 2021, building on top of a mountain of fear and anxiety a lot of us were already facing. And a lot has happened this last year. Powerful winter storms fell over Texas, leaving many vulnerable to dangerously low temperatures after a major power grid collapse. Hurricane Ida affected more than 512,000 homes and flooded New York City. A massive heat dome fell over Eugene and Portland, reaching record-breaking temperatures — walking from car to building felt like a blanket of dry, unbearable heat. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with the United Nations released a report determining that we have entered a “code red for humanity.” There’s a lot to feel hopeless about. It isn’t uncommon to feel climate depression so viscerally, especially in the wake of the fast-paced news that floods social media by the minute. We are all constantly swimming in a pool of information, and most of it isn’t good. According to a recent survey conducted by a team of psychologists, out of 10,000 people aged 16-25, over 50% felt sad, anxious, powerless, helpless and guilty about the climate crisis. Over 84% are worried about the future. While we spent time buried in the news and doom-scrolling online, some good things slipped through the cracks. National Geographic published an article highlighting five environmental victories for 2021. These include a global pushback on fossil fuel use, legislation to reduce plastic pollution, protection of forests and species and habitat restoration.
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The good news doesn’t stop there. Here in Oregon, we’ve had our own statewide victories. In this edition of Envision, our team collected some good stories from community members that are working towards environmental solutions to problems that seem unsurpassable. In Camille Rowe’s story, “Here for the Ride,” we learn how electric vehicles, like Eugene’s Arcimoto, can be a great way to reduce carbon emissions while also being incredibly fun. And in Eliza Aronson’s piece “Restoring our Underwater Forests,” we learn how vital kelp is to our ocean environments and how locals near Port Orford, Oregon, are working to bring it all back. It can be hard to see through the stories that fill our timelines with dread. At Envision, we work to motivate readers to participate in the fight for a better future. Read these stories and get inspired. Editor-in-Chief
Anna Mattson.
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CONTENTS 30 8 34
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6 WHAT’S THE POINT ANYMORE? Illustrator Shalom Yemane explores some of this year’s environmental wins. 8 RESTORING OUR UNDERWATER FORESTS Kelp has vanished across the Pacific Northwest and locals in Southern Oregon are working to bring it all back. 14 CELEBRATING OUR FOUR-LEGGED AND NO-LEGGED FRIENDS Two Oregon species were delisted as endangered in 2021. 20 UPCYCLING: THE NEW RECYCLING BRING Planet Involvement Center: a photo essay 28 HERE FOR THE RIDE Local electric vehicle company Arcimoto integrates fun and efficiency in a push to lower emissions. 30 PRODUCT DESIGN PROFILE: EUPNEA College of Design student Chloe Kov’s answer to environmental racism draws inspiration from plant stomata. 34 (BEE)ING ACTIVE Scientists and environmental activists work to protect Oregon’s beloved bumblebees. 40 A BEE-FRIENDLY CAMPUS Supporting local pollinators: a photo essay
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By Shalom Yemane 6
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WRITTEN BY ELIZA ARONSON
PHOTOS BY ARIANA GONZALEZ
Restoring Underwat Forests 8
our ter
Kelp has vanished across the Pacific Northwest and locals in Southern Oregon are working to bring it all back.
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n July 2021 I spent a mostly foggy eight weeks down in Charleston, Oregon, a small town on the southern Oregon coast right past Coos Bay and about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Eugene. The town has a main street that runs through five blocks. Davy Jones Locker, a small convenience store, is on one end of the street and the Coast Guard station is at the end of the road overlooking the marina and the bay. Its population is 795. Right before the Coast Guard station sits the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, the place where I’d spend most of my summer dissecting various sea creatures. I took two courses at the OIMB. We spent most of our days taking field trips to neighboring towns or fisheries. On one of the last days of class, we drove 50 miles south to Port Orford. Once we got to Port Orford we were introduced to Tom Calvanese, the Oregon State University Field Station manager, who served as our tour guide for the day. Symmetrical bird tattoos wrap each side of his neck, and his tanned skin was impressive for the usually cloudy weather that characterizes the coast. Calvanese explained that Nellie’s Cove near Port Orford used to be a boat launching location for the local Coast Guard. Now it’s the location where he and a group of scientists research kelp forests. He showed us a sideby-side comparison of the cove in both 2017 and 2021. The difference was staggering — the kelp had almost all but vanished. Within the last half-decade, swaths of kelp forests all along the Pacific Coast have been disappearing. A study done by Laura Rogers-Bennet, a marine scientist for the University of California Davis and California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, indicated that more than 90% of Northern California’s kelp was wiped out between 2014 and 2016 because of a marine heatwave. Oregon’s kelp forests quickly followed suit in the dieoff. Oregon community members and passionate scientists began to notice the shift and are now looking to solve the issue. The kelp decline was especially apparent in Port Orford and Nellies Cove, and it wasn’t only marine biologists in the area who were noticing these shifts in the ocean — it was local fishermen, tour guides and restaurant owners. The decline in kelp had rippling effects across the region, and locals like Calvanese wanted to do something about it. The consolidated concern turned
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into the founding of the Oregon Kelp Alliance, or ORKA. The alliance brings community members together to bring awareness to the rapid decline of the kelp forests –– and to hopefully find solutions to the pressing issue. With only a population of about 1,000, many have livelihoods connected to the ocean and its wellbeing. According to a 2017 Port Orford report, “95% of Port Orford’s non-tax revenue has come from the commercial fishing industry.” Dave Lacey, the owner of South Coast Tours, is a member of ORKA. He said he feels passionately about the decline of kelp forests in the area. I met Lacey as my class and I were walking back up to the field station from the port. He was busy cleaning his rig, but he stopped momentarily to give a warm hello as Calvense introduced us. South Cove Tours offers not only boat and kayak tours, but also snorkeling outings around the Port Orford area. Lacey said he’s noticed less kelp during his outings, and he tells his clientele about the drastic decline in kelp during his tours. He drives his boat in areas that, just a few years ago, he would’ve never ventured into from fear that bull kelp would get tangled in the engine. “One thing that sticks out to me is just how fast this happened,” Lacey said. “ It was just a matter of three or four years to see a major, major decline.” In some areas around the marine reserve, there are still healthy patches of kelp. Between the cove and the reserve Lacey said he can “show them what it looks like now and what it used to look like all in one trip.” So why is the kelp disappearing? The answer might largely be connected to sea star wasting disease, which is one of Sarah Gravem’s research focuses. Gravem is a postdoctoral researcher at OSU who is studying marine ecology, specifically how predators affect prey populations and behavior, and how these interactions affect an ecosystem. She is PHOTO: ELIZA ARONSON
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also a member of ORKA. Gravem said there is not a lot known about the disease except that it started in 2013 in Washington and California and then spread outward, hitting Oregon in 2014. Symptoms of the disease include white lesions, twisted arms and deflation and disintegration of the body. Sea stars that are infected die within weeks, sometimes days. Sunflower stars, a species of sea star that can weigh more than 10 pounds and can move a meter per minute, have been hit especially hard from SSWD. Sunstars are almost nonexistent in Oregon now, which is concerning since they are top predators in kelp forests. Sea stars consume urchins. Even the urchins they don’t eat are threatened enough to keep from moving along the seafloor. Gravem explained that just the presence of stars intimidate urchins, forcing them to strategically hide in cracks of rocks instead of gorging on kelp. Sea otters are also important predators that keep urchin populations in check, but otters have been extinct in Oregon since the early 1900s from overhunting. In the absence of sea otters and sea stars, urchins have free rein and plow through kelp beds. When the urchins take over, they create what is called an urchin barren, which is what most of Nellies Cove has become. Kelp beds that previously teemed with enough life to support whales are now desolate, with urchin after urchin perched on top of the rocky floor. It’s easy to peek underwater and see the difference, but there is not a lot of actual research being done in Oregon regarding kelp forests. “My best guess is there’s 2-3% of total scientific dives in Oregon as there is in California,” Aaron Galloway, OIMB professor and head of a lab focused on coastal trophic ecology, said. He is a fundamental member of ORKA. The lack of kelp-related scientific research in Oregon is hugely detrimental to restoring and protecting the forests. Galloway said if no one is routinely checking out areas in a scientific manner and documenting the shifts, then it is hard to understand what exactly is influencing those changes and from there what are the necessary steps to re-stabilize the habitat. This is where ORKA comes in. The alliance serves as a hub for people of all backgrounds to come together to combat the problem. “When you have something so fundamental to the Oregon Coast and it goes away, you have people coming out of the woodwork all trying to solve it for various reasons,” Gravem said. “We all have these strengths, and we’re all bringing them together because we all have the same problem and hopefully some of the same solutions.” And to Galloway and other members, ORKA is also an avenue to politically advocate their causes for the kelp. “Because of the Oregon Kelp Alliance, we have a platform to be able to engage with Senator Merkley’s office about this, and they listen to us,” Galloway said. OKRA has been in contact with Merkley’s office for about a year now. On Oct. 22, 2021, the senator’s office reported that
Within the last half-decade, swaths of kelp forests all along the Pacific Coast have been disappearing.”
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Merkeley, working with Senator Ron Wyden, secured funding for The Commerce, Justice and Science bill that will support Oregon programs and projects. The House version of the bill is being negotiated for fiscal year 2022. The bill includes $90 million for the Sea Grant Foundation, which is a $15 million increase from previous efforts. There is also $945,000 earmarked for the Ocean Foundation specifically for an Oregon Kelp Forest Survey. Gravem said ORKA has gotten intel from local divers, including urchin divers, about areas where the forests are starting to disappear — she said, in the five specific places divers point to, there’s hardly any baseline survey information. The money from the appropriations bill will hopefully change that. “We really don’t have a good handle on what’s out there right now, other than very anecdotal stuff,” Gravem said. “Next year is all about getting a really good picture of what’s happening in our kelp forests.” One of the ways scientists are trying to restore previously forested areas is by doing repeated urchin culling. Culling involves divers going into urchin barrens and physically smashing the urchins with the goal of terminating enough of the population to allow for kelp to regrow. Nellies Cove has been a big site for testing out if this procedure helps give kelp an opportunity to regrow, and it has also allowed scientists to study the possible repercussions of culling. Gravem said the appropriation money will go mostly toward the surveys done before and after the culling, and hopefully other experiments in the areas will also be going on simultaneously. “We need to do a bunch of these experiments to not only say ‘Oh look, urchins eat kelp, but like how many urchins eat how much kelp? How much do you have to reduce the urchins in order for the kelp to have a foothold?’” Gravem said. The next few years could be a pivotal point in both kelp research and restoration. With the alliance supporting new experiments and culling efforts, there is the possibility to make real headway on getting a good grasp of the severity of the issue and creating a future plan of action. “Most people haven’t seen a kelp forest. Maybe they’ve
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seen it floating on the top of the water, but you know it doesn’t look like much from above. But that’s the same view you get of a forest if you’re flying over it in an airplane. You can’t say you’ve seen a Redwood forest if you saw it from an airplane,” Gravem said. We got the chance to see the myriad of kelp and urchins in my invertebrate zoology class, where we often went tidepooling. While I was not thrilled with the 4:30 a.m. wakeup calls, we spent our time crawling across rocks and peering into pools that were packed full of sea anemones, sculpin and hermit crabs. One of the places we often went tidepooling at was a cove in Cape Arago State Park. We would all shuffle down the hill, shrouded in morning fog in our rain boots and hoodies, and slowly make our way across the slippery rocks to the shoreline. I could hear our boots crunch down on the blanket of urchins beneath us. Urchin after urchin after urchin buried into perfect urchin-sized holes in the rock. While the situation along the shoreline is not the same as a true urchin barren, it does exemplify the species’ ability to completely overwhelm an area. The first time we went out to the
spot as a class, I took home eight urchin tests, known as urchin skeletons, and lined them up along my windowsill in the dorms. That urchin phenomenon in the ocean ripples out past the waves and affects life on land too. Just like trees, kelp stores carbon. Kelp also serves as the base of an ecosystem, and without a foundation to build upon, food chains that we rely on will quickly collapse. Urchin barrens can be paralleled to the charred ground and blackened tree trunks that Oregonians are becoming increasingly familiar with, and while we might not see flames engulfing kelp stalks, we will feel the fallout down the road just the same. Gravem said she hopes that experiments conducted in the following years will yield valuable data, and that ORKA will continue to gain funding for more action. “I think it all boils down to: Kelp forests themselves are a really fundamental part of our coastal culture and economy and generally control a lot of the biodiversity,” Gravem said.
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Celebrating Four-Legge and No-Le Friends Two Oregon species were delisted as endangered in 2021. WRITTEN BY AMANDA LUREY 14
ILLUSTRATED BY SIMONE BADARUDDIN
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lthough there have been legitimate concerns about environmental issues in 2021 –– like severe climate events or air pollution –– there were also some recent wins for endangered species worth celebrating. In 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, which lists species that are considered “of esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational and scientific value to the Nation and its people.” The United States pledged to conserve these species. A common misconception is that once a species is classified as endangered, they are fated to wither away in population and die out. But the truth is species bounce around from label to label, from endangered to threatened, and so on, thanks to organizations and communities that care about our ecosystems and create rehabilitation plans. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works “to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats.” The first of its eight responsibilities is to “protect and recover endangered and threatened species.” The organization creates recovery plans and partnerships with the goal for the at-risk species to be a self-sufficient part of the ecosystem, so they don’t need the protection of the ESA. A delisted species is a species that has been removed from the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife and plants, meaning that numbers have improved well enough to be self-sustaining. According to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office, a couple of local species were delisted in 2021:
THE GRAY WOLF (CANIS LUPUS) Gray wolves are mammals that roam across most of North America but were hunted brutally; they are the ancestor of all domesticated dogs and are the largest living wild canine species. They can easily be identified by their fluffy tails, gray to tan torso and pointed ears. When gray wolves started gaining protection in the 1960s, they were exterminated from the continental U.S. –– except in Michigan and Minnesota. Fifty years later, gray wolves are still federally listed as endangered in the western two-thirds of Oregon, defined by a boundary line from the Washington border to the Nevada border. Wolves east of that line – U.S. Route 395 – are delisted, though, as of Jan. 4, 2021. Gray wolves are critical to specific ecosystems in Oregon by keeping elk and deer populations in check.
BRADSHAW’S DESERT PARSLEY (LOMATIUM BRADSHAWII) There were only 11 populations and fewer than 30,000 plants when this species was listed as endangered in 1988 because of an increase in active fire suppression, causing the loss of prairie land. But as of March 5, 2021, there were more than 24 populations and over 11 million plants. The greatest amount of Bradshaw’s desert parsley is in the southern part of the Willamette Valley. The plant is flourishing today because of native prairie restoration and habitat management. This plant stands roughly a foot high and blooms with yellow flowers from late April to early May; it also contributes to the local ecosystem through interactions with bees, flies, wasps and beetles.
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According to The National Wildlife Federation, an ecosystem will drastically change if any species goes completely extinct. It also emphasized that “once gone, they’re gone forever, and there’s no going back.” As more species are slowly delisted from being endangered or threatened, the ecosystem shifts back into alignment. Seeing one species thrive enough not to need government protection proves restoration is possible. It allows for resources to be spread wider to help other plants and animals recover in the same ways the gray wolf and Bradshaw’s desert parsley did in Oregon. Some other delisted animals as of 2019 include:
BORAX LAKE CHUB (GILA BORAXOBIUS) These fish are from southeast Oregon; they are about 1-2 inches as adults and thrive in colder water temperatures. Borax Lake chub were classified as endangered in 1980 because of proposals to drill wells near Borax Lake. They were proposed to be removed from the Endangered and Threatened Species list on Feb. 26, 2019.
FOSKETT SPECKLED DACE (RHINICHTHYS OSCULUS SSP.) Foskett speckled dace were initially listed as endangered in 1985 and were delisted on Oct. 15, 2019. Groundwater pumping was a cause of the Foskett speckled dace’s classification. These fish are dusty gray to dark olive with brown fins and have a dark stripe and dark speckles.
WATER HOWELLIA (HOWELLIA AQUATILIS) Water howellia bloom above the water, showing dainty, white petals and a light pink center. They were classified as threatened due to the urbanization of their habitat. This aquatic plant was listed as threatened in 1994, proposed to be delisted on Oct. 7, 2019, and officially delisted as of July 16, 2021.
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UPCYCLING: The New Recycling
A PHOTO ESSAY BY ARIANA GONZALEZ 20
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RING is a Eugene-based organization that takes in recycling from the community and upcycles unwanted items. You can find anything from carpet, doors and countertops to bikes, tools and lawnmowers. BRING’s Megan Warner, waste prevention education and event coordinator, provides tours of the store and garden. Typically, there are workshops where people can come and learn how to use tools and even build birdhouses; workshops are currently on hold due to Covid restrictions. Warner also does classroom outreach to K-12 students to teach sustainability tips. She said it’s essential to raise awareness in students at a young age and incorporate eco-conscious practices into the curriculum. University of Oregon partners with BRING through the student sustainability club and works with the school to deconstruct buildings. The organization also provides a 10% discount for students at the BRING store. Local companies have the option to partner with BRING to get an on-site free consultation to implement waste reduction, conservation and efficiency with its Rethink program. Once BRING sees that businesses have successfully implemented changes, they become Rethink certified. Over 400 different local businesses currently participate in the program, and there is even an award for the company that shows the most improvement, given out annually. BRING will also be making a presence at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene. The event is partnering with BRING to implement practices to keep the event as ecofriendly as possible. BRING hopes to reduce waste from the event and travel emissions. The program plans to introduce plant-forward diets to competing athletes. BRING’s contributions should help minimize the event’s impact on the city to practice sustainability and reduce waste at the source. Founded in 1971, the community formed BRING through a grassroots effort. At the time, there was no curbside recycling available. Inspired by the first Earth Day, this fueled residents to start a local non-profit organization where members of the Eugene and Springfield community could bring their recycling to reduce waste. Its mission statement said it all, that being: “to provide vision, leadership, and tools for living well on the planet we share.”
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Megan Warner, waste prevention outreach and event coordinator, holds the worms she’s raising to bring around to classrooms, where she gives lessons about ecoconsciousness and sustainability tips.
The Garden of Earthly Delights, just a few steps away from the store, is where staff take coffee breaks and relax. It’s also a place where customers can walk around and explore. Some senior pictures have been taken in front of the sculpture made from toilet covers. To the left of the sculpture is an old bridge segment from Florence, Oregon, now being repurposed for the walkway.
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Jewelry is for sale by a local artist, Bohemian Antiquities, inside of the BRING store.
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This is an example of DIY birdhouses that students are taught to build in classroom workshops.
Carpet, panels, furniture, doors, lights, lawnmowers, garden supplies and tools are sold at BRING. Resale saves all repurposable material from a trip to the dump so somebody else can buy it for an affordable price.
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BRING will even take in used bikes, fix them up and sell them at the store to avoid dumping them.
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Here for the
Ride WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY CAMILLE ROWE
Local electric vehicle company Arcimoto integrates fun and efficiency in a push to lower emissions
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f you live in Eugene, Oregon, you’ve more than likely seen an Arcimoto speeding through the streets at some point. If Arcimoto doesn’t ring a bell, picture this: a large, colorful, motorized tricycle that typically seats one to two people at a time. These vehicles, coined as FUVs, or Fun Utility Vehicles, are fully electric and designed to be an emission-free alternative mode of transport for driving short distances. Arcimoto’s mission, as stated on their website, is to “catalyze the shift to a sustainable transportation system.” The
company believes this is possible through moving away from gas guzzling SUVs and shifting the collective view on short range transportation. A main objective of its mission is to reframe casual transportation in a light that shows people just how quickly emissions can stack up, no matter the distance. The average passenger vehicle emits 411 grams of carbon dioxide per mile gas-run vehicles, which ammasses to roughly 4.6 metric tons of carbon emissions per year. However, fully electric vehicles have net carbon emissions of zero.
If you’re not quite ready to purchase one for yourself, Arcimoto runs a rental program that allows you to take an FUV for an emission free spin at a relatively affordable price point of $16 per hour. To see the atypical vehicles for myself, a friend and I rented one from the Arcimoto rental center, located near headquarters just off of W 2nd Ave. From the first few minutes of the rental, it lived up to the name FUV. After an initial rundown of how to operate the controls, my friend and I were free to take off and drive the streets in our rainbow, cheetah print ride. The vehicle proved pretty easy to control and withstood the steep uphill drive to Skinner’s Butte with ease. Logistics aside, the experience was genuinely fun from beginning to end, and with music blasting it felt like we were driving a tiny rainbow spaceship around town, drawing smiles and waves from pedestrians and other drivers along the way. Going public in 2017 after its initial founding in 2007, Arcimoto built its headquarters here in Eugene, only a few minutes from campus. Founder and CEO Mark Frohnmayer said inspiration for Arcimoto was born from his own personal need for a fully electric vehicle. After months of searching for something to match his sustainability ideals, inspiration for Arcimoto struck Frohnmayer during a visit to the Eugene celebration parade, where he saw a three wheeled kit vehicle. “That was the true moment of inspiration,” Frohnmayer said. “The right product in the three wheel vehicle space had truly mass market potential, and nobody was doing it.” Beyond the general lack of innovation in the three wheel vehicle market at the time, Frohnmayer said sustainability has been a pillar of Arcimoto from the start. “Cars are awesome to carry five people to Portland and back but are super inefficient if you’re going by yourself to get coffee,” he said. The company has been working with the University of Oregon for nearly two years, which helped Frohnmayer shape rental business models and find ways to make Arcimoto more appealing to students, most of which only have the frequent need for short range transportation. Looking back at the larger picture now, Frohnmayer said the word of Arcimoto spreading among the student body is similar to the collective effort to combat climate change. “At the end of the day, sustainability is a social networking exercise — we’ve all got to work together on this, and we have to figure out how to work together effectively if we’re going to solve the problem,” Frohnmayer said.
The FUVs that we see on the streets are the product of a lengthy process of trial and error. Arcimoto was founded officially in 2007, and not long after, the first FUV prototype, coined as The Vision, was developed but ultimately determined to be unsafe for the road. Over the decade following The Vision, seven additional prototypes were created, each one a slight reinvention of the last, smoothing out bumps in design, safety and materials among other features. The seventh prototype, or The First Pilot, was meant to be the first FUV available to consumers in late 2019, until the company “conceived a fundamental breakthrough” in the midst of its building process, resulting in a vast improvement in features such as weight, price and vehicular range. The eighth and most current prototype, or Full Circle, is the first to be offered to the public, and at its core, it encompasses the original idea of an FUV while featuring a variety of more modern features. Even as the most recent generation is getting off of the ground, the company has big plans moving forward. As a closing to its mission statement, the company plans to create self-driving FUVs and expand globally in an effort to “eliminate traffic and increase productivity and leisure time.” Tuga Putuga, an Arcimoto team member, said there are typically 17 vehicles available for rent at that location, and the company has partnered with other local businesses like the Graduate Hotel, who rent out an additional few FUVs for guests of the hotel. The majority of buyers are older members of the community, according to Putuga, and those who do buy an Arcimoto seem to divide their interest between convenience and environmental friendliness. However, he said younger people have also been drawn to the FUV for short-term rentals. “Younger people will mostly rent for the fun,” Putuga said. “Tourists rent for the fun as well after the hype they’ve been seeing on their social media.” Pulling up to the rental center as our hour came to an end, it was definitely harder to part with the FUV than I had anticipated. Driving through city streets in open air with my favorite song playing was an experience that I had long associated with expensive convertibles. But Arcimoto provides this experience fairly inexpensively, and it does so in a way that’s cutting down on emissions, all while being incredibly fun. If you’ve yet to try it out, or find yourself on the fence about Arcimoto, my only advice is to get down to W 2nd Ave. and see for yourself.
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PRODUCT DESIGN PROFILE: CHLOE KOV
EUPNEA
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UO College of Design student Chloe Kov’s answer to environmental racism draws inspiration from plant stomata. “Eupnea: synonymous with breathing freely is an air filter that aims to portray the beautiful process of air filtration in our natural world through formal aesthetics. With increased wildfires in the Eugene area that will only be exacerbated with time due to human-induced climate change, I saw a design opportunity to create an air filter using a DC motor to help combat poor air quality in low-income and BIPOC communities. By taking inspiration from plant stomata’s ability to filter air, I designed Eupnea to translate this idea of dirty air in and clean air out.”
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PRODUCT DESIGN PROFILE
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sketches and photos by Chloe Kov 33
(BEE)ING ACTIVE
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Scientists and environmental activists work to protect Oregon’s beloved bumblebees
WRITTEN BY JOSHUA ABBOTT
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umblebees are charming. They’re fuzzy; they’re large; they’re pretty personable; they hardly ever sting,” Christina deVillier, connections coordinator for the Greater Hell’s Canyon Council, said. Along with other volunteers from around the state, deVillier catches bumblebees and records her sightings for the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas. DeVillier lives in Lostine, Oregon, in Wallowa County near the pristine Eagle Cap Wilderness. Winters there are cold and snowy, hitting harder and faster than in Eugene. The roughly 200 locals shop for groceries at an old general store called M.Crow & Co, which bears a red, hand-painted sign covering half the storefront. It’s the type of town that’s easy to miss, offering a quick glimpse of community among long
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MIHLAN GAVIOLA
stretches of farmland and nature. Remote areas like these may be unknown to the greater population of Oregon. Still, their proximity to remote wilderness provides a unique opportunity for research that falls outside the influence of the state’s major population centers. While bumblebees can be found all over Oregon, sparsely populated regions like those in Central and Eastern Oregon need fewer people to cover larger swaths of ground when it comes to documenting bumblebee numbers. “It’s easier to get people out looking at nature where they are, and there are just fewer people in Eastern Oregon and east of the Cascades in general,” deVillier said. Researching and documenting bumblebees is important work to deVillier. Bumblebees are native pollinator
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insects that allow Oregon’s plant life to thrive and propagate, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation website. Endangered Species Program Director Sarina Jepsen wrote that they are also of tremendous economic value due to their effectiveness in pollinating important crops such as blueberries and cranberries, doing so even more effectively than honey bees. Yet, according to a study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Bumble Bee Specialist Group, almost 50 species of bumblebees are experiencing significant declines in population. According to the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas website, some face extinction. Of particular note is Franklin’s bumblebee, an exceptionally rare bumblebee native to Southern Oregon and the northmost regions of California. The IUCN Bumble Bee Specialist Group lists the bee as critically endangered, acknowledging that no sightings of the bee have been confirmed since 2006. According to Rich Hatfield of the Xerces Society, the work that community scientists like deVillier do for bees establishes a base of knowledge that drives future conservation
and catch them.” After she catches a bee, deVillier said she puts it on ice, bringing it into a hibernation state, making it easy to photograph. She then uploads the photos to the Bumble Bee Watch website, where an expert identifies them. One of these experts is Rich Hatfield, the conservation lead for The Bumble Bee Atlas Project and a senior biologist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Hatfield has published numerous articles about bumblebees, contributing to scientific literature and public education via the Xerces Society website. He also hosted a series of webinar tutorials about the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas in 2020. Hatfield designed these tutorials to train citizen scientists in catching bees and recording their findings to the atlas and are available for free on YouTube to anyone interested in future participation. The Bumble Bee Atlas Project began about a decade ago when scientists from the Xerces Society, including Hatfield, launched a community science project to find and track rare species of bumblebees. Xerces published an email address requesting that folks from the community send photographs
“Remote communities like Lostine may be unknown to the greater population of Oregon, but their proximity to remote wilderness provides a unique opportunity for research that falls outside the influence of the state’s major population centers.” efforts. For example, the Endangered Species Act protections and regulations mandate sustainable farming practices to protect bees and other pollinators. The crisis facing bumblebees, and thus the need to document them, may be better understood by looking at the plight of another well-known pollinator: the European honey bee. Greenpeace and the United States Environmental Protection Act have reported Declines in honey bee populations. According to the U.S. National Agricultural Statistics, honey bee numbers have dropped from 6 million hives in 1947 to only 2.4 million when surveyed in 2008. Unlike European honey bees, the bumblebees we see are native and better adapted to our natural environment. According to the Xerces, they are more resistant to lower temperatures than other bees and insect pollinators. They are also adapted to the high elevations and latitudes seen in Oregon, making them crucial to the health of our ecosystem. DeVillier contributes to the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas through Bumble Bee Watch, a public website with comprehensive information about bumblebee sightings that allows anyone to contribute by recording their findings. Volunteers look for bees, catch them, photograph them, and then release them back into the wild. “They’re fun to catch,” deVillier, who has personally submitted 185 sightings to Bumble Bee Watch, said. “You go out with your net, a cooler and some vials, and you swipe bees
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of bumblebees from around their local areas. If people find rare bees, it is important to know the location and frequency of such bees. “Without a whole lot of work promoting this, we were getting hundreds of emails a week,” Hatfield said. “People were trying to share rare species with us.” As phenomenal as it was to see such enthusiasm from community scientists, according to Hatfield, the project lacked the infrastructure to log all of the findings as they came in. Instead of logging everything, Hatfield and his colleagues positively identified the rare species and recorded only those — everything else went unused. This created a new problem. “Just entering rare species in our database, it was actually making them look artificially common,” Hatfield said. In response, Xerces Society launched Bumble Bee Watch in 2014, allowing users to adopt a grid cell and spot bees for the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas, covering Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Hatfield and the Xerces Society are currently expanding the atlas project even further. Hatfield said that in 2022, atlas projects will be launched in several more states, including California, North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas. While citizens can catch and photograph bumblebees beginning in the spring, the season ends in November when the
queen bumblebees burrow into the ground, where they spend half their life cycle in hibernation. This process, called overwintering, is especially in need of community science. According to the Queen Quest website, a collaborative effort between the Xerces Society, the U.S. Geological Survey and a handful of universities around the country, we know little about where queens hibernate. Acquiring this knowledge is important for conservation efforts and enabling the preservation and creation of healthy overwintering habitats. I decided to participate in Queen Quest by following the best advice offered on the website. I purchased a trowel, pulled the measuring tape out of my toolbox and found a lightly forested area within walking distance of my home. It was a dark rainy day in December, and a thick chill hung in the air as I made my way to the site. The ground was soft from recent rainfall and covered in a couple of inches of loose leaf litter, which, according to Queen Quest, provides one of the best opportunities for digging. I sat down at the base of a conifer tree and began shuffling through the leaves with my hands and trowel, looking through the material for anything noteworthy. I dug no more than a few inches into the soil. I worked slowly, examining each inch of soil. I wish I could tell you I found a queen bee or two, but I didn’t. Even under the best conditions, finding queens is not especially likely, so I was unsurprised by my findings. Nevertheless, Queen Quest asks participants to report their findings regardless of success, which I could do by spending a few minutes on their website. Even with an incomplete and still-expanding knowledge base regarding both bumblebees and overwintering queens, Hatfield said scientists know some species of bumblebees are in decline and need help. Pesticide use and habitat fragmentation are significant causes of decline, and unsustainable farming practices exacerbate these problems. Hatfield said he sees contention in the relationship between large farming corporations and bumblebees. According to Hatfield, large farming organizations are continuously challenging the state’s rights to allow bumblebee protection under the endangered species act. Certain states like California have laws that bundle bumblebees and other invertebrates into the same classification as fish, muddling up the process for granting them government protections. There is irony in needing to battle farming organizations for the protection of bumblebees, according to Hatfield. “Farmers, more than any other people, are dependent on pollinators for their livelihood.” DeVillier said habitat fragmentation caused by large farming operations could be a major threat to bumblebee health. When a bumblebee flies into a wheat field, they enter a “food desert,” where they can’t find the nutrition they need to survive. Wheatfields are also commonly treated with harmful pesticides intended to target other insects.
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Some farmers understand this reality and have engaged with the problem to help conserve bees. Hatfield said the Xerces Society works with farmers across the country to establish bumblebee-friendly farming practices, including creating habitats that provide food and shelter for bumblebees. The Xerces Society helped farmers establish nearly one million acres of bumblebee habitat across North America. The Xerces Society works with farmers through Bee Better certification, which is done in conjunction with Oregon Tilth, a leading certifier of organic produce in Oregon. Bee Better Certification is awarded to farmers who provide 5% of their land to bee habitat while providing nesting sites and avoiding harmful pesticides. Growers whose farms are inspected and found to meet the requirements are then allowed to label their products as Bee Better Certified, attracting customers who are conscious about pollinator preservation. Creating habitat for bees helps them survive on farms, but it can be done elsewhere too. “Even creating a little tiny bit of habitat at a university campus can make a difference, and bumblebees will show up,” Hatfield said. “That’s not something you can do with polar bears or snow leopards, so that’s a unique opportunity we have.” DeVillier said anyone could grow bumblebee-friendly plants if they have a home garden and a little bit of know-how. She said it’s important to research Oregon native plants, which can be done using Native Plant Finder, a website hosted by the National Wildlife Federation. The site allows users to find native flowers, grasses, trees and shrubs by inputting their zip code and performing an easy search. “I saw two Bombus occidentalis for the first time in the six years that I’ve been on my property,” deVillier said, using the Latin name for an animal commonly known as the Western bumblebee. “That’s a bee that’s struggling so much that it’s currently in the process of being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act.” The Western bumblebee was added to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2015, based on an assessment authored by Hatfield. While the assessment states that Western bumblebee numbers are declining, it also maps out solutions such as the management and surveying needs that Hatfield said have been embraced by community members. “We have a wildlife safari right here, and we don’t have to go to Africa to see it,” Hatfield said. “We just have to pay attention to the little things in our lives.”
“I sat down at the base of a conifer tree and began shuffling through the leaves and needles with both my hands and trowel, looking through the material for anything noteworthy. I worked slowly, examining each inch of soil.”
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A BeeFriendl Campu It’s no secret that University of Oregon’s campus is home to an abundance of beautiful gardens and pathways that teem with plants and flowers year-round. Many of these spaces were specifically designed to be ecological corridors that provide safe spaces for pollinators traveling through campus. In the spring of 2018, the Bee Friendly Committee, one of UO’s many student organizations, took the necessary steps to certify 40
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A PHOTO ESSAY BY ALISSA RICHBOURG
UO as a Bee Campus USA university. This initiative has reached over 130 universities across the United States and works to help communities develop and implement healthy areas for pollinators such as bees, butterflies, wasps and beetles. The University of Oregon has over 12 certified pollinator areas on and around campus, including spaces with native plants, bee boxes and habitat improvement areas. These gardens support 41
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pollinators by increasing available flower resources and creating corridors between habitats on and off campus. One of the most recent additions to UO’s bee campus initiative was made in the spring of 2021 by the Environmental Leaders ARC, one of several residential communities on campus. As a member of the ARC, I had the pleasure of working with UO’s Campus Planning and Landscape team to design and implement a pollinator garden near Millrace Studios. By involving students in the design process, this project aimed to increase awareness of pollinator conservation issues and promote education by encouraging future ARC engagement. With pollinator populations on the decline, global initiatives such as Bee Campus USA and local initiatives such as those from the Bee Friendly Committee provide a wonderful opportunity to engage the community in positive change and create a better future for the world’s pollinators.
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(1) A honey bee in one of University of Oregon’s pollinator gardens near Millrace studios is found among Douglas Aster, a plant that is both pollinator friendly and native to Oregon. (2) Flowering Douglas Aster is found in the pollinator garden outside of the Natural History Museum on campus. The Douglas Aster is an essential plant for Oregon pollinators, as it blooms from late summer into early winter, making it a vital source of pollen for late-season pollinators. (3) A honey bee pollinates a flower in the gardens outside of Lillis Business Complex. (4) A pollinating yellow jacket wasp is among a flowering camellia plant outside of Columbia Hall. (5 & 7) This is one of several bee boxes located at University of Oregon’s Urban Farm. These bee boxes are maintained in part by the Bee Friendly Committee, a UO student-run organization.
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(6) Pollinator space near University of Oregon’s Millrace Studios was designed and implemented by a group of Environmental Leaders ARC students in the spring of 2021. The garden serves as a way to promote education and environmental outreach among UO students.
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contributors ANNA MATTSON Editor in Chief
JOSHUA ABBOTT writer
SIMONE BADARUDDIN illustrator
AMANDA LUREY Managing Editor
ELIZA ARONSON writer
SHALOM YEMANE illustrator
ISABEL LEMUS KRISTENSEN Photo Editor
CAMILLE ROWE writer
ALISSA RICHBOURG photographer
CHLOE MONTAGUE Design Director
MIHLAN GAVIOLA illustrator
ARIANA GONZALEZ photographer
LAUREN SCHENKER Communications Director
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