Growing More than Plants: Conservation Behind Bars

This year, across four state prison facilities, incarcerated participants in IAE’s Conservation in Prisons Project will be growing over 100,000 plugs in Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming. Crews this year are responsible for not only growing sagebrush and bitterbrush, but also some new species including skunkbush sumac and mountain snowberry.

Efforts are well underway in Riverton, Wyoming at the Wyoming Honor Farm, where participants are growing over 25,000 plugs and 700 bareroot seedlings for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality – Abandoned Mine Lands program (WDEQ-AML), Tetra Tech, and Herrera Environmental Consultants. Participants are exposed to a variety of lessons while on the crew, including flowering plant families, animals of Wyoming, geology, and many more. In addition to these lessons, participants are also introduced to local guest speakers who come out and talk to the crew about their work in conservation or horticulture.

Incarcerated crews in Idaho are working hard this season at two facilities in Kuna, ID: South Boise Women’s Correctional Center (SBWCC) and Idaho State Correctional Center (ISCC). At SBWCC, participants will be growing 25,000 basin big sagebrush for Idaho Fish and Game and the Bureau of Land Management to continue restoration efforts on the 2024 Valley Fire. At ISCC, the crew is growing 55,000 bitterbrush and rabbitbrush seedlings for combined restoration efforts on the Paddock and Valley Fires. Crews will learn valuable lessons in teamwork and data collection, along with attending educational lessons in sagebrush-steppe ecology, botany, bird identification and conservation, geology, and the intersection between art and science.

About 1,000 miles west at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Oregon, the crew is preparing for another season growing 10,000 mountain big sagebrush for Idaho Fish and Game, and 4,000 early blue violets that are harvested and fed to the Oregon Silverspot Butterfly (OSB), in partnership with the Oregon Zoo. Many crew members this year are particularly interested in learning about pollinators and applying their knowledge to future employment opportunities. We plan to deliver lessons that cover the topics they’ve requested, as well as other lessons applicable to the season, such as OSB life history and population status and sagebrush steppe ecology.

Our office in Corvallis, OR will be participating in growing efforts again this year. We’ll be growing 15,000 basin big sagebrush for Idaho Fish and Game in our gravel parking lot. This provides us and our staff with a unique opportunity to participate more fully in the growing experience, and gain a better understanding of what our participating adults in custody undertake every year. We are all excited for another year of growth, overcoming challenges, and learning from each other and our native plant counterparts!

We would like to thank the Mule Deer Foundation, Bureau of Land Management, and Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality for funding this important work.